As the school’s clock and bell had been wrecked by Kuno whipping through it, Furinkan Academy’s PA system chimed across the school to alert students of lunch. While most enjoyed lunch in their classes, some ventured outside onto the school’s verdant courtyard to enjoy the spring weather with friends, while others more boldly left school grounds entirely in search of lunch. Katie was among the later, tucked away around the side of the school between the building and the school’s outer wall, shaded by several tall oak trees.
She was looking down at her phone, texting up a storm.
Me:
Okay, I did it.
The Bae said:
What did you do?
Me:
I finally kicked the shit out of that
chuuni asshole. >:|
The Bae said:
Oh shit!! =O
The Bae:
What happened?! ?_?
Me: I told him to fuck off and leave
that girl alone, and he didn’t fucking
listen. :shrug:
The Bae said:
How bad was it?
Me:
They’re gonna need a hose to
clean him out of the clocktower stg.
The Bae said:
JESUS CHRIST KATIE! =O
Me:
What?
The Bae said:
This morning I thought I heard a
church bell explode, that was you?!
Me:
Yeah.
The Bae said:
Unstoppable War Goddess.
:heart_eyes:
Me:
:smug:
Me:
Anyway, Imma have lunch with her,
so maybe send something sweet
that I can share with her when
you send lunch?
The Bae said:
Aw, are you finally
making a friend?
Me:
I hope so. She’s really cute.
The Bae said:
Well, I got streaming to do!
No more interruptions, ‘kay?
Me:
Sorry!!! I’ll let you get back to it!
Finishing the last message, Katie pocketed her phone and sat back against the tree in contentment.
After getting the third degree from her teacher for bodying Kuno (though noticeably not punished) and being swarmed by classmates asking questions, she decided she’d spend her lunch under the clear and comfortable spring sky filled with fluffy white clouds. It was a sky worth looking at, compared to what she was used to back home.
As students began emerging from the building to find their own spots outside to enjoy their food. Not interested in more attention, Katie moved around the tree, putting it between herself and the doors.
Having escaped her own relentless Q&A session, Akane was relieved to be outside and away from her classmates, but a little anxious to sit down and have lunch with the girl who flattened Kuno. It was nice that she had met someone who was not only strong, but also intolerant of the antics that people could get up to around here–but she was from another country, and definitely different from her. Would they even get along?
There is only one way to find out. She thought as she reached the old trees and stepped around the largest of them to look down at Katie. “Izurando-san?”
Katie looked up and was relieved to find just Akane standing there. “Cool, you made it.”
Akane sat down beside her and produced a tori bento lovingly prepared by her sister. She looked at Katie and noticed that she didn’t seem to have her lunch. “Did you bring your lunch?”
“It’s being delivered, so don’t worry. You go on and eat up.”
Nodding, Akane opened the bento. As she took her chopsticks and began eating the delicious chicken and rice, she wasted no time. “So, if you don’t mind my asking…”
“I don’t,” Katie said as she scanned the area for signs of her arriving food.
“How long have you been training in martial arts? You definitely know some Muay Boran.”
Katie turned to look at Akane, impressed. “Not many people make that distinction.”
Akane tried not to sound too proud. “Yes, I’ve seen all sorts of stuff.”
“Use it too. I think I saw six, seven different styles just from watching that fight you had yesterday. A few moves from cartoons, too, actually…”
Akane brushed it off. “Please, I could afford to use whatever came off the top of my head because they were all that weak.”
Katie chuckled; Akane’s opponents were so boring that she’d been memeing all over their faces. “So what’s your actual forte?”
“Armed combat. That’s how all this started. I wanted to join the kendo club, but I had to show what I was capable of and… rrr…” She stuffed some food in her mouth and chewed it to muffle her growl. “Had I known what I was getting into, I would’ve run out of there as fast as I could.”
“So, where would you say you and that chuuni asshole stand, skills wise?” Katie asked.
Akane remembered the match that started the last four days of her life, and how her relentless charge and hail of shinai strikes battered Kuno backward before he could get a swing in edgewise. “He’s the strongest guy in the whole neighborhood. I beat him in the demonstration, but if he didn’t pull his punches he could’ve won.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Katie mulled on that one. “He held back then too, didn’t he?”
“He sandbagged the same reason, too; I was a cute girl and he wanted to go out with me.”
Katie grimaced. “Well, bucky got what he deserved.”
Akane giggled. “It’s kind of a shame he was holding back, I wanted to see you go all out, too.”
And suddenly the older girl’s grimace was a big grin. “You noticed?”
“Mm!” Akane replied. “Once you had him figured out, you took your time and didn’t even break a sweat.”
She looked down at Katie’s legs, splayed out from under her Furinkan uniform’s sky-blue dirndl. She couldn’t see her thighs completely, but her calves were strong with well-built muscle, while her shins and knees bore long healed scars from her relentless training.
“You must be a regular battle maniac, to be good as you are.”
Katie confirmed it. “Yeah, my whole family are basically monsters. My mom, my dad, my uncle, his wife, and their kids…”
“So who trained you?”
“My uncle. Ma and Pa thought it’d be a good hobby to keep my nose clean. So every summer he’d pick me up and we’d go to some other country, and I’d spend every day there training and doing nothing else. This has been a tradition of our family since I was four.”
Akane’s eyebrows rose as she swallowed more of her food. “I’ve never met anyone else as dedicated to martial arts as I am.”
Katie was of the same thought. “Honestly, until I saw you taking names and stopped the buck here, I was starting to think this place was a letdown. My uncle dumped me off here because this is the ‘Martial Arts Mecca.’”
“He’s not wrong at all, there’s more weirdo martial arts and the people who practice them here than anywhere else.”
“Yeah, and I want to train with and fight against strong people,” Katie said brightly, “Like you! What do you say, want to train with me?”
The praise did not miss Akane, and she blushed again. Really? Someone that powerful calling her strong. “I’m strong, but I’m not ‘break a guy’s arms and then put him through a building’ strong.”
“Sure you are, hon, you’re just too nice. You could’ve killed all of those chumps on day one if you wanted to, but you held back.”
Akane disagreed. “I wasn’t trying to be nice to them.”
“I don’t care what anybody says, any girl who can one and done a few hundred boys in under two minutes is strong as hell, I’ll tell you what.”
Katie nudged her shoulder with a fist. “But hey, that says other great things about you. Like, you know, that you’re nice.”
She leaned closer to her. “And I’d rather hang with nice people.”
Akane gave her a sidelong look. “Say, if you were so quick to mess up Kuno, does that make you not nice?”
Katie huffed smugly. “I’m the meanest sumbitch you’ll ever meet.”
“I don’t know~” Akane mused. “You did help me because you think I’m nice.”
“A nice person wouldn’t let someone get jumped once.”
“You still stood up for me.”
Katie looked aside, her eyes focusing on the far wall to their left. “Honestly? I was hoping that at least one of those assholes would snap out of it and actually stand up for you first.” She shrugged her shoulders. “But nope! I guess ganging up on the girl they want to date makes way more sense than attacking the guy who is trying to dictate who can date her.”
Akane sighed, putting it like that made all of those boys extra pathetic.
“I bet if even one of them stood up to Kuno instead of just blindly following the herd, you’d be eating lunch with them right now,” Katie noted.
Akane made a sour face. “I can’t even imagine that!”
“I reckon that’s fair.”
“I swear, I’m off boys forever,” Akane lamented.
“Don’t let a couple hundred idiots ruin all of them for you.”
“Oh I wasn’t going to. I’m done with boys; I need a man in my life.”
Katie bit her lower lip. “You know, I’m hard pressed to find one of those in this town, too.”
“There’s at least one,” Akane revealed.
“No shit? What’s he like?”
“A mature, reasonable adult.”
“Yeah, but is he hot?”
Akane giggled and looked aside. “Um~!”
Katie laughed softly at her reaction and nudged her. “Eh? Eh?”
Cheerfully smiling again, Akane nodded and took another bite of her lunch. Now that she was free of the vile horde and Kuno, everything was great and wonderful. The sun light was brighter, the birds sang sweeter, even this already delicious food was nicer.
“I really can’t thank you enough,” she said to ease the subject from men she was into, “I don’t even know what I can do to repay you.”
Conceding from her prodding, Katie floated a suggestion as she looked back towards the wall. “We could hang out more. Have lunch? Go shopping? That training thing I floated a bit ago…?”
Akane acceded to that. “It couldn’t hurt.”
The taller girl became much more alert. “My food’s here.”
“It’s here…?” Akane asked before a blue and red blur came up and over the wall, flipped, and landed in a crouch in front of them, making her jump.
It was a pretty woman their age, with long brown hair covered with a baseball cap, wearing a blue gi over a red bodysuit and sandals. In her right hand she carried a red bag that she reached into as she stood upright. “Afternoon Katie, I see you forgot to pack lunch again.”
Katie flushed. “Long night, late morning…”
Akane stared in confusion at the delivery girl, who quickly produced a container from the bag. “I know, I delivered to you guys last night too, remember?”
“Do you ever sleep?” Katie earnestly wanted to know as she took the container.
“Sleep is for the poor,” the delivery girl said before she noticed and recognized Akane. “Hey, you’re Tendo Akane, right?”
Akane was surprised that this girl recognized her. “Um… yes?”
The girl nodded, then pointed a thumb at herself. “Daikoku Kaori, big fan. Did you finally get those boys to stop?”
Akane scowled. “Well, they’ve stopped at least, and they won’t be going after me again.”
And she didn’t care a lick about what happened to them from here on.
Kaori brightened. “Great! I’m glad that’s the case. Some schools around here, the boys don’t know when to quit even if you kick them around a hundred times–there are some places I won’t even go anymore no matter how well they tip.”
“Try kicking them through a building, that seems to work,” Akane suggested.
Kaori’s eyes flew wide. “Whoa, give me the deets on that and your next delivery is free–discounted fif–twenty-five percent.”
“I’ll tell you about it, it’s wild,” Katie said. “Come by at the usual time? My aunt sent a new diffuser and it’s lit.”
Kaori agreed with a nod. “I’ll bring some food and we’ll make it a party.”
A chime from her gi prompted her to pull from it a smartphone she looked at. “Oh, I got another delivery. Enjoy the food and see you later!”
The girl waved hastily and rushed back towards the wall, in an instant she vaulted over it, and she was gone. The speed and swiftness of Kaori’s ascent surprised Akane, who recognized it.
“Parkour, huh?” Akane asked. “You know a bunch of interesting people.”
“You have no idea,” Katie said with a laugh as she opened her container. Inside she found some hastily assembled fried chicken sandwiches, bottled water, some tossed in baked edamame, and a note.
Opening the note, she frowned as she read it. “Oh, well, so much for hanging out with Kaori.”
Akane looked at the note. “What is it?”
“My roommate; she’s having family over and when that happens, I’m usually out of the house for the night.” Katie explained as she held up the note.
“What? That’s not fair!” Akane protested.
“Eh, I have her to myself for most of the month, they’re allowed to visit from time to time,” Katie countered. “It’s no big, I’ll go get a hotel or something.”
“You could stay at my house overnight. It wouldn’t be a problem at all,” Akane offered.
It was Katie’s turn to be surprised. “Huh? That’s mighty generous of you…”
“Well, I’m really grateful for what you did. if you hadn’t, I’d probably be miserable forever,” Akane insisted. “Besides, you did say you wanted to train with me, right? And you won’t have to commute far to get to school tomorrow.”
Katie averted her eyes and took another bite out of her sandwich to distract herself from the warm and gooey feeling in her chest. This girl was so cute, there was no way she could refuse. “Well how can I say no, if you insist?”
Akane beamed. “Great! I’ll let my older sister know to prepare a little more dinner tonight!”
Katie chuckled and gave her a playful smile of her own. “Cool.”
A distance away, in the tall trees that grew in Furinkan High’s vicinity, a small shadowy figure glared darkly at the two young women smiling and eating lunch. His beady eyes burned with a vengeful fire beneath his bushy brows as he brought an older-style flip phone to his ear.
For what that awful girl did to his master, there would be no peace–only revenge.
“Kodachi-sama, it is your loyal servant, Sarugakure Sasuke-san. I have grievous news regarding your dear brother…”