It's Been Awhile

Over the course of the next several days, Minori took part in eleven separate battles, seven of which was her engaging the monsters solo. Slowly but surely, she was starting to build a reputation among the Sweety Pies as Pure Heart's newest protector. It helped that her immature, and energetic mindset meshed well with the curiosity and naïveté that the kingdom's citizens are known for.

Currently, Minori, Adorabat, and Badgerclops are having lunch in town, taking a change of pace from Minori's cooking. There was nothing wrong with her food, but sometimes you just need a break from the norm.

After much debate as to where to eat, the three heroes decided to have their lunch at Pure Heart's locally famous Sushi Hut. The Sushi Hut wasn't busy at the moment, so it only had a couple other customer's besides the members of the Sheriff's Dept.

Adorabat, with Badgerclops' assistance, continued to work on her song for Mao Mao, while keeping it a secret from Mao Mao himself. So far, it's progress was coming along nicely. Minori, having no knowledge of the musical arts, focused on the food splayed before her on an oak board.

She had ordered Samon Roll sushi for her meal, the setting looked exquisite. The eight pieces of sushi were arrayed in two-by-four, with her meal came a small cup of soy sauce. A line of wasabi garnished the platter, giving the diner something that would be pleasing to the eye, as well as the tongue.

Picking up the provided chop sticks, Minori skillfully picked up a roll of sushi. In doing so, her eyes caught a glance at her headband, still wrapped around her wrist. Hard to believe it had only been a few days since she tied it there, the time just seemed to fly by faster than she could process.

"Minori," chirped Adorabat, catching a troubled look on the former's face. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Never better AB," replied Minori, donning a notably fake smile. "It's just been awhile since I've had sushi."

"You'll love it," Badgerclops threw a piece of sushi into his mouth, as way of proving his point. "Every once in awhile, they have a free all-you-can-eat sushi day!"

"Really?" Minori raised her brow in curiosity, finding this statement too good to be true, what business gives away food for free for an entire day; that had to be bad for business.

"Yeah, you should totally try it sometime," said Badgerclops, giggling at himself.

Perplexed as to why he was laughing, Minori stuffed a piece of sushi into her mouth. It was adequate, she could think of a few ways to spice up the flavor, but she wasn't here to critique someone else's cooking in their own restaurant.

Almost out of nowhere, Badgerclops' arm emitted a blaring alarm, causing the three to nearly jump out of their skins.

"What's that?" Minori asked in alarm, her hackles standing on end.

Badgerclops shifted his arm into a holographic screen, which displayed a map of the kingdom and its surrounding area. A red dot blipped inside the perimeter of the kingdom, showing the location of whatever it was that's invading.

"Sky Pirates," Badgerclops' voice showed clear signs of annoyance.

"You guys have Sky Pirates too?" Minori's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree, excited to fight something that at least had double-digit IQ. "I'm loving this place more and more."

Badgerclops deactivated his holographic screen, changing his arm back to normal. "If you say so—they're more annoying if anything."

"I'll go take care of them," Minori said, hopping out of her stool and dropping into some stretches. "Anything I need to know going into this?"

"They're a bunch of meanies," Adorabat stated, turning around in her stool to watch the martial artist do her stretches.

"Thanks AB, anything else?"

"You sure you wanna fight them on your own? They're not exactly known for fighting fair." Badgerclops stated, already knowing Minori's answer.

"Of course I do," the martial artist ended her warmups and looked out the front door, a malicious grin splayed across her face. "Where are they?"

"They're in the park," said the cybernetic badger, throwing another piece of sushi in his mouth. "Look out for any tricks they may have up their sleeve."

"Hey Badgerclops?" Adorabat looked up at her friend with wide, yellow eyes.

"Yeah Adorabat?"

"Minori left as soon as you said 'park'," she stated, alerting her friend to the Minori's absence.

Badgerclops spun around in the stool, finding empty space in Minori's stead, confirming she was indeed long-gone.

"Man~, she couldn't have at least let me finish?" Giving an annoyed sigh, Badgerclops couldn't help but think of how fast he grew tired of this dynamic. Throwing another sushi in his mouth, Badgerclops realized something. "Hey wait a minute! She just left me with the bill for her food!"

10 minutes later

This trip with Violet had been a new kind of torture to Tanya; originally, this trip would've taken couple days at most, but with all of Violet's detours, it took over a week. As the Pure Heart Spire came into view over the horizon, she breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, this road trip could end, and she wouldn't have to deal with the hero in the back seat, wanting to take a detour every five minutes.

However, as Violet peered over the side of the truck, she saw a very familiar combination of orange and black. She didn't need Ashaki's contacts to know who it was down there.

"Take us down," said Violet, turning away from the edge, pulling her hat back over eyes.

Upon hearing those words, Tanya only had one thing to say, "shit."

'How did things come to this?' That was the question Minori asked herself as she watched Orangusnake raise his conjoined hands over his head.

After she had left the Sushi Hut, Minori scaled the closest building she could find by digging her claws into the side of the structure. From there, she hopped from one rooftop to the next, the wind blowing through her fur with each jump.

It took her no time at all to reach the park; there she found the Sky Pirates terrorizing the Sweetypies, while their captain was shouting at the top of his lungs that he was going to steal the Ruby Pure Heart, whatever that was.

Minori threw herself into the fray, surprising Orangusnake and his cohorts. Confused as to who this newcomer was, the Captain of the Sky Pirates demanded her identity.

Without any hesitation, Minori introduced herself. The moment Orangusnake heard the surname Mao, the only thing that came to his mind was what happened last time a Mao came to visit Pure Heart Valley.

Once pleasantries were out of the way, Minori rushed in to engage the Pirates, fending them off with an extraordinary lack of effort. This left a bad taste in her mouth, it wasn't any fun if the victory was a total sweep.

So to make things interesting, she undid the orange karate belt from around her waist and tied her hands together. A decision Minori now came to regret.

While she was chasing after his underlings, Orangusnake maneuvered around her using his sword to nail her cape into the ground. Unable to stop the inertia, her body had kept trying to advance, where the cloth around her neck was pulled taut, choking her. The lower half of Minori's kept moving forward, leaving her splayed across the turf, her hands bound, with no way to free herself.

Orangusnake's smile was a viscous one, as he lavished in the chance to take down a member of the Sheriff's Department. But before he could bring his hands down onto Minori's skull, a blood wrenching, unholy sound roared throughout the nearly empty park.

Dropping to his knees, Orangusnake clutched at his gut, attempting to stifle the gurgling of his stomach. Back when his crew consisted of more than just Ratarang, Ramaraffe, and Boss Hosstrich, his ship had crashed when Mao Mao and Badgerclops snuck aboard and severely damaged it. Losing most of his crew in the crash, Orangusnake spent weeks treating his injuries as well as his surviving compatriots. The flames from the crash turned the surrounding vegetation into cinders, and the spilt fuel poisoned the environment so that nothing could grow back.

So once the Sky Pirates wounds had all mended, it was a struggle to even find food, let alone wrestle it away from the savage beasts of the land. Come to think of it, the only time they ever had real food, was when: they ate sauces out the Sheriff's house, when he and his crew munched down on Badgerclops' gelatin, and when Orangusnake broke all his bones and had to spend time in the hospital where he ate their food, and his compatriots had food from the vending machine when visiting him.

Minori knew none of this in advance, so she looked on at the Sky Pirates' Captain, beginning to put the pieces together. "Are you by chance, hungry?"

"W-what's it to you?" Orangusnake grunted through clenched teeth, barely able to keep his mind on track as his stomach acids slowly carved away at his insides.

"Boss!" Cried Ramaraffe, as she and the others rushed over to their Captain's side. They looked him over, seeing if there was some way they could help.

"You know," said Minori, in a matter of fact tone. "If you want, I could whip up some food for you."

"I don't need *grunts* your charity," replied the Captain pulling himself off the ground. He weakly raised his arms once more, this time he'd finish the job.

"Well, would you look at that," said declared an unfamiliar voice, in a sultry tone. "It'd appear that the party's already started without us."

Considering her position, Minori had to swivel her head as best she could to see the source of the feminine voice, it took her getting into an uncomfortable position to do so.

Two individuals approached the martial artist and the Pirates, one was a tanuki woman, and the other was someone Minori was less than amused to see.

Speaking of party, thought Minori, all manner of excitement drained from her being. Looks like this one's over with Miss Buzzkill present.

Upon seeing her kid sister in this feeble state, Violet allowed a small smirk to make its way onto her face. "Hello Minori, it's been awhile."

"Hey Vi," moaned Minori in annoyance, even though the hat was blocking her view of her sister's face, she knew that Violet was drinking up every last bit of this.

Violet silently strode over to Minori, her topaz colored eyes never glancing away from her sister. When she got close enough for Minori to peer under her hat, she asked, "are you the first?"

Minori just nodded in silence, much to Violet's discontent. She had figured that Hinata would've been the first to arrive, given how fast their sister could travel with her scarf. Looks like that wasn't the case.

"Well then," murmured Violet, stepping over her pinned sibling to stand between Minori and the Sky Pirates. "Just leave this to your big sister."

"What?!" Minori shouted, bolting upright only for the cloth around her neck to tighten and choke her once again. "No, *gack* I don't need your *cough* help!"

Her words fell on deaf ears as Violet reached up to her hat, pulling out a katana, still tucked away in a scabbard.

"And who are you?" Orangusnake asked, readying himself along with his companions.

"Apologies," said Violet, lifting her hat to look into the eyes of the Sky Pirates. "My name is Violet Mao."

"Wait, Mao Mao has two sisters?" Orangusnake exclaimed in bewilderment. "How many does he have?"

As Violet readied herself against the adversaries before her, Tanya walked up to Minori, who was trying to cut her bindings with Orangusnake's energy cutlass.

"So you're Violet's sister?" Tanya asked, raising an eyebrow as she watched the martial artist attempt to free herself. "How do you deal with her?

Minori looked upwards to the tanuki woman, questioning what she was even doing here. "You don't know the half of it, and you are?"

"Ah, where are my manners?" Tanya asked, her tone being one of a condescending nature. "Tanya Keyes, at your service."

"T-Tanya Keyes?!" Shouted Orangusnake, grabbing both Minori and Tanya's attention. Orangusnake was befuddled as to why a big name bounty hunter would come all the way out here. Unless... "Are you here to collect my bounty?"

"Well that depends," said Tanya, casting her gaze over to the ragtag group of Pirates. "Who are you?"

"W-wha- you're kidding right?" Orangusnake exclaimed, there was no way that she hadn't heard of him, it was probably some stunt to throw him off. "I'm Lord Orangusnake, Captain of the Sky Pirates!"

"Let's see," murmured Tanya, pulling out a small packet of wanted posters. "I've got a Lord Oranis Strike, Lord Orange Nape, then there's Lord Osiris Njord. Nope, no Orangusnake. You must not have a bounty, or it's just too small for me to care."

"Wow." Simply stated Orangusnake, stunned at the bounty hunter's response. "That kind of stings."

"If we have the pleasantries out of the way," said Violet sharply, popping the sword a couple centimeters out of its scabbard. "Shall I escort you out of this kingdom?"

"Gah! You still talk like Grandma Mao!" Minori sniped, earning an annoyed tsk from her elder sister.

Violet wrapped her hand around the grip of the katana, peering out from underneath the shade of her golden hat. "You haven't changed Minori."

The second Violet's eyes set themselves upon him, he swore he felt the sense of dread hovering just over him. Recoiling, he stumbled backwards, just as Violet flicked her wrist, the katana leaving the scabbard and arcing through the space where Orangusnake's head was just seconds ago.

"Woah," whispered Tanya, surprised not by the action, but who the action came from. For the past week, Tanya never sensed an ounce of bloodlust from the samurai. Now all of a sudden, Violet made an attempt to take a life out of seemingly nowhere.

"So how did you meet Queen Joyless over there?"

Snapping out of her trance, Tanya looked down to Minori, who started to make progress on her bindings. "What?"

"I want to know why you're with my sister," recited Minori, gesturing to her elder sister with a slight nod of her head. "If you haven't noticed, she's not the best people person."

"Well, I'm here for my own reasons as well," explained Tanya, bending down to assist the martial artist with her bindings. "It's just that bringing her here gave me a reason to come back."

"So you've been here before?" Asked Minori, her interests piqued in the woman hovering above her.

"Yeah," answered Tanya, chuckling a little as she thought about her last visit. "I practically gave Mittens an migraine, making him chase me around kingdom."

"Who?"

"Ah, sorry," said Tanya, remembering that it was only a nickname only she called the Sheriff of Pure Heart Valley. "Mittens is a nickname for an old friend of mine, his name is actually Mao Mao."

Minori's eyes grew wide at the mention of her brother's name, after that, her composure fell apart at the seems as she started laughing. "Pfft, that's hilarious! He does wear mittens! Hey, Violet! Where'd you find this chick, she's awesome!"

Looking back up towards the samurai, Tanya saw Violet as she avoided Ramaraffe's helmeted head as it rocketed by via her cybernetic neck. Boss Hosstrich shifted his torso into a cannon, firing a round of explosive ammunition. Using her katana, she tilted it so that tip of the blade redirected the round away from her before it combusted.

"Is she gonna be okay?" Tanya asked, concerned that is fighting several cybernetic Pirates at once wasn't the best course of action.

Minori could only roll her eyes in response. "Well that depends, does she still have that stupid vow in place?"

"Vow?" Tanya said, this time her interests were being piqued.

"Yeah," Minori replied simply. "I don't know the details, but roughly nine years ago, she took a vow that's prevented her from taking a life—not including monsters and wild game of course."

"But her swords-"

"They're all dulled." Minori said, cutting off the bounty hunter, knowing full well what she was going to ask. "I'm sure you guys made some pit stops along the way; think, did you ever see any slash marks? Or was everyone just covered in bruises and broken bone?"

Thinking back, it made sense. Back at that village, Evans and his lackies were covered head to toe in bruises, and Tanya wasn't exactly looking to get a close look at the blades back at the Low Key Bar.

Seeing the look of realization on Tanya's face, Minori continued, "see? She doesn't tell anyone anything unless it's absolutely necessary. It bugs the hell out of me."

"Yeah, any time I asked a question she would avoid it," chuckled Tanya, remembering her classified comeback. "In fact the only thing I could get out of her was that she was here to apologize for something."

Minori's sly smile disappeared, and a look of shock and disbelief took its place. "She said that? Word for word?"

"Yeah, almost exactly." Tanya replied, perplexed at Minori's change in tone. "She seemed sincere about that much, at least."

"Damn it Vi," Minori muttered, barely audible enough for Tanya to hear her. "That's supposed to be a secret."

"What'd you say?" Tanya asked, catching the martial artist's lips move, just slightly enough to be noticeable.

"Nothing. How's that knot coming along?" Asked Minori changing the topic of conversation.

"This is a very tight knot," grunted Tanya, struggling to slip her fingers under the twists of the knot. "How'd you end up like this?"

"I used my mouth," Minori said proudly, her wide grin returning to her face.

"Oh wait, I'm dumb," said Tanya, facepalming herself. Pulling out a small green leaf, she turned it into a sharp knife.

"That's a handy skill," stated Minori as Tanya used the knife to cut her free.

"It's an hereditary ability," stated Tanya, severing the fabric with ease. "Comes with being a tanuki."

Not bothering to pull Orangusnake's cutlass out of the ground, Minori ripped her cape in order to free herself. Hopping back up to her feet, she adjusted her shoulder and popped her neck, readying herself for another round of combat.

"Those bastards got me once, but that'll the end of- COME ON~!" Minori cried out in despair, seeing that Violet had already chased off the Sky Pirates. "I was just about to get serious!"

"Oh?" Violet said, seemingly amused with her sister's statement. "Well if you want to get serious about something, get serious about maintaining your personal hygiene. You smell like you've spent the past two years in the wilderness."

"Oh shut up," replied Minori, disregarding Violet's snarky comment. "You got a change of clothes for me?" Minori gestured to the torn, worn, and dirty garments that she adorned on a daily basis.

"Here," stated Violet, reaching into her hat to produce a folded up set of fresh clothing. "And for the record, I am not a storage space you can use to store your stuff."

"Thanks," said Minori, grabbing the clothes from her sister's outstretched hand.

"Have you met with Mao Mao yet?" Violet asked.

"Yeah, I've been here for almost a week," said Minori, starting to change out the clothes on her back. "I'd be surprised if I didn't run into him.

"So you do know Mittens!" Tanya exclaimed, finally getting an answer to one of her many questions.

"Mittens?"

"Pfft, y-yeah," began Minori, struggling to keep herself together. "I-its her n-nickname for Mao M-Mao!"

"So, when you spoke of an ex-partner who used a legendary weapon," started Violet, putting her own puzzle pieces together. "You were referring to my little brother?"

"Possibly."

"If you don't mind me asking, what is your relationship to Mao Mao?" Violet queried, her curiosity getting the best of her.

Tanya smirked, "that's classified."

Minori looked from one to the other in confusion, raising her eyebrow at the inside joke; Violet on the other hand, merely felt irked at the obvious attempt to get a rise out of the samurai.

"Well," said Minori, breaking the silence. "If you want, I could just bring you to Mao Mao."

"I'd very much appreciate that," replied Violet, following her sister as she lead the way to the Sheriff's house.

Writer's Note: Hey, I just wanted to give a quick apology about how long it took me to get this chapter out. Due to priorities, I had to take a quick break. Everything has been wrapped up so it should be good for a while. I appreciate all the positive feedback, and I love reading the reviews.