Akane had seen everything.
I didn't mind too much. She would be the first to admit when she was outclassed by someone, at least when she was transformed in her Kampfer state. When she is normal she's a little more stubborn and takes on a lot of tasks at once. She couldn't make herself visible during the training session from hell, or she'd suffer the same fate I did during the spectacle. I'd rather not have that happen to be honest. Shizuku is as creative as she is lethal with those sickle and chains, and I swear they just got longer and shorter by her whim.
In Japan it's better to walk with someone. So Akane walks with me. The walk back to my house wasn't eventful. Akane is soft spoken unlike Mikoto. She didn't know what to say as far as the training went. Shizuku was putting her through the same paces and it wasn't fun. Akane had presumed, probably rightfully so, we'd both be able to decipher a weakness of sorts. Unfortunately, Shizuku was fast, graceful, and so damn precise. It was astounding how she could cut so close, and not draw blood, or leave the beginnings of a cut that didn't break skin.
We both keep coming up short. Shizuku has so much battle experience, she must've been a Kampfer for at least three years. I'm not even familiar with everything and she's just kicking ass completely. Maybe it was different for me and Natsuru since we're working with different hardware. In any case we both know we're getting nowhere, so the only logical thing to do is strategize. Akane's parents are always at work for the most part, so she is going to stay with me from now on.
"It gets lonely. You're pretty cool."
"Are you sure?"
"My entrail animal likes yours."
"I don't mind too much. I'd enjoy the company. Talking to Stubby Bear is always the most grand experience."
We're in my apartment after a good ten minutes of walking. Akane goes to take a bath, I go to heat up left overs, and our entrail animals start to socialize with each other so it's not too quiet. Stubby Bear marvels at how small Akane's entrail animal is. Her entrail animal marvels at how big stubby bear is. I'm not surprised they were so quick to get along, it at least made things easier for me.
I busy myself with getting my left overs ready and turning on the TV. There's actually a lot of american TV shows on here, even though they're a bit old. I definitely enjoy them. In the end I decide to go through my DVDs and put in the fast and furious movie starting with the first one. By then Akane is out of the shower and heating up her share of the leftovers.
"Thanks for letting us join you guys."
"Yeah. We love movies."
"Just don't be too much." I warn stubby bear.
I am pissed off at Shizuku. Her heart is ice cold. For the last six weeks she's been distant and will not speak to me beyond the basics. I miss the intimacy we shared with each other. She isn't using the honorifics thankfully, but I don't enjoy this. I know I'm not used to how they do things here with romance, nobody really is if I'm being honest from my own experience, but Shizuku is running for football fields. How she could go from teasing and loving to this ice vixen is really beyond comprehension.
I am so relieved and happy to be in history class. We're going over the Bakumatsu era since the class wanted to start with this one first. I didn't really care since I had to sit in here with Shizuku and do what I needed to do with Hitomi. It is nothing short of insanity right now and I'm just about tired of it. Hitomi keeps giving me looks and won't stop smirking half of the time. Shizuku on the other hand is just focusing on her schoolwork and isn't even speaking to me. It's all so ridiculous.
There's no training session, no group activities, no people coming over to raise hell at my home, and most of all there's no training sessions from hell. I don't know the Japanese way of doing things, but if Shizuku was trying to make a point, I'm not sure which one she was trying to make. I seen a side of her nobody else got to see, nobody else would want to see, and I hope it's one nobody else has to see. The way she toyed with me during those early training sessions are like horror stories.
Thankfully, being a Kampfer gives me enhanced flexibility. Whenever I was bent or contorted, my body was able to withstand it because it's how it was designed, but that didn't mean I enjoy it or found it comfortable. At times it hurt really bad making me jolt when I was hanging upside down or from a tree in general by those blasted chains, and I had a hard time relaxing whenever I wasn't being bent because of the nerve synapses. Relaxing, which was crucial to maintaining flexibility in my opinion wasn't an option right now.
It may be foolish, but I am expecting a lot more from Shizuku. This cold blooded ice queen persona she's been putting on isn't doing it for me, and her forceful and rather...Charming alternative side appeals to me a lot more. She's bold, relaxed, and she's playful. I have to wonder if she'd like to wrestle or anything along those lines.
"Andrea."
"Yes?"
"Who brokered the peace in the Bakumatsu?" Is what I thought she asked.
"The answer is Katsu Kaishu." I reply without thinking.
The teacher moves on with the lesson, giving me a curt nod at the quick answer. It wasn't the most polite, the most technically correct, but it was loud and bold the way I answered which I prefer. This was one of the more well known eras of Japanese history and there was a lot of manga and anime made from it. You could go back to fifty years before the Bakumatsu to see the buildup which lead to that era of turmoil like we did, but a lot of us found it boring and depressing.
This was always a subject of great interest in Japan and overseas, more so than the warring states era, which we're going to cover the next semester. There's going to be a play and everything for the Bakumatsu and for the Warring States era. Why we're doing it this way I'm not sure. Probably has to do with a lack of interest in certain aspects of the subject matter-have to make it appealing for us students or we won't do it-so it's reasonable that they're doing it this way.
What isn't reasonable is that they're trying to make it sixty percent of the overall grade for this semester. It didn't make a lot of sense to me, and everyone else for that matter. Whenever I'd ask or someone else just as curious as I am, we'd always get the answer of 'it's prestigious and that's why it counts for so much of the grade'. Whatever that meant I'm not too sure, but I am not looking forward to any of this. If it did count for that much of the grade, or even thirty percent, we were all going to need to get along.
I don't know how this is going to work if the three of us need to work together. We shouldn't need to. There's more than enough students in these classrooms where we can choose two partners besides someone who wants to chop a head to pieces. This whole conflict is starting to wear on me. Stubby Bear promises that by all of us gathering it'll get better, I don't see it, and I'm not going to argue with him after a certain point.
