Chapter 10: The Typical Daily Grind... With A Twist (Part 1)
"Listen, we know how this is gonna go so how about you and your little friends take your leave?" I ask politely.
"Not happening! The last couple of times you two won were complete flukes!" The leader of the shinobi delinquents shouts, brandishing her kunai. Her gang of cronies appear and crowd behind her, some wielding varying types of swords and others a kusarigama.
"Is the barrier deployed, Asuka?" I inquire.
"Of course!" Asuka answers.
"Can't say I didn't try the peaceful option for once. Alright! One ass kicking coming right up!" I exclaim as Asuka and I brandish our twin swords, getting into our combat stances.
"Pfft! As if! It's gonna be you two's asses getting kicked today!" The delinquent leader retorts. "Attack!" She and her goons start running toward us.
"Ready, Atsuki?" Asuka questions.
"Ready. On your mark," I answer.
"Three… two… now!" Asuka exclaims, darting straight past the leader and charging through the horde of minions as she combos them with her attacks.
"H-Huh?!" The leader is taken aback, staring in awe while watching her gang be decimated. It's my turn now! Dashing like lightning, I'm behind her in barely under three seconds with one of my swords raised to her throat. "A-Atsuki?! When did you—"
"Learn to keep your eyes on your opponent, Delia," I interject, chuckling lightly when I use her name.
"I-I told you to not call me that!" She angrily stammers as I let her headbutt me with the back of her head to break free.
"Sorry, I just can't help it. Referring to you as the delinquent leader is so boring and generic it hurts. You have to agree, Delia," I tease her while our weapons clash multiple times as we fight.
"S-Shut up! You would've been just fine with it had I not dropped my dumb coin purse the other day. I'll beat it straight out of your head soon enough!" She retorts, her messy scarlet red ponytail flailing wildly as she swings harder and faster. It's still nowhere near a problem to continue deflecting each slash. In the background, Asuka is still effortlessly cleaning out Delia's goons. If I had to make an estimate based on how many of her henchmen are currently knocked out on the ground, then Asuka is about ninety five percent done.
"Won't let that happen. I'd hate to forget such a cute name," I snicker.
"S-S-Stop talking and fight! Flattery won't help you!" She yells.
"Actually, I was hoping it'd help you but clearly not. I'll stop entertaining myself now," I say. Besides, Asuka and I do need time to grab some lunch before we tackle the rest of our tasks.
"Oh yeah? About ti—W-Wha?!" She exclaims, having been instantly parried by me hard enough to throw her off balance. With no time wasted, I sheathe my swords and grab her wrists, sweeping her clean off of her feet before slamming her down on the ground. "Tch. Damn you, Atsuki!" She grunts while I'm on top of her and pinning her down.
"Good fight. I don't really feel like going all the way today so let's just end it here and we can fight again some other time. Sounds good, right?" I ask.
"What gives? You clearly held back this time. Are you taking pity on me now?" She questions.
"Kinda yeah. Do you really want to taste defeat so easily or be reduced to your underwear so you get embarrassed and run away with your gang for like the fourth time this month?" I inquire. She looks down as if mulling over what choice to make. I'd like to think she would take the obvious choice I gave her!
"… Fine! You win!" She reluctantly surrenders, her face still looking all sorts of aggravated despite the blackmask covering the lower half of it. Okay, good.
"An excellent decision," I grin before getting off of her.
"Yeah whatever," she sighs, standing up and dusting her navy blue school uniform off.
"All enemies have been successfully defeated!" Asuka loudly reports as she runs over to us. "I take it the leader here gave up for once?"
"I didn't give up! I surrendered! There's a difference!" Delia clarifies.
"Either way, it's over. You did exceptionally well as always, Asuka," I praise her, petting her head.
"You're too kind, Atsuki," Asuka smiles, a light blush permeating her cheeks. Taking my hand off of her head, she hugs my right arm tightly. "Now let's hurry and grab lunch before it gets too crowded around here! You promised you would take me to that new Sushigumi place that just opened up, remember?"
"I didn't exactly make a promise," I chuckle.
"Sometimes, it's better to just go along with it. Don't you think so?" She makes sure her breasts press against my arm as much as possible.
"Y-Yeah, sure thing," I stutter, submitting to her will.
"Exactly! I knew you'd see it my way!" She giggles. Remembering Delia is still standing beside us, I notice she looks like she's about to seriously blow a fuse.
"Grrrr! As if I'm just not here at all, huh?! Knock it off, you… you big jerk!" Delia growls, shoving me hard enough to make my ass hit the ground. Almost immediately, she seems regretful of doing that.
"A-Atsuki, are you okay?!" Asuka asks.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I answer, wincing slightly as Asuka helps me up. "Geez, Delia. What was that for?!"
"B-Because…," Delia swiftly changes back to anger and clenches her fists. "Like I said, you're a big jerk!" She yells, running away. Her goons also pick themselves up off of the ground and follow her lead.
"You got lucky again is all! You won't win next time!" They exclaimed.
"That was weird. Weirder than usual I mean," I comment.
"You can think about it later! We need to get a move on!" Asuka pulls me by the arm, forcing me to run with her.
"Getting a move on doesn't mean trying to tear my arm off!" I shout. Making haste, we manage to reach the sushi place ahead of the lunch rush.
"Ah, finally," we both let out a sigh of relief, sitting down in a comfy two person booth with our food.
"To think a place called Sushigumi also serves up takoyaki among other things," I say, picking up my chopsticks. "Still not sure why you wanted to try futomaki here when you know it won't beat the ones your family makes," I grab some takoyaki and pop them into my mouth.
"That might be true but it's always interesting to taste the differences in each one I try no matter how small it may be. One day, I might even find one that reigns supreme. You never know," she says.
"I can get behind that," I nod while chewing.
"Hey, you know she likes you, right?" She questions, making me choke on my food for a moment before managing to get it down.
"W-Who are you talking about?" I ask, clearing my throat.
"Who else? Delia, of course!" She answers, taking a bite out of her futomaki. I won't lie. Seeing the girls eat futomaki used to get me rock hard, but seeing it happen so often thankfully doesn't make my body react like that that much anymore. They would have to eat it in a clearly sexual way like Kat does in front of me to get me at full mast now.
"What makes you say that?" I inquire, cramming more takoyaki in my mouth.
"Well, I could see just how jealous she was when I was holding onto your arm. Her actions after that more than make it very clear that's what it was," she explains.
"Eh, I think that's jumping the gun. She's always irritated when she gets treated like a small fry. If she trained more to give us a challenge, then she would get treated like the threat she wants to be," I reply. Plus that would mean my options aren't limited to just the characters at the ninja academies which just adds pressure to be extremely careful with how I act, less I start attracting generic NPCs.
"Yeah, but as a girl even though it's really not a topic I'm an expert in, I can just sort of tell," she takes another big bite.
"Maybe you're right but I guess only time will really—," I notice a bush rustling outside our booth window, breaking my string of words. Hmmm.
"Something up, Atsuki?" Her eyes glance over to the window. As the rustling subsides, a bird flies out of the bush.
"Sorry, it's nothing. Thought I had picked up on something but it was just a bird," I sigh. Heh, excluding the Hanzō girls, who would wanna spy on me, especially when I'm doing nothing important?
"Ikaruga instilled that being vigilant stuff into you real good, didn't she?" She giggles.
"Yeah, it seems so," I laugh, rubbing the back of my neck. After a few more minutes, we finish our lunch.
"Sushigumi's takoyaki certainly isn't no slouch! I'd give it a nine out of ten! Definitely gonna come back for more!" I exclaim. "How was the futomaki?"
"Hmm, I think it's the best one I've tried so far but still not enough to take the crown from my family recipe. The rice to sushi ratio was a bit off. An eight out of ten at best," she answers.
"That's not bad. Definitely better than the one you tried last week at lunch though, right?" I chuckle.
"Oh no! Please don't remind me! I don't know what that was but it most certainly wasn't futomaki!" She shudders. Geez, now that I'm actually looking at her, Asuka wound up getting grains of white rice stuck to her face as well as… her chest.
"You got rice all over you, y'know that? Being clumsy is one thing but this is just straight messy," I grab a couple napkins and move from my seat to sit beside her.
"It's not my fault. Some of the rice was falling out between bites," she tries to justify to me while dusting rice off of her shirt. Maybe if she had gotten her roll sliced up, then it wouldn't be a problem.
"Yeah yeah. Hold still," I start wiping the rice from her face.
"A-Atsuki, I'm not a kid," she blushes.
"Could've fooled me," I say. Her mouth is now free of rice but my eyes linger on her lips. What…if… I just…? "Asuka," I mutter, beginning to lean closer.
"H-Here, Atsuki?" Her blush gets even more red. Taking a deep breath, I seem to wrest control away from the spontaneously intrusive carnal thoughts. It's gotten so much easier to resist at least when hanging around with Asuka. Maybe the game isn't really trying to get me to fool around with her because even the game itself realizes much like I do that she's too obvious a target being the "main character" and all. Personally, I'm not really interested in her like that. It's way more fun having her as a platonic friend. However, if she were the one to instigate such, then I'd probably let it happen.
"We should hurry back to Hanzō. You know Kiriya doesn't tolerate wasting time," my voice goes back to normal.
"R-Right," she nods, the red in her face fading away quickly. "Thank you for taking me here for lunch!"
"No problem! What are friends for?" I say as I stand up.
"Be careful. There's a bit of soy sauce on the floor," she warns.
"I see it. I'll be fi—Wha?!" My feet slip on the sauce despite my caution, making me fall on her in the booth. "Sorry about that. Guess I'm the real clumsy one today, huh?" I sheepishly laugh.
"Atsuki…," she moans softly with a hand over her mouth. "Y-Your grip is really strong!" I realize my right hand is firmly holding onto her left breast.
"D-Double sorry! I was aiming for the booth cushioning!" I apologize, getting off of her immediately to let her sit up.
"Don't worry about it. Accidents happen," she assures me. Her eyes suddenly look downward. "What's that?"
"Uh, what's what?" I ask.
"That, Atsuki," a mischievous smile forms on her face as she points to the tent on my crotch.
"Don't call attention to it, Asuka!" I shout, embarrassed while covering it up with the bottom of my shirt.
"At least now I know I'm just like the other girls. You're not immune to me," she teases, giggling.
"Well, of course not. I could've told you that," I sigh.
"That means you think I'm sexy, right?" She inquires.
"That's just a fact more than a compliment at this point since it applies to almost everyone," I reply.
"Does that include Kiriya?" She asks quickly.
"He does look pretty young despite his age," I answer casually. Her eyes get really big. Hold up! "W-Wait! Don't take that the wrong—"
"You think Kiriya is sexy?! Just wait until I tell him and see how he responds!" She interjects, leaping over me and running to the door.
"Hey, that isn't what I said! Don't go telling lies! Get your ass back here right now!" I yell, chasing after her.