Chapter Text
Yashiro blinked. And then blinked some more – owlishly, like she couldn’t really comprehend the words that passed his lips. But, once she did, once she gathered the true meaning behind his words, she was furious.
She shot him a venomous look. "Do you really think I don’t have anything else to do!?"
He really had the nerve to shrug his shoulders, his eyes twinkling in amusement. "I don’t know, but it seems like it."
She pointed her right index finger at him, a note of impatience creeping into her voice, "Can you, like, stop being a jerk for five seconds and take this thing a bit seriously?"
She looked him in the eyes and he looked straight back into hers. He held her gaze for a moment before darkness crossed his eyes, his whole demeanor suddenly changing like his mood didn’t just swing – it bounced, pivoted, recoiled and fluctuated.
She didn’t know why he was reacting the way he did, so she just waited, and waited, and waited some more, for him to say something, anything, to clue her in –
"If I did take this thing seriously in front of you, then, I don’t know, you would be dead in an instant."
Yashiro bristled at that, and balled her hands into fists at her side. "Wow, the way you are oozing with self-doubt right now is really mesmerizing, mister."
His jaw clenched. "Do you really think you could best me in a fight?"
Fighting against him? Curiously enough, it had not crossed her mind, not even once. Panic swelled up inside her at the thought though, threatening to swallow her belly-first.
I need to calm down!
She drew a few shaky breaths; breathing in, she was imagining that the air was filled with a sense of peace and calm. While breathing out, she formed a mental picture of the air leaving with her stress and tension.
"Yeah, I thought as much," he said then, interpreting her silence as consent.
She said nothing, just stared at him blankly while chewing the inside of her mouth, carefully weighting her only two options that were available; she could surrender, agree with him and be done with it, or she could –
"Bring it on."
– accept his challenge, she decided, because she was a detective, the only source of hope in her city at this point.
He raised his eyebrows at her in disbelief before double spinning his knife in his right hand.
His lips curled upwards. "You shouldn’t come in my way. It was by far the most foolish choice you could make."
His words grew legs, kicked her hard in the belly, drove all the breathable air from her body.
Yes, she knew that, she knew she should back down, but she couldn’t anymore.
Her heart beat so fast, she thought it would pop out of her chest as he came towards her.