"S, sis...!" Saya said as the seniors closed in from both sides of us.

"Don't worry..." I gritted my teeth, pulling Saya close behind me. "Just stay close to me and I'll keep you safe."

"Kaya, what are you planning to do...?" Ueko said from my side, her eyes watching the seniors closely. "Don't tell me you're actually going to..." She trailed off the end of her words as the seniors continued to get closer.

What choice did I have?

The choice was either to fight them or watch Saya get hurt by these freaks.

It wasn't even a choice at all.

I didn't care how badly Saya might hate me if I exposed that I wasn't her sis as long as Saya was safe.

Whatever came after, I would deal with it at a later time.

But for now...

I clenched a fist at my side.

It was now or never.

Stepping forward, I pulled a hand back, about to punch the face of the closest senior that was coming towards us.

Suddenly, a bag of white dust flew into the senior's face, flying past him and hitting the other seniors behind him in their chest.

"What the hell...?" I muttered under my breath, stunned.

"The fuck...!" One senior coughed, covering his eyes.

"Who fuckin' threw that!" Another yelled, flapping at the air with his hands.

I glanced at the white dust that was all over the seniors' clothes, clouding up the air.

It was flour.

"Run!" Ueko sprinted past me, shoving aside the startled seniors, "Hurry! Let's go!!"

She didn't need to tell me twice.

I was already grabbing onto Saya behind me, running along the path that Ueko had created for us.

"Get back here!!"

"You'll pay for that, you bitches!!"

The seniors' angry shouts faded behind us, coughs mixed in their voices.

~x~

Standing under the shelter of a school building located in a more remote area of the school, we came to a stop with Saya and Ueko leaning against the wall to catch their breath.

Thanks to some training I've been doing in my freetime, I had managed to get this body's cardio to a decent level even though it hasn't really been that long. I guess that because my old body was so physically fit, some of the muscle memory from my old brain must had carried over or something, allowing me to train and recover quicker than a normal person... Actually, I had no idea.

"Why the heck were you carrying a bag of flour on you?" I asked Ueko.

Although Ueko was still panting, she indicated at her bag on her back, "I, I grabbed one when I was walking past the home economics classroom as a just in case measure... Didn't think that I would actually need to use it..."

"Y, you're amazing, Ueko..." Saya breathed, leaning her back against the wall, "I don't know what we would had done without you... Thank you..."

"Please, it was just lucky, that's all..." Ueko took one last breath to recover her breathing, "Anyways..."

Ueko stood up straight, glaring at me.

I glanced back at her with an alarmed look, "Er, Ueko?"

"Seriously! What on earth were you thinking, Kaya?!" Ueko exclaimed, then she pouted with crossed arms, "Please explain yourself. I really want to know what's going on in that mind of yours."

"Well, that's, um..." I avoided her stare, trying to think of an excuse.

Except there was nothing I could think of.

Saya noticed how uncomfortable I looked and stepped up to me, "Sis, they didn't hurt you, did they?" She asked in a worried voice, "Maybe we should go to the nurses' office together."

"Huh? No, they didn't hurt me..." I replied confused, but Saya was already trying to walk off with me, holding onto my arm.

"H, hang on...!" Ueko said before Saya could drag me away, then she glanced at Saya, "Saya, don't you think that Kaya has been acting a bit strange since she's come back from America...? I mean, I've known her for years but I feel like I can't even understand what she's thinking anymore..."

Saya stopped, falling silent next to me and for a moment, my own heart stopped as well.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Saya replied to Ueko, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Honestly?" Ueko asked in a dubious tone, "You don't think that it's weird that sh--"

"I think you're being a bit rude to my sis right now, Ueko." Saya glanced up at Ueko with a rigid stare, "And... I think that I would know better than you about what my sis is like."

I was stunned at Saya's words, but more than that I was stunned to see that look on Saya's face.

It was a look that I hadn't seen in a while.

The same look that she gave me when I first met her in my old body.

A look that had taken me completely by surprise at how unrelenting this girl's eyes were.

Ueko must had felt the same way as I had because she stopped for a few seconds, nothing coming out of her mouth.

Then, Ueko peeled her eyes off Saya, glancing over at me with an apologetic smile.

"Saya's right... I was being rude to you, Kaya." Ueko sighed. "I'm sorry. It's just that I was so worried when you walked off alone like that."

Seeing the apologetic smile on Ueko's face made me want to tell her that she wasn't wrong and that I'm actually a dude inside her friend's body.

But of course, I couldn't say that.

And it's not like she would believe me anyways.

"What are you saying, Ueko?" I tried to laugh it off casually, "There's no need for you to apologise! I wasn't offended at all...!"

Then, an awkward silence followed as both Saya and Ueko went quiet.

Shit, I needed to break this tension in the air!

"Oh, that's right, you two haven't really spoken to each other before today, right?" I spoke quickly in an anxious tone. "This is perfect! Actually, I've been trying to introduce my friend Ueko here to you for a while, Saya, haha! Ueko's always talking about how much she wanted to talk to you!"

Ueko forced a smile at Saya, joining my attempt to lighten the mood, "It's true, I've always seen you around, Saya, but it's funny that we've never really talked to each other..."

Saya stared at Ueko indifferently, "Oh."

It was a drastic change to how Saya had been speaking to Ueko earlier, and obviously very different to Saya's usual demeanour.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Ueko glanced at me with 'please-help-me' eyes, but I didn't know what I could do here.

"Well, lunch is almost over so I'm going back to class first to finish some stuff!" Ueko babbled with a light blush, "I'll see the both of you back in class!"

"Yeah, see you, Ueko...!" I waved at her, forcing a smile.

Ueko gave me one last glance before running off to head to our class.

Now, it was just Saya and me outside the school building.

"Um... Saya..." I started off, "Is something wrong?"

Saya was still standing closely next to me, holding onto my arm. She pulled it tighter towards her, burying her cheeks into my arm, and her eyes gazed downwards with a sad look in them.

"I... I didn't like what they said about you, sis..." Saya muttered in a reluctant voice, "I can't stand it when people say those things about you..."

"People?" I asked.

"Some other students in our classroom that you used to speak to." Saya sighed. "Anyways, I'm sorry. I know I was being rude to your friend, sis. I will try harder next time for you."

Shit.

There were more students in our class that knew Kaya...?

~x~

Standing at one of the main crossings in Shinjuku, waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green, I sighed to myself, wondering what I was doing here after school.

The streets were filled with passerbys out in the main area of Shinjuku but gradually began to thin out as I headed closer to Kabukicho, the red light district where my kobuns from the Shi-kai had their host club.

Whenever I had problems in my old life, I would always come here to Shinjuku to get away from it all. I guess I had came here for the same reason in this new body out of habit.

Passerbys at Kabukicho were beginning to glance my way, probably because I was still in my uniform and stood out like a sore thumb as a highschool girl walking alone in these parts of the streets, but I didn't really care at the moment.

Arriving at where the Shi-kai host club was, I tried to enter from the street, pushing open the door that would lead to the stairs to the host club.

To my surprise, the door was locked.

I glanced at the sheet of paper stuck on the window of the door, seeing that the host club should already be open at this time of the hour.

"Bunch of jackoffs..." I muttered to myself, "Of course, you have no business if you don't even open the doors when you're supposed to be open..."

I sighed, leaning my back against the door and sliding down to sit on the ledge whilst I waited for someone from the Shi-kai to show up.

Then, I pulled a cigarette from my bag, lighting it for a smoke.

I breathed out a puff of smoke, leaning my head back against the door and closed my eyes for some rest.

"Aren't you a bit too young to smoke, miss?"

A voice called out to me from above.

"Shut up, no one asked for your opinion," I replied back, then raised the cigarette to my mouth for another puff before opening my eyes to see two police officers standing in front of me.

I frozed, the lit cigarette hanging between my lips.

One of the police officers reached for the radio on the shoulder of his vest, "Suspected minor smoking at Kabukicho, over."

Is this real life?

I couldn't believe this was happening.

"Miss, we're going to have to ask to see some identification." The other police officer said, "And we're going to ask for you to come with us to the station too."

"B, but..." I stammered, trying to think of something.

"Up you get now, the station is--"

"Get out of Kabukicho now, over." The voice on the other end of the radio suddenly crackled, "This is an order, over."

The police officers stopped, glancing at their radios in surprise.

"Hey, what was that all about?" One of the police officers asked the other.

"No idea..." The other said, then sighed, "Probably doesn't help that we're both new to the force, does it?"

"Yeah, maybe it was just--"

Something crashed into the ground next to the police officers' feets, shattering glass all over the floor.

The police officers glanced behind them and my eyes followed, seeing a group of men in crisp black and white suits walking over slowly, their faces unsmiling and stoic. At the lapel of each of their suits were a hexagon-shaped pin with the Japanese word for 'terror' imprinted in the center.

There was no way I would mistake that Mon (AN: Japanese word for crest).

It was the Tero-kai.

One of the three largest yakuza syndicates in Tokyo.

"Y, Yakuza...!" The police officers' faces turned pale with shock, then one quickly reached for his radio, "Requesting immediate backup at Central Road at Kabukicho, over...!!"

Nothing could be heard from the other side of the radio.

From the centre of the yakuzas, a man with shoulder-lengthed black hair falling on either sides of his face stepped up slowly to the police officers, chuckling.

"Give it a rest," He said in a cool tone, "No cops in their right mind would set foot into Kabukicho. You two must be the only cops in town that missed the memo."

"Wh, what...?!" The police officers stared at the man with grim faces, then glanced around at the other yakuzas now encircling the police officers. "What are you planning to do?! Don't think you can get away with assaulting a police officer...!"

"Police officer?" The man said in a mockingly confused tone, then glanced around at the other yakuzas, "Do you guys see any police officers around?"

"No, aniki," The yakuzas said, "We only found two beaten up bodies lying on the street."

(AN: Aniki is the Japanese word for big brother, used to refer to another yakuza in a superior ranking.)

"What...?" Shock fell over the police officers' faces.

"What about everyone else here?" The man turned around, addressing the passerbys on the street, "Anyone here see any police officers?"

Not a single reply came from the passerbys, some walking faster to avoid the scene and others turning their head to look the other way.

"What the hell is going on here...?" The police officers murmured to one another, their eyes in disbelief. "This place..."

"Sorry, pal," The man that the yakuzas had referred to as aniki turned back to the police officers, "Looks like you're both shit out of luck."

Then, his eyes turned serious, staring down at the police officers with a cold look, "Kabukicho is Tero-kai's property now, and so too is the rest of Shinjuku. So don't think you can fuckin' walk freely into our house without an invitation."

"T, that's...!"

While the police officers and the yakuzas were talking, someone grabbed me by the arm from the side and I glanced across to see Higuchi standing there.

"What the hell are you still doing here, Kaya...?!" Higuchi hissed at me, pulling me up from the ground, "Come on, let's get out of here...!"

"Higuchi?" I blinked.

Higuchi dragged me by the arm, away from the commotion between the police officers and the yakuzas, taking me across the street until we were out of sight.

Then, Higuchi turned to me, scratching a hand at his short bleached blond hair.

"God damn, Kaya," He said, "Don't you know to walk away from situations like that?"

It was true. In my old body, it was usually me who was the one involved in those situations that I didn't know what to do in this new body as a spectator.

"What were they saying, Higuchi?" I asked, "About the Tero-kai running Shinjuku now, is that true?"

He glanced away at the streets with an uncomfortable look, "Yeah, that's right. They were the assholes that came in and took Shinjuku away from us after our boss disappeared..."

Tch.

I had checked the calendar the other day and found out that I had only been gone for a few weeks since I woke up in this new body.

A few weeks was all it took for these kobuns to lose control of the turf that I had tried so hard to secure.

"But the Tero-kai haven't established their control over Shinjuku yet, so there's a power struggle going on at the moment," Higuchi said, "It's not just the Tero-kai that are the ones that wants Shinjuku. The Yamamoto-kai and the Endo-kai are also gunning for this place."

"What...?!" I said in surprise.

The Yamamoto-kai and Endo-kai were the second and third largest yakuza syndicates in Tokyo behind the Tero-kai.

If the three largest yakuza syndicates were fighting over Shinjuku, then that meant it was going to be an all-out war.

When I had controlled Shinjuku with the Shi-kai, we had established our dominance so firmly over the area that not even the yakuza syndicates attempted to take the turf away from us, knowing the chaos that it would cause.

But now...

I shook my head.

What a headache.

This wasn't even the reason I had even came to Shinjuku after school today.

I had wanted to find a place to sit at the Shi-kai host club alone to think about what I was going to do about Saya and the situation at school, but now I felt like I was being bombarded with more problems.

"Ah dammit..." I sighed, "Well, anyways, I guess let's deal with those bastards at the Tero-kai first, huh..."

"Deal with...?" Higuchi repeated, staring at me, "What are ya talking about, Kaya?"

Oh shit, I forgot I wasn't the boss of the Shi-kai anymore.

I had just started speaking as I normally would without thought.

"Er, nevermind." I said to Higuchi.

Higuchi stared at me for a moment, then said, "Since the boss isn't here with us anymore, I gotta take his place as the acting boss of the Shi-kai now, Kaya. And I know that you're strong as heck, but you only recently joined us so you're still just a kobun. I don't want you doing anything rash, Kaya, ya got me?"

"..."

"There's a ladder in the yakuza that you gotta climb if you wanna prove yourself, Kaya," Higuchi said, "You can't just challenge the Tero-kai from the bottom of the ladder."

I sighed, "Yeah yeah..."

"And even though you're a girl... I don't really care about that, Kaya. I still see you as my shatei..." Higuchi said, scratching the side of his cheek with a slightly embarrassed blush, "That's why I'm telling you all this, ya know. For your sake. If ya get hurt, that would be my responsibility as your aniki."

(AN: Shatei is the Japanese word for little brother, to refer to a yakuza of a lower ranking.)

I stared at Higuchi for a few seconds, surprised by his words, then chuckled, shaking my head, "Heh, when did you grow up this much, bastard?"

But Higuchi didn't hear my words, and he turned around to face the streets, glancing back at me, "Anyways, I gotta run off to meet back with the rest of the Shi-kai, there's a host club event going on inside the mall, so everyone's there trying to do some promo for the club."

"R, right..." I said, not sure how I should feel about that.

"See ya, Kaya!" Higuchi said as he raced off into the streets.

Watching Higuchi disappear into the crowd of passerbys on the streets, I sighed to myself.

Speaking to Higuchi just then made me realise that I have to grow up as well and find a way to deal with my problem about the students in the class that knew Kaya.

Running away as I always did to the streets of Shinjuku to get away from my problems wasn't a way to deal with anything.

"Alright, I got this!!" I shouted, pulling up a fist with renewed invigoration.

Passerbys around the street glanced at me, bewildered by the high school girl shouting to herself in the middle of the street.