Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written fiction, the views and opinions in this story are not intended to be viewed as those of the author. Ranma 1/2, Urusei Yatsura, Inuyasha, and Five Pound Gospel are the creations of Rumiko Takahashi, property of their respective rights holders and publishers. Please support the official releases.

CW: This story will contain violence, strong language, sexual humor and situations, drug use, Moroboshi Ataru, and Happosai. You've been warned.

|Foundation|

It would have been nice to have gotten right to rifling through the dojo's old documents, but the trip back from Taian was a lot longer than anticipated due to making sure the Butsumetsu boys made it back to their turf safely. The air was charged with tension, so many unknowns arrested their ability to develop this case to its final end. Also not fun was every time they began to make progress, their foes seemed to leap in a new direction.

Looming large was not a roving band of weirdos, but something with a deep connection to the Tendo Family itself that went back farther than the SAD and maybe even the people fighting on the frontlines of this new conflict. Feeling like they were just one clue away from being able to get right to wrapping it up left them antsy,

However, they would not pass the time sitting idle, they were martial artists, and they would prepare themselves as such.

Akane was clad in her gi, representing her school a bit today, beyond her school dress needing a wash. Katie had stripped down to the top and shorts she wore under her school dress, ready and waiting to begin. Both had taken a ready stance to negate openings, each allowing a bit of passive pressure to bleed into the surroundings.

One would not be wrong to say these two were the hardest hitting fighters in the area. Katie broke bones as a matter of course and Akane could topple large men with the smallest gesture. The space between them warped and skewed, becoming larger than normal yet paradoxically smaller to the senses of the fighters. Each had entered the den of a wild beast after all, so there was a bit of worry just because spar or not, it was hard to hold all the way back enough to avoid injury.

With a stiff nod and no words exchanged, the girls moved towards one another at high speed.

Katie's reach was something of a problem, a fact of life given her build. She wasn't just tall, she had long arms and legs too, meaning there was a puzzle for Akane's fighting to solve.

Jabs came from the Senpai of the pair, making sure the Kouhai understood her predicament. Akane parried them in short order, then bobbed her head and weaved her body to bring herself closer amidst the deluge of quick strikes her senior followed with. She had precious little time to be fancy, so the front kick she threw could come off as unskilled brawling to the uninitiated.

It was a bit of inspired genius to the one who knew better. Even as it missed, Katie's flow was disrupted when she twisted her body to strike Akane with her left knee. The shorter girl threw up both arms to block the kick and only shuffled in the direction of the hit, none the worse for wear.

Many opponents shrank from reach advantage, becoming turtles and trying to block too much, but Akane quickly overcame the instinct to defend with a quick round house kick to clear some space between her and her opponent. Feinting with a cross, she switched up to a low kick that Katie stopped with a strike of her own, before she went in with a stream of quick jabs aimed for Katie's chest and stomach. A sound like rapid-fire clapping followed as Katie was forced to walk backward while rolling her hands backward to keep ahead of and block Akane's hits.

Then Akane came up with a quick kick to the left side of Katie's head that she blocked–followed by an even quicker blow aimed at the right side not unlike the one that put her in the wall during their first spar. Katie leaned back around it, then lashed out with a crescent kick that interrupted Akane's flow and allowed her to recapture the offensive.

Her swings were deceptive, looking wide but moving much faster than Akane's shorter jabs, keeping her on the backfoot, as Katie put more pressure. When the smaller girl found an opening to attack, her uppercut aimed at Katie's jaw was stopped by an elbow, and her subsequent spin kick aimed at Katie's side was stopped by a raised knee.

Right on the heels of becoming the wall to Akane's attack, Katie's offense fell on her like the wall toppling forward in a deluge of quick standing strikes aimed at testing her fortitude in the face of being caught within her reach.

Showing she had been learning from earlier spars, Akane checked her with parries reminiscent of karate-a hallmark of her family school mixing the various fighting arts. Her tenacity was rewarded with scraping in two quick punches to strike Katie's stomach and chest, then an uppercut to her chin without her being able to deflect them off course first. Perhaps she didn't feel the need, knowing they had no chance of landing.

Katie took two steps back and the briefest moment to appreciate Akane connecting her hits. "I love how you come in and stay in."

"It's that or wait outside and get hit, Senpai!" Akane shot back before she shot forward.

Footfalls resounded like captured thunder, gently rattling the walls of the dojo as if a reminder of the hall's true purpose. Akane's step-in improved even further to keep up with her Senpai, erasing the gap between them if Katie forgot to put an attack up to counter.

Katie's chest thrummed, rising and falling in time to the stern puffs of air blasting out of her nostrils. Just like their first spar, she was being pressed by her kouhai and it felt great.

You're such a gosh dang joy to throw hands with! She thought as she threw a forward knee then stomped hard towards Akane, routing her from the attack.

She surged forward, high kicking and stomping again three more times before lunging with a rear uppercut that connected with Akane's stomach and lifted the girl off her toes.

Akane's feet came down solid, spaced out, and she raised her right arm to powerfully block the downward roundhouse Katie had followed her uppercut with. The force of the blow traveled through her whole body, but the shockwave was invigorating.

That was a good hit! Show me more of your Muay Boran, Senpai! She thought with exhilaration.

The spar's pace quickened, both girls beaming with joy, seeing the other had made another step forward, even as they exchanged blistering blows. One of Katie's elbows connected with Akane's cheek, and her kouhai's retaliatory uppercut found its mark in turn before they apart to see how to proceed next.

Akane rubbed her cheek, as her gaze sharply swept over her Senpai. "That was incredible."

Katie giggled. "Your aggression is amazing, Akaneko, but turn it up more!"

The younger girl obliged in making the first move, seemingly vanishing into a left high kick without a single tell to its name. However, Katie did not retreat as orthodoxy demanded, she moved in a way that allowed her to avoid the attack and advance to pressure Akane back.

Bubbles of warmth floated through her as the joy of battle, of proving her growth, swept through Akane. Again, she moved to meet the foreign girl's assault, slipping in some surprising hooks and even a cheeky little uppercut to gain space. She wasn't just matching her; she was improving as a fighter to meet Katie's silent expectations as well as her own.

It might've been weird that this feeling was absent until now, but once she reflected on it, it really wasn't. Kasumi was less an older sister than a surrogate parent at times, inspiring awe and reverence in place of a feeling of being able to reach said sister's domestic dominance. Nabiki was too close in age, being barely a year older which left them feeling almost like peers instead of older and younger sisters.

Akane could easily be seen as more mature and responsible from some angles, and it became clearer.

Without her sisters, without her father, without anyone who fought on her level, it was so hard to find the high that battle brought. The way her body shook from blows connecting or being blocked, the blood rushing through her ears as she moved with someone who could move with her.

Nothing came close. Tendo Akane was a martial artist, and Katie was the first one of those she'd had the pleasure of fighting in years who didn't immediately spoil it by being a raging idiot.

It felt good to tear down that one last vestige of Kuno.

Exchanging salvos of punches with Katie, Akane slipped inside her reach to shoulder check and force her off balance. With no time to contemplate what to do, Akane came forward with something she hadn't before, a corkscrew punch from a more mainstream style of karate–one whose founder was famed for fighting bulls… with his fists.

Let it not be said though, that it was as simple as shoving Katie off balance to leave her truly vulnerable. Indeed, she had retreated to avoid a tangle of feet and even on mostly just her left big toe, she was still a threat. Pivoting on just said digit, she matched Akane's corkscrew blow with her own, both punches screaming towards impact.

Just mere millimeters from connecting, the two punches stopped as if they each hit a wall. From between them came a tuft of air that blew back both girls' hair even as it moved on that thin axis that separated them.

Indeed, it was similar to what happened against Kuno.

That did not escape Katie's notice. "Well golly. Where'd that come from?"

"… I just wanted to mix it up a bit," Akane explained, deciding this was a fine point to stop and chat. "Not bad, huh?"

"Not in the slightest," Katie admitted, relaxing into a stance that seemed like a certain mangaka snuck in under an invisibility cloak and posed her. "Lotta people like to boast about having a pretty deep bag but stick to what they got in the smallest pockets. If I had been a second off, that punch could have easily drilled me right into the wall like last time."

Akane could not feel more content. "Right? But you always seem to be a half step in front of me, Senpai. I still have a way to go before I can catch up to that."

Beaming, Katie chuckled. "You're so much closer than you think you are. This ain't your primary form of fightin', after all."

Akane nodded, but a smile failed to find her face. "I feel like I'm making great strides in my hand to hand, though."

"You are," Katie insisted, before she pouted a bit. "But I haven't gotten to spar with you swinging a sword yet. I wanna see ya do what you know best, yannow?"

Akane's eyes lit up at the opportunity to show Katie what she could do with a bokken, before clapping off to their side reminded both girls of the world outside the dojo. Soun stood there, a goofy grin on his face.

"That was wonderful, both of you!"

Akane bowed in reverence to her father, her smile returning as she came up.

Katie didn't mind the interruption, in fact, she was happy to see him up and doing more than sitting on his butt. "Hey, thanks," she said, starting out a bit smoother than normal. "What's up?"

"Is dinner ready?" Akane asked her father.

"Oh, dinner is still a bit off, I just heard you two sparring and came to watch."

"Glad you enjoyed the show," Katie replied. "Just as glad that you showed up, too. We got some questions to ask."

"Oh?" Soun was interested in Katie's request, curious if they wanted some input from an old hand at the craft. "I'd be happy to offer any input you desire."

"Mighty kind of you." Katie said before she cut to the chase. "Well, we found out who got the drop on them acquaintances of ours the other night, and after some poking around we found something interesting. Does the name 'Sickle Gang' ring a bell with you?"

Soun rubbed his chin with a growing frown. "There's a name I have not heard in a long time. An old gang of… unusual people."

"Yeah, leather daddies, we been fighting them the last few days."

Akane nodded. "Or at least we were. We haven't seen so much as a studded wristband since they tried to jump us at school."

With a grave nod, Soun continued rubbing his chin. "At school? I wish I could be surprised at their wretched barbarism; I'm glad that you both have come from these battles safe."

"They were tough, but weren't nothin' we can't handle with a plan," Katie said. "The thing we're more concerned about is what they're raising all this fuss about."

Soun grew curious. "Oh?"

Akane elaborated. "One of your former students has been dealing with them; they seem to be after something that might be here."

Katie noticed it before Akane did, Soun's eyes widening in alarm.

"Dad," Akane continued, "Why did the Sickle Gang want to fight with your old master, Happo–?"

Much faster than Katie thought the man possible, Soun rushed across the dojo to his daughter and clamped his hand over her mouth. As Akane recoiled, shocked, her father bellowed all but directly in her face.

"DO NOT SAY THAT NAME!"

Akane stared at her father, blinking rapidly but saying no words.

Katie rubbed the back of her head. "I mean, it's a bit late fer that. We've been saying his name all day."

Soun turned to her, looking almost demonic. "You do know that when you speak of the devil, he can hear you all the way in Hell!"

He released Akane, and her confused gaping was replaced by a scowl. "The Sickle Gang were supposed to fight…" When she saw her father about to flip out, she amended herself much quicker. "… your old master. What happened?"

"He died," Soun answered abruptly.

Katie figuratively leaned in. "Y'sure about that?"

"Absolutely," he answered with the same suddenness.

Katie and Akane shared looks and realized, at once, that they did this a lot when they were of the same thought.

"Okay then, why were the Sickle Gang going to fight him before he died?" Akane pressed.

As if all the demons of fear and dread had been flattened to the ground by the gravity of the situation, Soun grew serious. "To better understand what I am about to tell you, I must provide some context…"

Katie gestured for Soun to continue. "All right."

"The leader of the Sickle Gang and my Evil Master were both men who deeply opposed one another."

Akane took note. "So, this was a conflict involving a gang of women-hating men in leather, and your master was the evil one?"

"There were no heroes in their conflict," Soun said plainly.

Both girls hummed in grim understanding.

Soun bowed his head. "Shortly before my Evil Master's inexplicable, mysterious death that I am still unsure of the circumstances… he came to me with a chilling secret regarding our old dojo, which he sold for sake–the sake of saving the secrets of the founding school. Beneath the dojo, there is a temple dedicated to mischievous foxes, and at its center is a spring of tremendous power."

Katie brightened. "Ooh, a mystical spring?"

Akane rolled her eyes. "What's so mystical about it?"

Soun lifted his head up. "According to legend, many generations ago, a village that once sat here was beset upon by rambunctious foxes who caused mayhem and did as they pleased. The villagers were at their wits' end with how to stop them, until a traveling monk from a faraway place in China called Jusenkyo appeared."

Both girls nodded, following the story so far.

"The monk, after hearing the plight of the villagers, spoke a mysterious chant and tapped his staff on the ground. From where his staff struck the ground, a spring bubbled forth–and when the foxes went into it, they came out transformed into men!"

Akane tilted her head to one side. "The spring turned the foxes into men."

Soun nodded. "True story."

Katie scrutinized that. "So… the monk's solution for a roving band of troublemaking varmints was to transform them into something bigger, stronger, and with opposable thumbs?"

Soun nodded again. "Correct. Instead of fixing the problem it made everything worse and no one was happy."

Katie shook her head, exasperated by the absurd outcome. "Not all who wander are wise."

But when she gave the story some more thought, and put two and sixty-nine together, her nose crinkled in disgust. "… No…"

Akane puzzled at her Senpai's lament. "What is it, Sen…"

When Katie turned the look onto her kouhai, realization took her as well. "… No…"

Soun confirmed their cringiest fears. "No doubt, the Sickle Gang want the Spring for themselves, so that they may turn everything its water touches into men."

Hearing what she was thinking being said aloud, however, removed Akane from the plot. "Wait, no, that's stupid."

Katie agreed, but it needed to be said. "Well, they weren't none too bright to begin with."

"That's their big plan, grab water from a mystical spring and just turn everyone into men?!" Akane asked. "Come on, Dad, what does anyone even gain from that?"

Nabiki chimed in from the doorway. "I'm gonna have to ask cui bono on this one, too."

Akane held her hand in greeting. "Hey, Nabiki."

Soun shook his head. "What would a group like the Sickle Gang gain at all from a world of only men?"

Katie dropped her shoulders and looked down at her feet. "I really didn't wanna think about it in those terms, but God damn it…"

"It's not just dumb–it's childish," Nabiki derided. "I mean, sure, wanting the freedom to be gay in Japan is something worthy of sympathy–but this whole 'turn everything into a man' thing is on some real serious chuunibyou hours."

Her head still bowed; Katie felt indignation burn just below her heart. "That just rubs me the wrong way."

Soun offered reassurances to the agitated young women. "I wouldn't be too worried. The secrets of the Fox Temple, from where it is located to the key to accessing the spring, are all safe within the walls of this dojo. The Sickle Gang can try all they like, but they'll never come close."

Akane ruined that delusion of safety. "Um… Dad? I did say that one of your old students has been dealing with them."

Soun let out a boisterous, confident laugh. "I've trained many students, but none that I have taught the secrets of the Tendo Dojo's solemn duty! Well, except for one; a fine young man–almost the top of all of my students from those days before your mother's passing."

Nabiki chimed. "His name wouldn't have been Suzuki, would it?"

Soun nodded. "Ah, you remember him!"

The Tendo Patriarch went still, his cheerful smile locked onto his face.

"Ah."

Rolling her eyes, Nabiki turned away from her father. "Welp, better make use of the time we have to secure my belongings before the inevitable Leather Daddy assault on the Tendo Compound."

Akane called out to her sister. "Nabiki, you can't just say that like they're going to just–"

Katie gently sealed a hand over Akane's mouth this time, bringing her close in the same motion so the taller girl could gently talk in her ear.

"Akaneko, you're an absolute sweetheart and I adore this friendship we have, but please shut the hell up before you drop one of them there fate-tempting lines and we gotta battle a bunch of old perverts before Kasumi gets done with dinner."

Her eyes widened with understanding, before Akane nodded in compliance.

"Atta girl."

Nabiki brought good news, at least. "I didn't encounter anything strange on my way back home, and I walked the whole way. It was just quiet outside; not distressingly quiet like we were about to be ambushed in the next five seconds–"

Everyone in the dojo gave pause and waited.

All clear.

"Or not with obvious guys in black lurking around, waiting to launch their attack now that we're all in the same spot–"

They once again paused.

No savage combat commenced.

"It was just me, the night air, and not a soul to be heard."

Another pause followed, before Katie finally spoke up.

"I swear on my Momma, Papa, and all my lil cousins if you keep tempting fate, I will shut your mouth for you."

Nabiki fluttered her eyebrows at the taller girl. "Promise?"

Akane broke free of Katie, rising to her feet. "Whatever! Let's sit down for dinner before some idiot really does attack the house!"

Katie shared Nabiki's mirthful look and couldn't help but giggle as Akane stomped out followed by Soun.

As he passed his second daughter, she poked his shoulder and received his attention.

"By the by, I passed Dr. Tofu's on the way over, and he wanted to know if you'd be up for a neighborhood watch patrol later tonight. You don't have to go, but seeing how you're the big bad martial arts master of the family, and you happen to know a thing or two about the Sicko Gang? It'd be considerate."

Her gaze was not merely probing, she saw clean through him–she already knew his answer.

Soun cleared his throat. "We shall see. I have been nursing something of a headache today; depending on how I feel after dinner, I may just lie down."

With that he headed on, Nabiki's withering gaze burning a hole in the back of his head.

As she turned to address Katie, the taller girl's right hand came to rest on the doorway just above her shoulder. Right there, just inside of Nabiki's personal space, Katie leaned in close and spoke with a tender tone even gentler than when she chastised Akane.

"Yannow," she murmured, dipping her head closer to hers. "While we're dealin' with this mess, maybe you shouldn't walk home by your lonesome this late, even if it's a straight shot from school. I'd hate for anythin' to happen to ya."

Nabiki stared into Katie's eyes, feeling not unlike a rabbit cornered in the gaze of a wolf leisurely deciding what to do with her. The taller girl's nearness made the difference between their respective heights all the more striking, but it was the softness and the genuine concern in her voice that had its strongest effect.

The second Tendo daughter was not used to the sound of her blood rushing through her veins or her pulse rapidly pounding in her ears.

"I'll be happy to walk you home, all you gotta do is call," Katie continued, before she turned and strolled after Soun like nothing happened.

Nabiki followed the other girl with her eyes, trying to remember how to breathe as she fell out of sight. Even when she did, she still needed a few moments more for the flush blooming across her face to fade and the strength return to her legs before she could finally join the others in the living room.

Ucchan slowly woke up, his world coming into focus revealed an unfamiliar ceiling brightly illuminated by a single circular fluorescent light. Turning over, he winced from the ache shooting from his back, and brought his hand to the source. Deep, heavy breaths fought down the reverberating pain, and the Okonomiyaki chef's vision focused enough for him to see that he was topless save for the bandages that tightly bound his chest.

He looked up again and found Kamaitachi leaning beside the only doorway out of the room that contained only the two of them, the bed, and a window to Ucchan's right with venetian blinds drawn closed. It was impossible to tell what time of day it was, let alone how long he'd been here in this bed–but Ucchan wasn't too concerned with that.

A few hours or a hundred days, it mattered little. He was furious that he was here at all, at the mercy of the people who'd humiliated him twice, now.

Kamaitachi met this okonomiyaki chef's seething scorn with indifference, as he spoke. "May I ask you something?"

"I think we're past the part where my consent matters for much."

Looking at the bandages, Kamaitachi shrugged his shoulders. "It was do something or let you bleed out on the floor of a bar; I'm not a monster."

"I'd much rather be dead than in your care, pervert," Ucchan snapped back.

Kamaitachi let out a sharp tch. "Don't flatter yourself."

"I'd rather flatten you."

Kamaitachi huffed through his nose, a self-aggrandizing little sound of superiority, and matched it with a smirk. "I guess you're on the mend, good."

But he was acting appropriately, Ucchan acutely aware of how his body shifted to an alert, tense posture. "Well, what were you so curious about, then?"

Kamaitachi asked. "When did you realize that your life would be better as a man?"

Ucchan's brow furrowed, his head tilting to give his interrogator a more sidelong look. "The hell kinda question is that?"

"I'd say an important one–the dressing, the speech, even your body language… you're committed to being a man above anything else. So, when?"

Ucchan's gaze furtively slipped towards the window then back to Kamaitachi. "Do I get out of here if I satisfy your curiosity?"

Kamaitachi shrugged his shoulders, not committed to answer either way.

It was a non-answer that didn't matter. "When I was a little kid, I threw away my femininity, because everyone and their side-talking mothers decided I was unfit to be a woman."

Kamaitachi drew back, in a mix of confusion and disgust, before he looked down his nose at Ucchan. "Really? How old were you?"

"I was little," Ucchan replied.

"And that's just how it's been? No one's thought different of you as you threw being a girl aside?"

Ucchan's shoulders lifted for a tense instant, then dropped. "It's actually been easier to live as a guy. Never had to deal much with perverts trying to chat me up like I see them go after girls all the time. Well… almost…"

In the Furinkan neighborhood, a post-office box sneezed. It startled a passing Dr. Tofu so much that he put the whole length of the quarterstaff he carried with him for his nightly rounds between himself and the mailbox to cautiously poke it.

Ucchan rocked his head from side to side and rolled his shoulders slowly while he spoke. "Since everyone was already making fun of me for being a failure of a girl, it wasn't a problem for them to accept me when I gave up on it. Though the ribbing did start up again when I got into All-Boys schools–funny, that kinda mess stopped when I wasn't around girls anymore."

Kamaitachi extended kind words of commiseration. "Girls can be bullshit like that."

Ucchan rebuked his broad stroke, there would be no common ground. "The girls I used to know, at least. After I dropped out and started working in the real world, where there ain't a bunch of idiots who liked to talk shit about you because they know you… I found that people generally default to not bein' assholes."

Ucchan held his open palm towards him, for emphasis. "Yannow, unlike you weirdos. Turns out, that the only people I got problems with, are fuckheads who do whatever they like and don't give a rat's ass how that hurts other people's feelings."

"No kidding?" Kamaitachi asked.

"And it really pisses me off, when they think they can act all buddy-buddy after they've robbed me and nearly killed me when I came to get my get-back."

Kamaitachi shrugged his shoulders once more. "If it's an apology you want, I'm man enough to admit–"

"We're way past the point of apology, sugar," Ucchan growled. "You started this fight and I have every intention of endin' it."

The burst of intent to harm swapped out Kamaitachi's mood quickly. His casual openness evaporated into a frustrated glower like it was always there. "I really had hoped you getting cut open would sober you up a bit, help you realize that maybe you're on the wrong side of this fight."

Ucchan sneered. "I ain't a wuss that rolls over. Not fer you, not fer anyone!"

He pointed an accusing finger at Kamaitachi. "You and all those other weirdos you hang out with are trash! Dressing up like perverts and prancing around! Acting like yer all hot shit because you get the jump on people and they're too embarrassed to even touch you!"

Kamaitachi's face darkened with his irritation, and Ucchan welcomed it. "And what, you wanna be taken seriously?! Feared?! The only reason I'm this pissed off is because I lost to you clowns, and I can't forgive myself for that!"

Stiff silence followed, dragging on from a second to moments, before Kamaitachi pulled a cigarette from a pack in the pocket of his leather vest, and lit it with an old butane lighter. The wheel grinding to spark the flame and the clicking of the stainless-steel lid to extinguish it were the only sounds in the room besides Ucchan's seething breath.

The reddish orange glow left at the end of the cigarette brightened to yellow and crawled up the white stalk, as Kamaitachi took a long drag. His eyes were half-lidded from the much-needed hit of nicotine, but still beaming his contempt, as he replied.

"You talk some good shit, for someone literally at my mercy."

"Why wouldn't I?" Ucchan retorted, with malice aforethought. "I'm more of a man than you are."

The chef saw how deep those words struck, cutting clean through the airs Kamaitachi was putting on, to hit the insecurity beneath. Good.

"Aw, hun, did that hurt your feelings? I'll be the bigger man and apologize."

With a crash and a thud, Ucchan was pinned to the bed by a hand at his throat. Straddled over him, Kamaitachi held aloft the sickle in his trembling other hand as smoke from the abruptly forgotten cigarette rolled from his mouth with his angry pants.

"You don't understand anything, you're just another bitch…!" He snarled.

Ucchan met his fury in kind, screaming in spite of the grip around his neck. "Do it, pussy!"

Right between the eyes, Kamaitachi decided. That was where he'd break the blade of this sickle off in the defiant young man's skull.

The room's sole door was thrown open.

"KAMAITACHI!"

Madame Kamenbell's voice thundered, and his right hand fled without a word of protest, abandoning his weapon to land beside Ucchan.

The leader of the Sickle Gang stood in the open doorway; a hand drawn to his mouth in horror at the scene he found. "You had told me that this young man could see reason and be brought to understand our cause!"

Kamaitachi bowed his head and spoke with desperate remorse. "I tried, Madame Kamenbell, but I was wrong. This one is just an idiot."

Ucchan erupted into a caustic laugh. "I'd rather be an idiot, then accept whatever you weirdos believe in."

Madame Kamenbell, in spite of his harsh words, reached out to him with a plea. "How can you say that, when the life you live is what we fight for?"

The glee Ucchan enjoyed cajoling Kamaitachi to strike vanished and only his venom remained. "You don't know me or my life!"

"You said it yourself!" Madame Kamenbell accused. "Society deemed you unfit to be a woman… but when you chose to live as a man, you found freedom."

Madame Kamenbell stepped forward, arms raised and open as he appealed to him. "That freedom is what all men aspire to achieve. The freedom that we fight for."

Ucchan narrowed his eyes at the older man.

"Like I told this pervert," she said while indicating Kamaitachi with a nod, "Ain't nothing you can say that changes that I think y'all are a bunch of cheap-shotting wierdos without an ounce of decency. The fact that you wanna compare yourselves to me is disgusting!"

Kamaitachi, still cowed by Madam Kamenbell's rebuke, flinched and kept his head down. The Madame himself grew grim, his eyes narrowing behind his mask as his lips curved into a deep frown.

"So much fire, so much beauty… can you not see what you inspire, as a man?"

Ucchan's eyes burned the position of Kamenbell, Kamaitachi, and the room's unguarded window into his memory as he answered.

"I don't think any of us can see much of anything."

With all of his might, Ucchan threw Kamaitachi's sickle into the light fixture, shattering it with a loud pop.

"Kamaitachi!" Madame Kamenbell yelped as the room plunged into pitch darkness.

"Damn it, don't let him–!"

It was too late to stop Ucchan. A loud crash and splintering filled the room as he blindly dove through and out the window and into the night air beyond it.

High above the streets of Taian, Ucchan gawked with wide eyes as he realized he was over a dozen stories off the ground, tumbling from the broken windows of a highrise apartment over the glitzy neighborhood's empty but well-lit streets.

Catching himself as the air rushed past his ears, he tumbled forward to kick off the side of a smaller building across the street, redirecting himself to fall towards another building next door to the high-rise apartment he'd escaped. Turning himself to land foot-first against it, he kicked off and hit the street below with a dramatic roll.

Without stopping he leaped to his feet and kept running down the wide-open street towards the intersection at the end of the block–almost a hundred meters away from where he landed. A testament to the late hour, there were no pedestrians to be seen, and only a single vehicle on the road–an unmarked gray commercial van waiting at the light to turn right onto the adjacent street.

A loud metallic crunch and the crystalline crackle of a great deal of glass breaking all at once compelled Ucchan to look back mid-jog.

Madame Kamenbell had fallen from the apartment straight down and landed on a ridiculously large SUV out of place in Japan, let alone the even smaller SAD. Ice formed in Ucchan's veins when the crossdressing man stood from his crouch on the vehicle's crushed roof–wielding in his right hand the massive, ornate scythe that cut the chef down in their first meeting.

Ucchan's run petered to a stop just past the intersection's crosswalk, halfway to dead center of the crossroad. Opposite him, the van began to turn, but stopped in front of the freshly escaped cook.

His escape plan had gotten him this far, but as he stared at Madam Kamenbell and that wicked blade gleaming in the night ambience, he realized that he didn't have a plan past escape. "… Shit."

Madame Kamenbell stood there, staring at him. Then, much faster than Ucchan could prepare to move, the scythe-wielder was upon him, well within striking distance–the weapon raised high to deliver a far deadlier blow than what crippled him before.

The speed he'd been attacked with at Ikemen Teitoku had confused Ucchan before pain overwhelmed him. Witnessing how fast Madame Kamenbell moved–closing the distance the chef thought he'd created between them in the space of a breath–turned the ice forming in his veins into a freeze encasing his heart with terror.

So overwhelmed with panic, his body locked in place, Ucchan didn't realize the scythe blade curving towards his sternum in a downward diagonal course had stopped, the weapon's outer edge centimeters from his right shoulder.

Madame Kamenbell wasn't even looking at him anymore. Something behind him had captured the old man's attention.

The clack of a wooden cane fractured and loosened the icy fear holding him in place, enough so he could turn his head towards the yet-seen potential threat whose presence compelled him to.

It was Anya, standing just outside the sliding door of the van. Inside the vehicle, several men in dark clothes and balaclavas glared menacingly at Madame Kamenbell but made no other threatening movements or gestures from where they sat.

The old woman, holding a smoldering cigar in her left hand, spared Ucchan only the briefest contemptuous glance–the lights from the streetlamps and traffic lights above striking the woman's right eye to make it shine with a distinctly inhuman, pale, glassy glow. Then he was discarded from her notice, all her attention turned to the scythe-wielder.

Ucchan's terror became a primal fear, as Madame Kamenbell's murderous intent was matched by Anya. The clashing presences overwhelmed the wounded young man's weak constitution–robbing him of thought and breath.

The world fell away as he understood his place in it. He was, without warning, on the outside looking in, trapped between two forces that could very well kill him without thinking as they struck at each other, with nothing but deafening silence once more drowning out every sound except the wild pumping of Ucchan's racing pulse.

Then without a word, the tight-lipped Madame Kamenbell pulled his scythe back and rested its spear tip end on the street. He turned away, casting a dark look at Anya before he vanished as quickly as he had moved before.

Just like that, the murderous pressure vanished and Ucchan collapsed onto his knees. Head bowed, hands flat on the street, between body-shaking coughs, he breathed like if he didn't keep pulling in air, his organs would spill from his mouth.

He was alive.

But he felt like he'd just died twice.

Slowly, he looked up at Anya, mumbling. "You… you… saved me."

The woman, still paying no direct attention to him, leaned onto her cane with her elbow, while her freed up right hand deftly finished typing and sending a message. "Do not yet count yourself so fortunate."

Ucchan couldn't understand. "… What–?"

The clap of footsteps filled the air above, and before he could realize what was coming… Daikoku Kaori landed with a sharp tap right beside him.

He turned his head to look at her, and the mask of fury on Kaori's face. After what he just went through, when his gaze shifted to the trembling fist raised above her head to strike him, he only saw salvation.

"YOU IDIOT!"

Her blow came down. With a thud and a flash, Ucchan welcomed unconsciousness.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are so back.