A/N
derethl2: basically what Rose said - using guns is hella expensive, especially in a country like Japan where gun control is infamously tight, so the biggest barrier to using firearms for Fuutarou is simply getting them in the first place. Even if he, as a mercenary mage who has no reason to comply with conventional gun laws, were to own a gun, acquisition of it is the first and perhaps biggest concern, because he needs to figure out a way to procure it since he sure as hell isn't going to be buying it legally, which would then involve having to register his gun with the local police as part of the process of owning a gun in Japan, and that's before getting into what black market prices for firearms in Japan must be like. Remember also that Fuutarou is only fifteen years old in this fic; while he's not an inexperienced mage because he started when he was young, he's no Emiya Kiritsugu with a well-established network of contacts through which he can acquire weapons.
Even if he were to go through the trouble of securing a firearm, assuming he could even afford to do so, he then needs to worry about maintenance costs: ammunition, gun cleaning supplies, spare parts and accessories, and repairs if it gets damaged in action. He could look up videos online that can help him teach himself how to shoot and improve his marksmanship, but he'd then need to find a secure location to train with said gun and do so regularly to keep his skills and aim sharp, which means a steady consumption of ammo and more trips to the black market, and so far the only such black market that's been mentioned in this fic is the one that involves contraband drugs and not necessarily weapons, and guns at that.
And you saw in Chapter 28 how easily Fuutarou's Presence Concealment spell gets broken; how easily do you think he'll be able to find a place in the city to shoot a gun? Even if he were to also get a suppressor for his gun, which itself would cost more money, most conventional suppressors do not totally silence a gun; even with suppressors on, guns are still quite loud and distinguishable, and as such they can easily break any kind of personal Presence Concealment effect that Fuutarou tries to use. Truly silent suppressors do exist, but you're looking at buying a gun that's either specifically designed to be used silently through use of integrated suppressors and/or using subsonic ammunition with suppressed firearms to get that kind of effect, and by that point, such equipment is more than likely many times beyond Fuutarou's own pay grade, if he even has one to begin with.
Even Rio has his reasons to forgo the use of firearms. I've established in this fic that mages typically do not want to attract the attention of normal people to their activities, and Rio is no exception, as his reaction to the police arriving on the scene in the previous chapter shows, so using a gun in what's basically a street fight is pretty self-defeating IMO. And he'd also have to deal with all the same problems and costs of owning a firearm that I discussed above. I can't use the argument of having defensive spells that are tough enough to stop bullets; not only does that sound like literal plot armor, but Chapter 30 depicts Fuutarou clearly injured from the controlled blast of the bomb, so whatever defensive magic he had on him wouldn't keep him safe from bullets. And yes, Fuutarou would probably be able to modify guns magically like he has for his other technological devices, but again, the problem isn't his ability with his gear; it's how he's supposed to get that gear in the first place when he's a broke-ass motherfucker.
I would have loved to give Fuutarou a gun to use as part of his equipment, I'll be honest; if you're familiar with my habits as a fanfic writer, you'll know that I kind of have a thing for guns...lots and lots of them. But the reality is that it doesn't make contextual sense for someone like Fuutarou to use a gun regularly as part of his arsenal, so I need to have him make do with more pragmatic - and economic - means of fighting. And we haven't even gotten into the whole mythological gag of this fic being based on the Nasuverse and how even in the Nasuverse, gun users are very rare due to the disdain of modern technology that mages as a whole have, though how much of that really applies to this fic with its whole establishment of conservative/orthodox magecraft versus new-age/modern magecraft is up to reader interpretation for now.
Without getting into spoiler territory, though, what you brought up was something I was going to delve into at some point in this fic proper. I contemplated not responding to your review in light of this, but I don't know how long it'll take me to get to that point, so I decided to share my thoughts on the matter while it's still relevant.
Nakano Itsuki listens to the almost ominous ticking of the clock on the wall of Dr. Nakano's office. The clock itself reads 11:25 PM, and the rest of her father's humble office is devoid of human presence besides herself.
It's been more than half an hour, going on forty minutes, since Uesugi-kun has become a human ambulance and brought her to the hospital, though not for her. Not surprisingly, they found Dr. Nakano in his office, once more on night shift duty, and the two men left to go treat the tutor's wounds while leaving Itsuki behind in the office to wait for them, and she's been waiting for them patiently and quietly ever since with her school bag standing next to her against one of the legs of her chair.
Right after her father and Uesugi-kun exited the office, Itsuki made the mistake of looking around her father's office, as it's been a very long time since she'd last had a reason to be here, but in so doing, she accidentally caught a glimpse of her school dress-code compliant red shirt - despite its already red hue, she can still clearly make out the small blotches of blood smeared against it as a result of Uesugi-kun's princess carry on their way to the hospital.
The youngest quintuplet has always been hemophobic for as long as she can remember; back when the quintuplets were still in their young identical years, this was one of the few immediately differentiating traits that she possessed which thankfully didn't crop up as much as it could have, given how active they all were in elementary school. All of her sisters actually had some aversion to the sight of blood; for example, if one of them had gotten a cut that drew blood, Ichika used to make a big fuss over it and do whatever she could to treat it, to the extent that she carried around Band-Aids for a time for such occasions. Nino and Itsuki both couldn't stand it at all and would shy away from the scene, and their reactions would be even worse if they were the ones who were hurt. Miku would look visibly uncomfortable but wouldn't run away like Nino and Itsuki would, and Yotsuba would try to cover up the cut with her hands without touching the cut directly and start chanting the "Pain, pain, go away ~ " song that commonly circulates among Japanese children.
But as they grew up, so too did their maturities develop with them: now, Ichika and Miku don't even bat an eyelid at the sight of it anymore, and Ichika certainly doesn't baby her sisters with Band-Aids in her pocket. Nino still gets visibly distraught at the sight of it, but her years of self-taught cooking and the fair share of mishaps with knives and hot temperatures that they've brought with them have helped her build up her tolerance of blood so that she can deal with situations without letting her discomfort get in the way. Yotsuba's probably the only one whose reaction to open blood hasn't changed at its core, as she sometimes still sings "Pain, pain, go away ~ " when she's treating one of her sisters' cuts, but she now does so with a cheery calmness that instills a certain kind of relaxation, a feeling that everything will be okay.
Itsuki is the sole quintuplet, just like the rest of herself, whose reaction towards blood has not shown much signs of improving. Even an ordinary paper cut will strike fear into her mind and cause her to treat it immediately with disinfectant, water, and a Band-Aid, not because she's afraid that the paper cut will somehow get infected, but because she so badly does not want to see blood emerge from it. And if she can't treat it, her mind will lock itself on that paper cut, and that's one of the only things that she can concentrate on until she can do something about it. Something about the sight of blood makes her freeze up and be unable to take her mind off it until it's out of her sight, and even then her mind still linger on that recent memory for a few minutes afterwards before it can let it go. It's not like she has hemophilia or has had traumatic incidents involving blood in her life before, so this truly is an irrational fear of blood that she has, and Itsuki is well aware of this, but so far she hasn't found a way to make herself get over it to the extents that the rest of her sisters have.
So she has sit in her chair for the past half an hour, almost petrified, staring at the opposite wall in a perfect sitting posture befitting an honor roll student, except for the fact that she is not one. She's actually okay with blood being on her skirt for whatever reason that she herself can't quite identify, but it's the blood on her shirt that she just can't stand. She wanted to ask her father if he happened to have a spare shirt on hand for her to change into, but given Uesugi-kun's condition, specifically the knife wound that he incurred when the two met in the middle of his fierce duel against that other hostile mage, she didn't want to get in their way.
As if she's slamming her toe against a door to make herself forget about the pain of a toothache, Itsuki finds her mind replacing one uncomfortable notion with another, perhaps more distressing thought. Because of her accidental involvement in whatever kind of fight that Uesugi-kun was in tonight, Uesugi-kun got stabbed in the side somehow. It's because of her that she's in the hospital right now; if she'd just decided to stick to her usual regimen and called a cab home, Uesugi-kun wouldn't be here having to treat a wound from an attack that was meant for her, and she wouldn't have to be so preoccupied with the fact that she has blood on her either.
It might as well be on her hands instead of her shirt for all she cares.
The more her mind dwells on this, the worse and worse Itsuki feels. If she hadn't gone to the library and just studied at home like she always did, this wouldn't have happened. If she called a taxi home like she normally would whenever she was in the city like this, this wouldn't have happened. If she were paying attention to where she was going instead of being so immersed in her own stupid thoughts, this probably wouldn't have happened. If she were just better at studying, taking tests, and getting good grades, none of this would be happening. But no - her own selfish pursuit of good grades and academic results, despite her own history of never achieving them on her own, and her continued, dogged, and stubborn pursuit of them by any honorable means necessary now truly begin to rear their ugly heads in plain vision of Itsuki, and she doesn't even need her glasses to see this one clearly staring her in the eyes right on front of her at a time like this.
And her self-inflicting misery doesn't stop there. Itsuki's memory has been refreshed tonight that Uesugi Fuutarou-kun doesn't just have tutoring responsibilities for her and her sisters but magework on top of it, and that from time to time, he has to put himself on the line like this. How long as he been doing this, living this dangerous life as a mage that forces him to dive deep into the darker, uglier sides of the city and the world? How often does he have to deal with dangerous situations like running into enemy mages who clearly want him dead? Itsuki remembers Nino mentioning last Saturday how Uesugi-kun had a big cut on his chest after they came back home from the library. How many times he been hurt like this?
Just as Itsuki was beginning to forget about the so-called magical side of the world that she had a tiny, brief look into at the warehouse, she finds herself yanked back in and reminded of the fact that most ordinary people like herself have zero clue that such a side of the world even exists. In light of this, just how long has Uesugi-kun been doing this while knowing that everything that he's done and everything that he will do will go unseen? He himself would have never let the girls know about it, and if the incident at the warehouse last month never happened, likely Itsuki herself for sure would be none the wiser, at least until tonight, when it would've come as the biggest shock in her life.
Itsuki has been studying all this time for the expressed purpose of being able to take care of her family but has produced no results.
Uesugi-kun has been working and fighting all this time in the shadows like a vigilante in an anime-like fashion to produce results, but no one will see them. At least, not most people.
The youngest quintuplet just can't imagine that. She can't manage to wrap her mind around just how different she is from the boy she's reluctantly come to call her tutor; in a sense, she and Uesugi-kun have been living in two completely different worlds, and in comparison, Itsuki can't help but feel insignificant and irrelevant.
Her hands that have been resting on her thighs while waiting patiently for the two men to return tighten up into fists on their own, scrunching up handfuls of her green plaid school skirt. Itsuki's first instinct is to get angry again, like she's traditionally done, at Uesugi-kun for making her feel this way. If he'd never come into her life, hell, if he hadn't shown up at that warehouse on that Saturday night a month ago to save her and her sisters like some kind of superhero, she wouldn't have to force herself to acknowledge all the things that Uesugi-kun has done; forget about her eating habits that her sisters always poke fun at her for, she wouldn't have to sit here feeling like a complete burden.
Well, she wants to, but...she can't. And besides, if blaming other people for her own failures could get her good grades, she would never need a tutor in the first place.
The door to the head physician's office opens, and Itsuki's father enters the room, shutting the door calmly behind him. Itsuki doesn't glance over to him at first, so deeply entrenched in her own thoughts as she is, and Dr. Nakano resumes his own seat in his office swivel chair with a tablet in hand.
"Uesugi-kun will be fine. He has suffered a few deep wounds, but he should make a full recovery," Dr. Nakano informs his daughter as though she were a family member visiting a patient. "I'd like to ask what you were doing in the city this late at night, Itsuki."
The sternness of her father's voice, cold and commanding as it's always been, efficiently drags Itsuki out of her nebulous thoughts to listen to him.
"I was...at the library," she answers slowly and honestly; if there's something that she fears more than the sight of blood, it's her father when he finds out that he's been lied to, and she wasn't even planning on lying to him at all. "Uesugi-kun brought us to the library last Saturday to study, and...I enjoyed studying there. So before we have our midterms this Friday, since Uesugi-kun isn't coming in to tutor us, I went to the library today after school to study instead of studying at home."
"You usually study at home, no?"
"Yes."
"I see." Dr. Nakano gives a single curt nod, but his eyes are still glued to his tablet as he taps a few times on the screen. "I commend you for devoting yourself to studying like this, but perhaps next time, be more mindful of the time, especially during a time like this when there has been some...let's say, ruckus in the city. Have you been watching the news recently?"
Itsuki nods. "If you are talking about the kidnappings in the city recently - "
"Ah, so you do know. Then I advise you to remain at home if you intend on studying late at night."
Her lip curling somewhat, Itsuki turns her gaze away from her parent. "...yes, Father."
Putting his tablet down on his desk, Dr. Nakano turns his chair slightly to face his youngest daughter.
"Why did Uesugi-kun give you this week off?" he asks solemnly. His extremely dry, stifling voice grips Itsuki and sends waves of chills down her spine.
"B...Because he wanted us to study on our own for midterms. He tutored us extensively last week, so he said that tutoring us any more would be counterproductive, and that we should study on our own until - "
"Hm, quite strange. The agreement I had with him was to have him tutor you every weekday...what you are telling me right now does not sound like that."
At this, Itsuki's eyes dart back at her father.
"Maybe...maybe not, but..." Itsuki inhales sharply. "...I'm sure...I am sure that he...must have his reasons."
"Reasons, you say. And what reasons would those be?"
"Er, well...I do not know them myself, of course..."
"Then why mention reasons that you do not know? Either speak of them with certainty or do not mention them at all."
"Ngh..." The biting rationality of Dr. Nakano chomps down hard on Itsuki's conscience, but she does have something that she can defend herself - or maybe Uesugi-kun - with. "But Father, Uesugi-kun did tell us that...he would study with us one last time before midterms as a last-minute cram to make sure that we're as prepared as we can be for them."
"A last-minute cram session? I can hardly agree with that as a method of effective teaching. But we shall see with your results with these upcoming midterms..."
Itsuki straightens up in her chair, intending to ask Dr. Nakano a question in regards to the condition that Uesugi-kun informed the quints about, the condition that if any one of them were to fail their midterms, he would be fired from his position as their tutor. But the flashing memory of Uesugi-kun's strained, angry face after learning that she'd called the police to the scene of his fight with that other mage dissuades her from asking the head physician about it, so instead she changes her question.
"Father, this...this may be something that I should not pry into, but...but what exactly is your relationship with Uesugi-kun?"
"Itsuki, what did I just say about speaking of things you are not sure of?"
"That I should not speak of them unless I can speak with certainty. But even despite that, even if I do not know the situation between you two, what I can say with certainty is the fact that my tutor was just involved in a dangerous fight that could have easily cost him his life, and that he came directly to the hospital to be treated, and not only that, straight here to your office."
"Even though it was you who was the reason why we are having this conversation to begin with?"
The bluntness of her father's words might as well turn into a hand that smacks her across the face. For better or for worse, having dealt with a fair share of Uesugi-kun's own bluntness over the weeks, Itsuki doesn't feel as hurt by them as she otherwise might be, which allows her to respond with,
"That may be, Father, but...but that does not change the fact that Uesugi-kun appears to have some kind of...connection to you that the rest of us do not know about."
Listening to Itsuki's quiet, somewhat stuttery words that brave the tense, cold air that Dr. Nakano seems to have about him at all times, the head physician slowly crosses his arms at his youngest daughter.
"How much has Uesugi-kun told you about this? Answer me honestly," he demands quietly.
"Not much at all, Father. After he saved us at the warehouse, when he took us back home, he told us then that he was a mage, and he gave us a brief description of what he did and what mages are and the like, just to help give us a bare minimum explanation of what was going on. He said himself that he did not want to tell us more about it because we were better off not knowing about such things so that we could concentrate on our studies."
"...mmm, I see. Then why do you suppose that asking me about the relationship between me and Uesugi-kun will help you with those studies?"
"Because..." Itsuki hesitates for a moment to compile her thoughts quickly, "...I cannot just ignore what happened tonight, Father. Yes, perhaps I may have been a part of the cause of our trip to the hospital tonight, but again, that does not change the fact that my tutor was badly injured in a fight that I bore witness to. This is someone who is supposed to be important to not only me, but for the rest of my sisters, your daughters, as well!"
"Someone important, you say. Then why has Uesugi-kun been reporting to me that you and Nino have not been cooperating with him in his lessons for the past month and a half? Are you trying to tell me that Uesugi-kun has been lying to me about you intentionally this whole time?"
"I - "
The rest of Itsuki's spine freezes up, paralyzing her figuratively and somewhat physically too. She can't refute that at all, and even if she and Nino did begin accepting lessons from Uesugi-kun last week, her father certainly isn't going to be terribly impressed at that anyway if she even bothers telling him that. Still, she tries.
" - no, Father, Uesugi-kun is right. Nino and I have not been attending his lessons as we should have with the others. I do not know what Nino's true reasons are myself, so I will not try to speak on her behalf, but for myself personally, I did not work with him because of...honestly trivial reasons. But I have seen the errors of my behavior and finally began to study properly with him last week, as I mentioned when I talked about the time when we all went to the library to study last Saturday."
Itsuki then looks back up at her father.
"So that is why now, I can say with more certainty than before at least that Uesugi-kun is an important person to everyone. That is why I want to ask you about the two of you, because this is something that not just I, but all of my sisters have been meaning to ask you ever since we transferred schools."
"And that is?"
"Why you hired Uesugi-kun to be our tutor for an entire year, for the rest of our freshman year in high school." Itsuki uses her hands to turn her plastic folding chair to angle herself better towards her father. "It was such a sudden development that we at first planned to turn the tutor away on his or her first day, but as it turned out, it was Uesugi-kun, who was one of the boys in our class at school, so...we gave him a chance. Well, Yotsuba was the first one to...followed by Miku and Ichika. But we initially figured that you did this because we were so inept at our studies that an entire year's worth of tutoring was justifiable. I do not know what my sisters think of this situation now, but for me, especially after what I have seen tonight, I cannot help but think back to a month and a half ago when we were trying to figure out why you would give us a tutor like for a whole year, and at the beginning of the school year, too. Because by this point, as if it weren't already a month ago, it is undeniable that Uesugi-kun was hired to do more than just tutor us. Is that not so, Father?"
To Itsuki's silent surprise, her father nods curtly, and when he doesn't try to interrupt her with his own words, Itsuki takes that as a sign to continue.
"As curious as I am to know the truth behind what is going on, like you said, I will not try to involve myself in things that I am uncertain of," Itsuki asserts, even though her real reason is because she knows her father won't tell her anything anyway. "Instead, I simply wish to ask you about why the two of you seem to know each other quite well, even if...you two do not seem very friendly to each other...because that way, perhaps I will better understand why you decided to have Uesugi-kun work as our tutor."
At that moment, just as Itsuki is uttering those last few words to her father, the office door opens suddenly again.
"Don't bother asking him that. He won't answer you anyway..."
Leaving the door open and standing in the doorway itself, Uesugi Fuutarou, having taken off his black hoodie jacket and opting to hold it draped over his left forearm like a corporate wageslave returning home from a particularly awful day at work, peers into the office at both occupants other than himself. Itsuki, turning to see who's entered, at first reels at the sight of her tutor: he hasn't cleaned up any of the blood on his clothes at all yet, as treating his wounds was naturally the more urgent matter of business, so his usually plain white dress shirt is now stained systematically with bloodstains, mainly concentrated over his right side and chest, but he also sports a handful of cuts on both of his arms as well. While the bright cuts seem to have stopped bleeding, some of the ones on his arms still have their trails of blood still streaking around his arms where gravity has pulled several drops during their nighttime sojourn to the hospital. At the very least Uesugi-kun has wrapped his chest and his right side again, now that they've been checked for any poisons or other foreign magical substances that Rio's knife may have been laced with that Fuutarou missed while fighting him in person, so that Itsuki is spared having to look at his worst injuries, but once again her hemophobia seizes her conscience with impunity, and Itsuki tears her eyes away from her tutor before she actually begins to physically scream.
"Done already? How resilient as always, Uesugi-kun," the doctor nods back at his employee curtly as usual.
"Yeah, well, it's dangerous for Itsuki to be here right now at this hour," Fuutarou exhales deeply, glancing up at the clock over Dr. Nakano's head. It's as if Uesugi can only speak while breathing simultaneously because of his acute exhaustion, and as if that weren't enough, a solid bead of sweat is even running down the middle of his scalp, down the right side of his nose. He wipes it away with the back of his hand when he feels it creep down near his nostril as he glances down briefly at his student. "Let's go, Itsuki. Like I said, he ain't telling you shit."
Itsuki, for her part, begins to bite her lower lip. "...can I not...may I not at least try...?"
"Sure, you can, but maybe another night when I don't have a hole in my side. But I'm telling you, he won't tell you what you want to know."
Both Uesugi Fuutarou and Dr. Nakano sure know how to add salt to the wound whenever they're talking.
"It would appear that boys and girls your age do not know how to listen when they should. Have you already forgotten the little talk we had when you interrupted our family dinner in Honolulu?" Dr. Nakano points out calmly, having lowered his crossed hands down to his lap.
"Oh, you're tryin'a say that this is a 'family matter' between the two of you?" Fuutarou hisses back in a low voice as Itsuki slowly gets up from her folding chair and picks up her school bag that sports a few small smears of dried blood of its own where it's pressed against her tutor's chest. "That's funny, because in this case, I don't see how I'm not involved. And you still have the balls to say that this is a family matter?"
Then, Dr. Nakano smiles wryly. It's a tiny smile - but just like his voice, it easily sends another round of chills down Itsuki's back when she turns to see it.
"Afraid that someone will expose your dirty little secret, Uesugi-kun?" he asks dryly.
The head physician isn't even done with his statement when Fuutarou beckons to Itsuki to get her to exit the office, and when she does, he gives the doctor one last scathing glare and a hefty,
"Go fuck yourself."
And he slams the door behind him as hard as he can without further harming himself. A blue rune flares into view beneath their feet on the floor, absorbing the frightening crash from spreading throughout the rest of the hospital below them and potentially waking up any patients.
Itsuki, having seen her tutor clench his teeth before slamming the door shut, still jumps a little when the gunshot-like slam tears the air in the corridor apart, and she gazes up at him in its aftermath as he turns a little, letting his hand slide off the door handle tiredly. His usually bloodshot eyes are so strained now that it's almost as if his eyes themselves are bleeding inside, and he lets his head hang briefly, the muscles in his neck going slack for a moment as he momentarily lets his exhaustion get the better of him before redoubling his strength and straightening up again, as he's still got a job to do.
"Let's go, Itsuki. Follow me."
Departing for the staircase, the injured mage leads the way with the youngest quintuplet trotting nervously behind him.
"...are you alright now?" she asks timidly, wondering if she should even say anything to him at all since she's sure that he doesn't want to deal with her at the moment, even if he's contractually obligated to. As if to prove her right, Fuutarou turns and gives her a quick glare in his tired eyes as he pulls the staircase door open and holds it so that Itsuki can walk through with him.
"No, I'm not. The guy got me in my right side here...got my liver." He holds his hand carefully over his liver where he took the ranged knife attack from Rio. "Hurts, but thankfully I managed to stop it before it could go any deeper and hit anything else...like my kidney or something."
"Th-The liver..." The talk of internal organs being damaged like this understandably causes the quintuplet to feel queasy as the two of them climb the stairs. "But...but that's the only organ in the body that...can regenerate, correct? So..."
"Yeah, I'll be fine, since it can make a full recovery on its own. I got off lucky tonight, I just need to deal with the pain for a little bit..." Fuutarou clears his throat tiredly, and Itsuki can hear just how ragged his voice really is when he does. "I'm surprised you know that, Itsuki. That's not exactly something they teach you in school...they just teach you what the liver does and stuff..."
"Well, my best subject is biology, after all. And sciences in general...I like to, um, read around, I guess...I could sit in my room and read books and watch shows about science all day. For some reason, I always remember things that will never be on any of the tests at school..." Itsuki chuckles awkwardly in an attempt to lighten up the mood that she quietly deems pathetic to herself.
"Not surprising. You're more likely to remember things that you want to learn about, as opposed to studying things just for the sake of regurgitating them back onto a dumb fuckin' sheet of paper at a waste of time they call school..."
"By the way, where are we going? Should we not be doing down? How are we going to go home?" Itsuki asks, beginning to wonder why Fuutarou is leading her up instead of the opposite direction.
"To the roof. I don't exactly trust taking a cab at the moment, so I've got an alternative."
"Wait, you have roof access here? I thought only staff was allowed to be up there?"
"You forget, Itsuki, I am part of the staff. Just not officially..."
Reaching the roof access door, Fuutarou, having fished for a key out of his storage rune, opens the door. Itsuki gazes down at the helicopter landing marker on the roof, her eyes widening slowly.
"...are you going to call a helicopter to take me home...?!" she asks in hushed amazement, causing Uesugi to squint at her incredulously.
"Hell no, do I look like I got that kinda money? And aren't you the type who rides choppers often?"
"N-No! Limousines and first-class, yes, but not helicopters!"
Fuutarou shakes his head disdainfully. "So this is what they mean when they say 'suffering from success', huh?"
"Uesugi-kun!"
Managing to crack a wry grin of his own, Fuutarou turns to raise his hand out to the helipad before them. Itsuki is at least glad that she was able to make him lighten up, even if it was at her own expense.
"Fate is in heaven."
Reacting to his words, a large bright blue rune locks into view, painting itself into view directly over the red H on the hospital roof. Itsuki pulls her hands over her face in the wake of the blinding light, which is made seemingly brighter due to the sharp contrast of the darkness of the night around them.
"W-Will this not attract attention to us?" Itsuki wonders aloud, blinking down at the huge rune and taking a look around at their surroundings at the adjacent buildings and skyscrapers.
"I've got a bounded field surrounding this hospital on the roof; people trying to look down into the roof won't be able to see past it. Normal people, at least." Fuutarou steps onto the rune and makes his way to the center, and Itsuki nervously follows him, wondering what is about to happen. "This is a teleportation rune, I've got it connected to another one on the Pentagon roof. Take a deep breath and relax - you're going to feel like crap afterwards if you tense up too much."
Before he can even give her a chance to brace herself, Fuutarou activates the rune, and the two of them disappear in a flash of light, removed from the hospital roof instantly and finding themselves, as Fuutarou projected, on the roof of the high-rise residency of the Nakano family. Even if she's already watched two fights and is equipped with the knowledge of magic and its existence, Itsuki still finds it hard to believe that just a second ago, she and her tutor were standing on the roof of the hospital and are now standing on the roof of the Pentagon.
Making sure the teleportation rune is on cooldown so that he can reset it for another use, the injured mage slowly trudges over to the edge of the skyscraper to survey the panoramic view that the roof offers. Itsuki follows him slowly at first, but once she realizes that Uesugi is walking right up to the edge, she shies away and maintains her distance from it herself. While she doesn't have acrophobia, per se, she doesn't like looking down and knowing that one step could mean certain death.
"...what are you doing now? If you need a ride home, I can call a taxi for you..." Itsuki calls over softly, letting the high-altitude wind carry her words to her tutor, who hears her words like this and slowly walks back to her, correctly guessing that Itsuki doesn't fancy being near the edge of the roof, even if there are plenty of safety barriers to prevent falling over the edge.
"I have to wait for the this rune to reset, and then I can reactivate it for another use in the future," he explains in a low voice. Now that he's gotten Itsuki back to the relative safety of the skyscraper, Fuutarou finally lets himself relax a little bit, which is reflected in his voice. "It'll take a bit...like ten or so minutes, so I'll be hanging out here for a little bit longer, if you don't mind."
That last part about the teleportation rune needing ten minutes to recharge for another use is a lie; he can reset it immediately after giving the rune a few moments at most.
Itsuki nods slowly, looking down at the roof.
"If you're worried about how your sisters are gonna react to you coming back home so late, I got a text from Ichika while we were on our way to the hospital, asking me if I knew where you were because you weren't responding to any texts or calls from her," Uesugi mentions.
At this, Itsuki lets out a small but terrified yelp as she dunks her hand into her school bag, where she'd put her phone while the two of them were fleeing the street where the fight took place. Sure enough, when she unlocks her phone screen, she sees no less than seven missed calls and texts, with each of her sisters having sent her one text or call each and the most coming from Nino.
"Oh no...I-I completely forgot about them...!" Itsuki whimpers in guilt, having totally forgotten to let her sisters know where she was in the development of the events of the night.
"Don't worry, I told Ichika that you're safe and that she'd be back home later tonight. I asked them to not bother you about whatever happened tonight, and I'd like to ask you to not divulge anything that's happened to the rest of your sisters either."
Lowering her phone but slowly gripping it more tightly, Itsuki turns to her bloodied, wounded tutor whose black half-kilt flutters in a particularly sudden gust of wind.
"...sure, I can do that. But...are you not angry at me for what happened tonight, Uesugi-kun?" Itsuki asks slowly.
"Only at the fact that you called the police on us when I didn't want you to. If you hadn't done that, I could've maybe had a shot at killing that guy I was fighting and putting him down for good, or even better, knocking him out so that I could extract information from him later."
"...I apologize for my carelessness. I just...wanted to help. And it seemed like you were very injured at the time, and...all the more now that I know that you took a hit for me back there."
"Mmnn, it's fine now, I guess. I'll just be glad that the situation didn't get any uglier than it already was...really, though, I was more annoyed at having to carry you all the way back to the hospital than you calling the cops on us."
"Oh geez, Uesugi-kun, even at a time like this, you choose to make a joke about my weight?!" Itsuki sulks hard back up at her tutor. "I just cannot believe you right now!"
"...it wasn't meant to be a knock on your weight, goddamn it. I would've made that same complaint if you were any one of the others."
"Hmph. And besides, if you had something like this...this teleportation spell, couldn't you have used it to take us to the hospital instantly?"
"Most of the teleportation runes I have set up are one-way only. I can make two-ways, but they're both more complex to build and more energy-intensive to maintain, so in my case, it's more efficient for me to build a network of one-ways than to put up two-ways. This rune we're standing on right now is one of the two-ways that I have, and it should be pretty obvious why. So back when we were going to the hospital manually, I didn't have much of another choice."
Itsuki stares blankly up at him.
"...have you ever considered making another one-way route to the hospital, then?"
Fuutarou stares back. He puts his hand up to his chin in thought, raises it again and opens his mouth to make a counterargument, then stops because he realizes he doesn't have one, then lowers his hand to put both hands on his hips. Itsuki feels the lower eyelid of her right eye twitching a little.
"...Uesugi-kun, how was I able to think of something like that but you could not?" she asks slowly and dryly, not unlike in the manner of her father. "Were you not supposed to be the smart one among us?"
Already with his face in his hand, Fuutarou shakes his other in Itsuki's direction. "I don't want to hear it."
Even though she probably shouldn't, Itsuki can't help but crack up, unable to resist laughing a little at her tutor's apparent lapse in judgment.
"Well, there is something you can remember doing the next time you are out and about in the city," Itsuki manages to smile warmly back at her tutor, her rosy cheeks making the chilly air of the skyscraper rooftop just a bit warmer than it should be, but the smile doesn't last. "...and please be careful out there. I know tonight you were hurt because of me, but..."
"I'll...try. I already told you how being a mage is pretty dangerous, and you saw it again tonight..." Lifting up his snapback cap briefly to run his hand through his hair, Fuutarou gives a quick sigh. "And don't beat yourself up over how you got me hurt. It happens a lot, and I'm used to it. The last thing I want for you to deal with is to have to think about what happened tonight in the middle of your midterms. There's always another day to live, but there're only so many midterms you can take."
Itsuki gives Fuutarou a bit of a incredulous look of her own. "What kind of logic must you have to think of things like that?"
"Sorry. Mages like me typically have a few screws loose."
"I can tell."
Folding her arms over her chest, both as a conversational gesture and to try to keep more of her body heat to herself up on the roof, Itsuki briefly glances about the roof, still on the fence on whether she should stick around to talk to her tutor for a little bit longer or if she ought to get a move on and return home. Seeing this reaction, Fuutarou reads it correctly and takes his hoodie jacket on his arm to drape it around Itsuki's shoulders for the time being. Despite the fact that she knows it's got a venerable amount of blood smeared on it, Itsuki manages to swallow her hemophobic tendencies to let Fuutarou do so.
"Um...about what I was talking about with Father..." the youngest quintuplet finally manages to blurt out, but her tutor raises his hand to silence her politely.
"I overheard most of it. Sorry if this creeps you out a little, but I was outside the room for most of it, eavesdropping."
"Yes, that is a little creepy."
"I said sorry already."
Making a little pout that disappears quickly, Itsuki continues to look back at her classmate.
"Then if you say that Father will not answer the question I had for him, may I ask it to you instead? What exactly is the relationship you have with Father? Or can you not tell me?"
Uesugi takes a deep breath.
"All I can tell you for now is what you probably already know: I work with your dad so that I have access to the hospital's medical equipment, and in exchange he has me help around the hospital and, as of a month and a half ago, tutor you and your sisters and protect you from people like Rio, the dude whom I was fighting against tonight."
"But why, then? How did you come to work for him?" Itsuki presses on. "And there was that one thing that Father mentioned that got you all mad just before we left his office..."
Fuutarou twists his lips in discomfort at the mention of that last bit of discourse between him and her dad.
"That's just something between me and him. We don't have the best history between us...there's been some bad blood between us." Fuutarou glances down at his bare, cut arm. "...no pun intended. But I'd rather not talk about it...now's not the time for it, at least."
Itsuki frowns deeply back at her tutor. "You cannot tell me anything? Anything at all?"
"Mmm...I guess you could figure this out by now if you sat down and thought about it real hard, so it should be okay for me to tell you this: the tutoring gig that your dad set up for you girls was definitely something that'd been in the works for a while. I heard you talk to your dad about how it seemed like this all just kind of...happened out of nowhere, right? But it wasn't a spur of the moment kind of thing."
"Father intended to have you tutor us for a while? For how long? As in, leading up to now?"
"That's impossible for me to say, since I don't know what your dad's thinking half the time. But knowing him, he's the kind of guy who premeditates everything. And given his status in the hospital and his connections to the rest of the city's bureaucracy and oligarchy, I don't find it surprising at all. He probably saw all the shit that's been happening in the city and decided to have me cover for you five in case anything happened, and sure enough, someone's after you, and now, we know most likely it's that Rio guy from earlier."
"Must be...he knew one of my sisters by name somehow. Though he confused me for her, so I guess he does not know who we are personally..."
"And I'd rather let it stay that way. He doesn't need to know more about you than he already does."
"Agreed..." Itsuki lowers her gaze down to Fuutarou's feet, since she can't bear to look at his bloodstained front. "...I'm sorry, Uesugi-kun. You told us even a month ago that someone was coming after us, about how someone murdered Ebata-san, and sure enough, you were right. And even then, just because nothing seemed to be happening besides the recent kidnappings in the city, I let myself forget all that..."
"I'm gonna get mad if you keep acting like that, Itsuki."
"B-But I am trying to let you know that I am concerned about all this...!"
Fuutarou scoffs briefly. "Says one of the two girls who didn't attend lessons like she was supposed to until last week."
"Oh no, you too!? You sound just like Father, talking like that!"
"Nah, he'd have a lot drier of a voice. Kinda like this..." Fuutarou tries his best Dr. Nakano impression, causing Itsuki to crack up a bit more.
"No, seriously, Uesugi-kun! I may have acted like that before, but...but watching you fight that...what was his name again, Rio?...watching you fight him made me realize...how stubborn I have been all this time."
"Ah, so you finally realize, huh."
"P-Please let me finish...! Anyways...! Watching you fight that guy...I realized that you must have done so much training and fighting to get the point where you are now. We already knew that you have been working long hours during the night, to the point where you treat school like the only time of the day when you can get any sleep. I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been for you to get to this point...and how even then, even after all that you must have done and accomplished, you are still in a situation where you need to help provide for your family. Meanwhile, I am stuck here at home, or I guess at the library for tonight, studying and trying to get good grades and all...and being unable to show for any of my own efforts."
"Yeah, you don't say!" Fuutarou agrees with a rather insensitive and obnoxious snort of his own. "Imagine just having to study a whole lot as your biggest concern in life! Couldn't be me, that's for sure."
"If you're angry at me for what I did tonight, I already said I'm sorry, geez!"
Uesugi cracks another tired smile down at the pouting Itsuki before letting his head hang tiredly again about his neck, but at the same time, Itsuki feels a large, heavy hand also rest on top of her own head.
"...even still, don't worry about that either. Even if you think you're at fault for part of what happened tonight, even if other people tell you shit like that, I won't hold you accountable, since this is my job at the end of the day; I should have known what I was getting myself into accepting a contract like this. All you need to do is ace those midterms; it's the biggest favor you can do for me. In the meantime, I'll keep doing my job like I always have and make sure that son of a bitch doesn't get anywhere near you or your sisters...and hopefully figure out the rest of what the hell exactly's going on with this city."
Itsuki gazes with open blue eyes back at her tutor, who's managed to raise his tired head to reciprocate her eyes.
"...acing the midterms might be a bit of a stretch, though," she freely admits blankly.
"Tch...you're right. That's why I'm coming over on Thursday so that we can study overnight again like last week."
"Aaaaaagh! You just reminded me of that - oh noooooooo!" Itsuki cries aloud, grasping her head in terror.
"What, Itsuki, don't you looooove studying? Rejoice, young lady, for you get to study for a whole sixteen hours with your favorite tutor!"
"Nooooooooooooo! Father, you - you idiooooooot! ! ! ! !"
"But weren't you okay with it last time? Why're you getting all worked up about it now?"
"Because I thought that'd be the only time!"
"Well, that's where you're wrong, kiddo!"
Giving him the biggest pout of the night, Nakano Itsuki refolds her arms across her generous chest and turns her chin away. "Hmph! You've always been a big giant bully, Uesugi-kun! You haven't changed one bit!"
"Implying you've changed at all."
"Nonsense, I have changed! I've been trying my best to act friendlier to you, can you not tell?"
"No, I actually did. I just wanted to get you to say it out loud yourself."
At this, Itsuki, realizing that she's been tricked and baited, feels heat rise up to her cheeks.
"W-W-Why you - UESUGI-KUUUUNNNN! ! ! ! !"
Having the freedom to yell at the top of her lungs freely because they're on the roof of the skyscraper, Itsuki makes liberal use of it as her suddenly mischievous classmate and tutor cackles at her pride's expense. Even still, seeing him laugh and smile like this, again, is worth being teased a little bit. For a boy whom she usually always sees scowling, frowning, or simply with no expression on his face whatsoever, for some reason, whenever he puts a smile or a laugh there, it warms her own heart.
That doesn't stop her from building tears in her eyes at being teased like this, especially because it's someone other than one of her sisters doing it, and noticing this, Fuutarou ceases his laughter with a small sigh.
"Fine, I'll stop. Tell you what then, Itsuki - if you and your sisters manage to pass your midterms, I'll treat you all to something to eat. It can't be too expensive, though, so don't start getting any funny ideas of squeezing me dry."
At the mention of food, Itsuki's ears perk up, and she immediately stands at attention at her tutor's offer.
"Oh, oh! I know of this little ice cream parlor that just opened recently, and it's on the way home from school. I haven't been there yet, so I don't know the prices, but that's the place I'd like for us to go to!"
Fuutarou notes that Itsuki's subconsciously relaxed her speech at some point while they've been talking. So she can talk like the rest of her sisters...that's a relief to know.
"Gotta ace those midterms first, though," he reminds his student.
"Like I said, acing is impossible."
"Geez, you're a killjoy..."
"Uesugi-kun is calling ME a killjoy!? I can't believe this!"
The roof of the Pentagon is filled one last time with a round of hearty laughter and the angry Itsuki noises that accompany it.