Part 2, Chapter 14
Kumiko and Sayaka were out walking after their little escapade in the latter’s home, enjoying the warm late Spring air around noontime. As they were about to pass a street vendor selling food, Kumiko suggested, “Want me to get you something?”
“You don’t have to,” Sayaka assured her with a smile.
“No, no, I insist.”
“Alright, alright.”
Kumiko then walked up to the man selling food and asked him, “May I have two orders of yakitori and two bottles of water, please?”
The man was surprised to hear a relatively deep voice come from Kumiko. Her voice, in a state of transition much like she herself was, was not quite masculine but not quite feminine either. He looked up and replied, “Oh, uh, sure.” He then pulled out four freshly-fried skewers of yakitori and put two of them each on two plates before grabbing two bottles of water. “Alright, that will be six hundred yen.”
“Here you go,” Kumiko said as she slipped the man the required payment in coins. When she was handed the food and drinks, she bowed slightly and replied, “Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome.”
Kumiko then handed Sayaka her food and water. “Eat up, babe.”
Sayaka was a bit surprised to hear Kumiko call her by a pet name, blushing as she took her food. “Th- Thank you…” The two then sat down on a bench nearby and began to eat, remaining silent as they did so. Sayaka began to think to herself about Kumiko giving her a pet name, wondering, “Are we really going that far now? I mean, I know we’ve touched each other already even though we haven’t been together super long, but… For some reason, I feel more… More… What’s that word? Flustered? Yeah, that’s the word! I feel more flustered hearing Kumiko call me ‘babe’ than when we got naked in front of each other. It’s weird. How did we skip so many steps and go for perverted things so soon and yet still blush when we call each other by those nicknames? Is it weird? Am I weird? She can’t be weird. It has to be m-“
“Sayaka?”
“Huh?”
“Are you okay? You just kinda went quiet while barely touching your food.” Kumiko looked concerned at Sayaka’s behavior. “Was it something I said? Did I take it too far by calling you ‘babe?’ I’m sorry if I di-“
“No,” she insisted as she shook her head. “It’s fine. It’s just… Nobody’s ever called me by a pet name. It… It kinda feels good, actually.” She then began to hurriedly chow down on her food, trying to catch up to her girlfriend but instead finishing it rather fast, stunning Kumiko. When she was finished, Sayaka wiped her mouth with a napkin and then downed most of her bottled water. “Thank you, Kumiko.”
“Woah… You must have been pretty hungry. Holy shit.” Then, she got a call on her phone, prompting her to quickly finish her own food and then answer the call. “Hello?”
“Kumiko-kun,” Ruka said on the other end of the line as she helped wipe away blood from Tomoyo’s face. “We have an emergency. Whatever you and your girlfriend are doing, stop it and help us find Kana-chan.”
“Wait, you mean that little girl who sometimes hunts with us? What happened?”
“Her piece of shit father punched Yamanaka-san in the fucking face and took Kana-chan from my apartment after she came here to clean up from a battle,” Ruka explained. “She begged not to go, but her father dragged her away anyway. I already called Hana, and she and Yoshiro are out looking for her. I’ll text you her family’s last known address so you can look for her, too.”
Kumiko sighed. “That sounds messed up. Alright, me and Sayaka will go out looking. What about you?”
“I gotta wait for Yamanaka-san’s father to come get her,” she replied. “She wants to stay with him for a few days before she comes back to my place, and I don’t blame her after Kana-chan’s father sucker-punched her in the nose.”
“Fucking Hell, that’s bad. We’ll be on our way now.”
“Thank you, Kumiko-kun.”
Kumiko then hung up and told Sayaka, “Throw your shit out. We got a situation with that little girl Ozawa.”
Sayaka, worried, replied, “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you while we’re on the way.” The two then got up, bagged their trash up in a single plastic bag, and took off, with Kumiko running in the direction of the address Ruka had sent her while Sayaka followed. Along the way, they passed a small dumpster, with Sayaka popping the lid open and Kumiko tossing the bag inside before they continued their run.
…
At the address of the Ozawa family apartment, Hana and Yoshiro, both of them having transformed, saw that the door was ajar. Hana said to Yoshiro, “Draw your sword. We have no idea what we’re about to walk into.”
“You got it,” he replied as he pulled his cutlass out and then forced the door open, shouting, “Alright, asshole, where the Hell did you go, and where did you take Ozawa Kana?!”
To his surprise, however, the apartment was seemingly empty. It was a mess, with clothes, trash, and other items strewn about all over, almost as if someone had been throwing them around in some kind of fight. Confused, he stepped aside as Hana walked in, calling out, “Kana-chan?! Kazu-kun?! Can you hear us?!”
They both then heard a weak cry for help from another room. Yoshiro looked at Hana and said, “That sounds like her brother.” The two of them then ran into said room, which turned out to be a bathroom, and found a chilling sight.
Kazu, who had been badly beaten and was lying on the tile floor, looked up at the two teenagers and said, “Who… Why… Why are you here?”
Horrified, Yoshiro gasped with shock at his condition. “Who did this to you?! What happened?!”
“They got mad at me…” Kazu began to cry as he tried to recall what happened. “They found out about us… They were so mad they took Kana and… And…” Kazu then began to sob, unable to continue.
“What the fuck…” Yoshiro turned and told Hana, “Hana, I think their parents beat the shit out of Kazu-kun and took Kana-chan somewhere. Somehow, they found out Kana-chan was a magical huntress, and they punished Kazu-kun for hiding it.” He then hugged Kazu, telling him, “It’s okay, Kazu-kun. We’re here. We’re not gonna let anything bad happen to you.”
“I’ll go tell Ruka,” Hana said as she pulled out her phone to make a call. “This is bad. That girl and her father could be anywhere.”
“Kazu-kun,” Yoshiro then asked the young boy. “Do you know where your mom and dad took your sister?”
“I don’t… I don’t know…”
“What kind of car do they have?”
“It’s red,” Kazu explained through the tears. “Red… Red… Four doors… It’s dented in the front. Daddy hit another car a week ago.”
…
Ruka was on the phone with Hana as she ran down the hall of her apartment building, having finally been able to turn Tomoyo over to her father for care. “Red car with four doors and dents in the front,” she replied to Hana. “Got it. I’ll find them. I’ll try to locate Kana-chan as well through the app.” She then hung up as she ran into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. As soon as the doors closed, she punched the wall behind her in anger. “God fucking damn it! If only I hadn’t taken my damn time in the shower, none of this would have happened! I swear to God, when I find those pieces of shit, I’m gonna kill them!”
Once she reached the lobby, she ran out of the elevator and onto the street, unsure of where to go. She looked around before pulling out her phone and opening the Agency app, scrolling through a list of all active magical huntresses and huntsmen in her area before finding Kana’s name. She then selected it and found an option to request her location through her phone. She quickly typed in a reason and sent the request to the Yokosuka dispatch office.
“Come on, come on…” Ruka, getting impatient, sighed and began to run to her right, hoping that perhaps she could run into her as she was on the move. After running for a few blocks, she heard her phone go off with a notification and pulled it out, seeing that her request was approved. “Finally!” She then opened up the app to begin tracking Kana, but as she did, she found that she would not have to go too far.
As luck would have it, the car passed by Ruka just as she rounded a corner, stopping at a traffic light up ahead. She quickly made a dash for it, catching up to the car right as the light turned green. She placed a hand on the passenger-side rear door just as Kana’s mother turned around to see her, shouting, “Hey, what the Hell are you doing?!”
“Hand over Kana-chan right now!”
“Floor it,” she told her husband, prompting him to speed away and nearly take Ruka’s hand with the car.
“Get back here!” Desperate to stop the car, she planted her sword onto the car and hung on for dear life, climbing up onto the roof and stabbing into it several times to keep herself attached. “You won’t get away from me!”
As the car sped down the street, it blew through several stop signs and red lights, nearly causing an accident in the process at one intersection. Then, right as they got to one last intersection, Yoko happened to be nearby, having heard about what had happened from Hana. Still in plainclothes, she quickly held out her ring and transformed in a flash of light as the car came right towards her. Kana’s father, blinded by the light of the transformation, swerved to avoid Yoko, and wound up hitting a pole.
This caused Ruka to fall off of the car and land on the ground, but she quickly got up as Yoko aimed her crossbow at both of Kana’s parents and demanded from them, “GET OUT! GET OUT OF THE CAR RIGHT NOW!”
Ruka also ran over and grabbed her sword from the roof of the car before she reached in through the broken window glass and grabbed a hold of Kana’s father with her free hand. He tried to fight her off, but she quickly gained the upper hand as Yoko forced the door open with her free hand. “Come on! Let’s go! Get out!”
As Ruka and Yoko dragged Kana’s father out, he came out swinging. Both of them dropped their weapons and began fighting him back, not wanting to kill him if they did not have to. He yelled at them, “Let go of me! You can’t get away!” He then turned and told his wife, “Grab the kid and go!”
“The fuck you are!” Ruka then broke free of Kana’s dad and ran around the back to stop Kana’s mother from taking the girl. She pushed her out of the way and grabbed the door handle to the back door, flinging it open and telling a frightened and somewhat bloodied Kana, “Come with me! Come on!”
Kama jumped out and ran into the arms of Ruka, prompting her mother to angrily yell, “What the fuck?! You ran to her and not to your own mother?! What kind of daughter are you?!”
“You hurt my brother,” Kana yelled back at her. “You and Father beat him when he tried to stand up for us!”
“We tried so hard to give you what you needed and this is the thanks we get?! You really need to grow up!”
“Enough!” Ruka held onto Kana tightly as the two of them ran to the other side. There, Ruka picked her sword back up as Yoko continued to restrain Kana’s father. As she held her sword up and pointed it at Kana’s mother, distant police sirens began to get closer and closer to the scene. She ordered her, “Don’t lay another fucking hand on Kana, or I’ll kill you!”
Defiant, Kana’s mom pulled out a switchblade from her coat and yelled back, “Try me! Try me, bitch!”
She then ran forward, prompting Kana to scream in fear before Ruka yelled, “STOP!” A slashing sound was soon heard, followed by another scream and the sound of someone being stabbed.
When Kana opened her eyes, she saw her mother lying on the ground in a pool of her own blood, followed by Ruka bleeding from a wound to her chest after she had used herself to shield Kana from harm. She called out, “Mother! Ruka-oneechan!”
Ruka fell to the ground, covering the wound the best she could with her left hand as she dropped her sword. She muttered in pain as she coughed, “Agh… Shit… That bitch got me good.”
As she bled, Kumiko and Sayaka rushed to the scene, as did two police officers who pulled up in a patrol car. They quickly attended to Ruka as well as Kana’s mother, and they also relieved Yoko from restraining Kana’s father as well. Ruka looked all around her as everyone’s mouths moved, but she could barely hear them talk. Everyone looked worried, and Kana in particular was sobbing. She thought to herself as she began to fade in and out of consciousness, “I think… I think I killed her… I think I killed Kana’s mom. I wonder if I’ll end up going to jail for this. Even if I do, as long as Kana’s safe, that’s what matters. Everyone else looks so scared… So scared… So…”
…
Two hours later, Ruka awoke in the Agency hospital in Yokosuka. As she did, she turned and saw two familiar faces in the room with her. The first, the same nurse who had treated her all the way back when she had first joined the Fox Knights, saw that she was awake and said to her, “Welcome back. You know, you and your gang are really becoming familiar to us.”
“Ah, hey there… Yeah, I know…”
“Your uncle says hi, by the way.” She then wrote down the time that Ruka woke up on a clipboard. “Also, if you haven’t noticed yet, we have a visitor in the room with you.”
“Huh?” Ruka turned her head to see Yoshiro sitting with her. She asked him, “Is it just you?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Everyone else is busy talking to the police. They’re gonna arrest Kana’s father for child abuse.”
“Huh… What about her piece of shit mom?”
Yoshiro sighed and turned his head. The nurse nodded at him and told Ruka, “She was brought to a different hospital for regular civilians and pronounced dead from her wounds. At this point, the police are not going to charge you for what you did, but they do want to ask you questions when you’re ready.”
Ruka looked down and remarked, “I see… Shit.”
“As for your medical condition,” the nurse explained further. “Some healing dust was applied, and that, combined with quick work from your friends and the police, saved your life. The switchblade just missed your lungs and your heart. You should consider yourself very lucky, Kishio Ruka-san.”
“Damn…”
“If you need anything else, let us know. In the meantime, I’ll leave you and your friend here alone.” She then left the room.
Yoshiro told Ruka as soon as they were alone, “It feels like the past month and a half have just been one thing after another.”
“You got that right, Yoshiro. Man, I never thought I’d say this, but I need a fucking break from hunting. Hell, I’ll take hunting actual magical beasts over fighting other people for a change.” She then looked through her hospital gown at bandages over the wound. “I just hope I won’t have to miss too much with the fencing club.”
“This next week will be a quiet one for us anyway,” Yoshiro assured her. “You can hang back and take it easy. I can’t say the same for Hana, though. She’s got a ton of kendo club stuff planned for next week.”
“Which means she won’t be available for hunting. Ugh, of all the times to get hurt seriously, it had to be now.”
Yoshiro, a bit annoyed at the implication that the Fox Knights could not hunt properly without Hana, replied to her, “Hey, what does that mean, huh?”
“What?”
“Are you saying we can’t handle ourselves? We’ll be fine, even if Hana’s too busy and you’re out of commission.”
“I won’t be out of commission for long, and I wasn’t implying that. I trust everyone in the Fox Knights to hold their own. I’m just saying that if shit hits the fan again, we may not have two of our best members available to respond.”
“Hmph… Best… Well, at least one of our best…”
“Come on, dude, now of all times? Let’s not bicker in a fucking hospital, please.” She then turned on the TV with a remote from nearby and tuned it to a news channel. “Some crazy shit’s going down in the world, huh?”
“Yeah, you can say that again.” Yoshiro then turned his chair around to watch the news with Ruka, getting closer to her bed as he did so. “You know, uh…”
“Hm?”
“When I heard you got hurt again, I was the first person to show up at the hospital besides Yoko-senpai, Murata-senpai, and Miyamura-san. I was…” He then blushed and turned away from her. “I was really worried for you, okay?”
Ruka smiled and told him, “Thank you. Listen, I’d do the same for you anytime.”
“I know. You have.”
“Is Yamanaka-san okay? That bastard clocked her in the face really good before he took Kana-chan.”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “She got her nose broken, but she’ll be fine.”
Ruka then looked over at Yoshiro silently as he watched the news. The two had a relationship that fluctuated between being annoyed at each other or being very close, and as time went on, the two had leaned more and more towards the latter. In addition, Ruka could not help but think he was attractive. “You know, I think he’d have no trouble dating any of the girls on the team if he wasn’t so focused on Hana. Honestly, I’m impressed he’s managed to keep it in his pants for so long when he’s surrounded by girls so much of the time. He has restraint, unlike Yamanaka-san’s cousin, or at least before he began dating Yoko. A boy like that is a boy I’d like to date… And I gotta admit, he’s pretty cute, actually. Even so, I don’t think he wants me. He’s too focused on our leader.”
Yoshiro, for his part, was also thinking about Ruka while he watched the news. “If it weren’t for Hana, or for how annoying Ruka can be, I’d make a pass at her. It sucks so many guys only see her body and act like assholes around her for it, but… I hate to say it, but I see why she gets some looks, even if it’s wrong. She’s actually really pretty. If you only ever met her more formal side, you would never guess she’s a foul-mouthed sword-fighter.”
Then, Hana walked into the room. She looked over at Ruka and smiled. “Ruka, I’m glad to see you’re okay. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” she replied to her. “Are you done talking to the police about what happened?”
“Not quite,” she replied with a sigh as she yawned. “I’m just taking a break. I gotta go to an actual police station and talk more soon. It’s gonna be a late night for me.”
“I assume I’ll be talking to them a lot very soon, too?”
“Oh yes, you will,” Hana chuckled. “I can’t say anything for certain, but I doubt you’ll be in trouble. As for Kana and Kazu…” She then turned around and said, “Come on in.”
The twins then walked into the room. They were both bandaged up from their minor injuries, but by and large, they were both physically okay compared to Ruka. As a surprised Ruka and Yoshiro watched, Kazu spoke first, telling her, “Thank you for saving my sister and me. You saved our lives.”
“It’s nothing,” she replied with a slight smile. “I’m just glad you two are okay.”
“One more thing,” Kana then said. “Me and my brother talked, and… Um… Ruka-oneechan, we’re going to join the Fox Knights.”
“You gave us a chance when no one else did,” Kazu explained. “And we want to hunt alongside you.”
Hana added, “I think with the right mentorship, they’ll be great additions to the team. I know they’re young, but they have potential, Ruka. If you can help train them, they’ll be all set.”
Ruka looked over at the twins, telling them with a smile, “Sounds like I’ll be mentoring you two. Just be warned, though, I won’t go easy on you just because you’re young.”
“Thank you, Ruka-oneechan!” Kana then gave Ruka a hug, startling her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Normally, Ruka would have reacted with apprehension towards Kana for touching her. However, in this moment, she felt a soothing calm as she returned the embrace from her hospital bed. In a way, she saw a bit of her younger self within Kana and Kazu, and she felt a duty to teach them how to better themselves in a magical beast hunt, especially now that they were freed from their grasp of their abusive parents.
