Chapter 4 — Big Balls and Small Bombs [Sentai-kun]
...Before Miku had any chance to process whatever she'd witnessed, Takebayashi's hand was there to save the day and push her to the nearest wall.
"Watch out!" she screamed.
Without wasting a single second Futaro jumped in the middle of the room with a menacing look on his full-of-dark-intentions face... his eyes glowing with malevolence...
"He's holding a grenade!" Fuutaro spotted while pointing with the finger of his right hand.
Takebayashi felt her legs getting lifted up and a drastic tightness in her throat. Miku tried to remain silent. If she'd ever dreamed of gaining superhuman powers, dreams in which she had never chosen to become invincible in the past... now she was regretting that more than anything else. Scratching her fingertips on the carpet's remnants like a helpless kitty, asking herself how she ended up in this mess; who could have possibly orchestrated all this, on this specific day and hour...
"Where is it," Futaro whispered in Takebayashi's right ear.
"I have no idea what you're talking about! You're crazy!"
"Oh... so that's the way that you want us to play. For a handler of a secret agent, you're a very bad liar. YOU!" he stared at Miku's direction, "Nerd otaku! Step up!"
And there it was. The unluckiness that had followed her throughout her whole life was striking once again. How could it possibly not present itself when the odds were also against her survival? Frightened to the very core of her fragile body, trembling at the thought that today's breakfast might had been the very last one...
"You're one of the famous Nakanos, right?"
First of all, she was indeed one. Secondly, how did he know her and her sisters' name? Lastly, on what planet was she even considered as a famous person herself?
"I... I..."
"Rhetorical question, now where is IT?!"
"She doesn't know! Leave her alone!" Takebayashi interrupted.
"Shut it, or all of you are getting vaporized!"
"SHUT IT, TAKE!" both of the other possibly-impostor Fuus shouted synchronically.
"Now, I'm gonna ask one last time... where is the cursed ribbon?"
Miku, completely clueless as to the answer, just stared at him with her eyes wide open as if she had just seen an alien creature.
"The secret weapon, the one that these thieves have had stolen away for years now, the only one that can make the secret device operational again," he said with a full-of-pride tone to his voice-
BAM!
All of a sudden Futaro felt his hand getting kicked by one of the impostor Fuus. The grenade, luckily for all of them, slipped from his palm, broke the window above the desk, and landed far away from their building without getting activated. Someone could say that this was the luckiest moment in the unluckiest Miku's day. The gods still had plans for her, she thought... Takebayashi, ignoring the pressure of Futaro's hand on the upper part of her body, and with a 'capoeira' technique, used both of her legs, even though they weren't even touching the ground, and pushed him backwards to the door.
The mixed sound of his loud, piercing cry and the door's wood splintering apart echoed
through the restaurant.
Without wasting time, like a cheetah that had just spotted its prey, she jumped onto Futaro
and with a quick right jab she knocked him out...
Immediately turning her head back to Miku: "Did you see which of the two kicked his arm?"
Still petrified from the latest events, she looked into Take's eyes with an expression that was worth a thousand words... "Sadly I didn't, but I think it's about time you explain yourself; and by that, I mean that I don't want half-answers this time... otherwise, my brain is gonna explode into a quintillion pieces!" an enraged Miku, who was not used to even managing or asking for answers with this kind of tone, demanded answers to the countless questions that had been born in a matter of about 15-20 minutes.
"Ask, and I'll see what exactly I can answer," Takebayashi replied while sitting on the unconscious Futaro's belly.
"How did you even learn those kinds of Tekken moves, and what exactly is that cursed ribbon that this specific Fuu was ready to kill, not only us, but also himself for some moments ago?!" and without a second thought she continued "You can probably imagine that I didn't wake up this morning with the intention of drinking my very very last matcha soda... so I think it's time for a proper explanation."
"And what if I refuse to answer? Not because I can't, but it's better for your own safety and for your sister's safety too if you just ignore the whole incident... at the end of the day, thanks to one of those two, we're all still breathing."
"How can I possibly erase from my memory that Fuutaro, our beloved tutor for years, has two identical clones? Even if one of the two didn't have the will to kill everyone in here, this second one was clearly not willing to negotiate" Miku countered while pointing at the stepped on, unconscious Fuu.
"Well, if you're willing to risk it all, here we go! Living in a quintuplets family must have been something special, am I right?"
"What's the point of asking that... please be more specific."
"If you thought that this was too much, are you really ready to learn about the Fuu Clone Wars?"
Takebayashi approached her and grabbed her by both of her shoulders... had Miku been living in the same city all these years as a whole secret war, one that even the government itself might had been participating in, was happening underneath her nose?
"Wait, how do you know about the first matter, and WHAT in the quint-aranoia do you mean by CLONE WARS?!"
"One must wait, and get more answers when the time comes... don't you feel like it's about time to solve the among us Fuu game?"
While approaching both Fuus with a mysterious smile on her lips: "We have about 10 more minutes until kamikaze Fuu wakes back up to reality, so please follow me."
This was not an ordinary day. This was not a funny Miku day. A Miku's day's greatest debate was supposed to be between watching history documentaries or grinding the latest Monster Hunter game version. A choice between revealing who the real crush of hers from 5 years ago was, with a fainted Fuu-like third assassin on the floor next to her feet with a secret agent's handler as her best ally, or abandoning a ready-to-sink ship and returning to her ordinary life while knowing that a war that could change anything at any moment was happening...
"Miku, are you coming too?"
Even though a few minutes ago different periods of her life had been passing through the deepest parts of her mind, with the thought that even her atoms would be reduced to ashes (and most importantly, she would not have the chance to roll for the newest Genshin Impact five star character...), she really wanted to finally participate in something life-changing... she was so bored of living in the shadows while her sisters were flourishing, finding fulfilment in their lives... and apart from all that, she really was curious to discover the real Fuu...
"I'm coming on one condition, those two on their knees with handcuffs on their hands."
"Consider it done, cutie."
After taking care of the matter Takebayashi looked up while placing her left hand under her chin, and touched one of the MasterChef books that were placed in a pyramidal bookcase. A river of memories started flooding through Miku's already confused mind. Was she ready to copy an Indiana Jones move and reveal a secret basement... or not... OHH
Fuutaro's most hardworking student solved the riddle once again! The position of the book... fourth shelf, fourth line...
"Nakano-san, do you want me to-"
Without hesitating, Miku looked them both in the eyes, or more likely into their souls with her stare.
"What's coming to your mind first from Takebayashi's action?"
"It's as clear as the sun that rises every day from east to west. The fourth answer is more likely to be the right one in a multiple choice question!" Fuutaro screamed with certainty and gratification while Fuutarou, with a stare full of terror in Takebayashi's direction-
"PLEASE DON'T-"
As he felt her hand gently shushing his mouth and her lips reaching to his right ear: "Now, now... why are you shouting like that, hmm? We both know that you were forced to be here, and to find something, are you denying that?"
Her lips almost kissing his ear, she whispered, "Fuu-kun?"
As he heard her last words, he could only bring up a single and rightful reaction: "You do not dare-"
She shushed him again and started patting his head affectionately... 'Shhh... it's not like you can do anything in your current situation. If you try to scream again for help, I'll just make sure to double the number of fainted Fuus in the room. Am I clear?"
After taking into consideration all his options, he inevitably nodded like a good puppy to his
owner.
Miku, who was releasing the original Fuutaro carefully and slowly, felt a wave of curiosity striking her vulnerable entity. Futaro had brown eyes. From the very first moment that the door opened wide and he entered the room, she knew that he was a fake Fuu. She started feeling guilty herself. Guilty of what, you might be asking yourselves... The answer was not as easy to swallow as her loyal lover all these years, the matcha soda. It was more like hot chocolate on Christmas Eve. She despised that flavor as much as she despised herself at that moment. The very first week of her encounter with Fuutaro years and years ago, she and her sisters used to make fun, get angry or even use violent methods against him when he simply could not yet figure them out one by one. The countless quintuplets games and pranks... and now the roles had been completely reversed. An original Fuutaro in the Pacific ocean of Fuus... and even though he seemed calm and relieved, she knew that he was hiding a bomb full of irritation on his pneumatic internal world. How could she mess up this badly?! She should have recognised him, and should have been sure who was who from the very moment that Fuutarou had started the wild accusations.
As Fuutaro was about to utter his point of view about the kamikaze Futaro incident, he sensed a passionate hug. One that had the magical ability to transport him back in time, during the hot springs adventure, the special and out of nowhere Miku hug, her smile afterwards that was shining more than the sun's reflection on a lake. "This girl is so unpredictable" he said to himself...
"I am so sorry Fuutaro" Miku continued while embracing him even more tightly, willing to make sure that he was finally unruffled... "I promise, by my headphones' safety, that I will never make this mistake again."
"You... why are you still acting like I'm your daily tutor, dumbass... you don't need to apologize, you kind of saved the day with your memory too. Remembering simple tutoring advise after all these years; if we didn't have a Fuu clones rebellion, I'd have guessed that you came out from a computer as well" he said with blushed cheeks and his heart pounding like two mallets rhythmically hitting either side of a bass drum.
"Fuutaro, if you have the courage and are still willing to take more than a usual tutor responsibility over her, please explain the situation to her while we are waiting for Futaro to wake up" Takebayashi gently said while touching his shoulder and moving closer to the bookcase again.
"It might be very difficult for someone like you to believe this," he took a deep breathe and continued, "but there are many more clones of mine out there, Some might even disguise themselves as regular people, some might even be holograms that you've talked to or served food to in your bakery. We're trying to find out who's responsible for all this. All we know so far about their main goal is that they are being sent for a single purpose. To find the something; or, in other words that you've already heard, the cursed ribbon. Oh, and before I forget, you might have been asking yourself all this time, why we didn't just kill those two... well, first of all, we're not killers. If we kill a clone, it mostly happens by accident. Secondly... if you kill one of them, a signal will immediately indicate the clone's location, and it will expose our location as well-"
KRIM DAM KRIK
A loud noise coming from behind their backs pierced through their ears and hearts... Not even able to find the right words to react to what she had just heard, a literal hurricane of info, Miku had to wait, because the Indiana Jones move was inevitable. A secret basement under the already secret base...
/ / / / / / / / / / / /
The sounds of a toaster's ringing, alongside the angelic song of birds in the balcony, was one of a kind. The hotel where she'd decided to spend most of her recent days was far from being described as luxurious, but it was exactly what she was personally looking for. An oasis in the middle of the ghost-like city. Not that it was abandoned or anything. On the contrary, it was more lively than ever. The energy though. That energy that it was radiating especially towards her was certainly not a positive one.
DRIN DRINNNN
The pancakes were finally ready! What could possibly affect the perfect balance that she had found internally, her inner peace. The view of the city was incredible, the birds were filling her ears with unique melodies, her pancakes were crammed together perfectly and were looking more delicious than ever... but... but something was missing. Something not able to be made, or to be heard, or eaten, or grabbed. Something inside her own heart. A secret chamber was locked there. One that nobody and nothing could ever reach except for one single airheaded person years ago.
She suddenly checked to her left. There was a flower pot that she used to care for night by night with no skipping. She spotted two birds. They must have been of the same kind too, both with green colour to their wings, until the edge of their necks, in which they differed. The male one had a small red circle underneath its beak.
'That's how it always starts" she whispered to herself while clenching her fists. She looked at the table again. The pancakes. The city. And of course her butterfly ribbons, with which she had a love-hate relationship, every morning wearing them with a fake smile in the mirror, because... they never left her, they were always there for her... She tried to stay concentrated on her pancakes. She was hungry, someone could say that saliva was ready to fall from her lips while she was staring them. And then... she heard it... the effort of the male bird which was trying to impress the female one. She could not hold back any longer. As she turned her head back to the flower pot she witnessed both of the criminals of her inner morning peace dancing and chirping to each other...
While drawing her red pistol out of pure anger and jealousy: "In the game of love, you win or you die, there is no middle ground," she said to herself as she shot three times in the air. The birds disappeared in the vast blue of the sky, as she finally tasted the peak of the pancake's tower. They were cold...
A/N: Hello everyone and thanks for reading my chapter! I really enjoyed writing it, even though it was my very first step into fanfics, and in general, the writer's world. The story for sure took a weird turn in this one. Having to deal with so many different Fuus was definitely not something that I was expecting when we started the project and especially when the spinner wheel Gods chose me... I hope that this chapter kept your interest alive and well in preparation for the upcoming ones! :)