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Aiura clamps her eyes shut and tries to focus, in spite of all the yelling and gun pointing happening around her as the white van she’s stuck in bumps aggressively down the road. Her hands are bound, as well as her ankles, so she can’t get into a more comfortable pose; her mouth is taped over, so she cannot hum or chant. She has to go somewhere in her mind, somewhere she can relax. She needs to see how this is going to end, if she has any chance of survival or escape.
All she can see when she closes her eyes is Saiki’s impassive expression, scolding her for using her powers too casually. This type of thing had almost happened before, but he had intervened on her behalf before it got too serious. He warned her, but she didn’t listen. Over time, she got sloppy and careless and it landed her right where he said it would.
“Hey, hey!” a man shouts. “What is she doing?”
“Nothing, man,” another replies. “She’s just closing her eyes.”
She tries to tune them out, scanning her mind for a safe place to hide. She imagines herself at school, at her desk, with her friends around her as she pulls out a crystal ball to do some readings. She rubs her fingernails over the rhinestones she glued to its surface as an image starts to materialize.
Before the vision has the chance to manifest inside her mind, it begins in real life with the sound of a massive thud. Aiura’s eyes snap open in time to watch the back doors of the van peel open like a can of sardines. There, standing with arms spread wide between the crumpled doors, is Saiki. He’s wearing a balaclava, but she knows it’s him. She can tell from the anger lurking behind his usual blank expression and the single loose strand of magenta hair poking out of the ski mask.
This must have been what she was about to witness in her imaginary crystal ball: Saiki, seething with rage as he chucks each of the men out of the back of the van to tumble into the road. Finally, one has the sense to try and use his gun on Saiki, but the bullet misses, mysteriously arcing around Saiki’s body before falling to the ground out of the back of the van.
Aiura knows she’s being rescued, but the fear and adrenaline are still coursing through her veins as she sits and watches this unfold. She knows that Saiki isn’t just mad at these gangsters, he’s mad at her too. She, by her carelessness, got herself into this mess. When all of this is over, she’ll have to deal with Saiki too. He won’t chuck her out the back of the van, but if he unleashes even a fraction of what he’s dishing out to these guys, it still won’t be pretty.
The man with the gun trembles as Saiki approaches him. In a matter of seconds, the gun is twisted and crushed, discarded on the floor of the van. The man seems to realize that what happened to his gun is about to happen to him. Aiura closes her eyes again at the sound of crushing bones. All Saiki did was grab him, but his grip was just that strong.
She keeps her eyes closed as the final criminal is disposed of. When she opens her eyes, Saiki is clawing his way through the back cabin and into the driver’s seat. Without the van slowing down or even veering, the driver and front seat passenger are both ejected from the vehicle. Saiki sits behind the wheel, his knuckles white as he steers the van around a corner and down an alley. With a powerful exhale, he puts it in park. Aiura knows what’s coming now.
He turns around to face her through the hole he’d ripped in the van, removing the ski-mask from his face.
The anger that Aiura expected to see is gone, though. His eyes are almost wet-looking. Almost. They’re flat, bored, but there’s a tiny flicker of compassion somewhere in them. “Why the hell don’t you listen to me?”
The ropes binding her snap without him touching her, and the tape on her mouth falls off. Aiura springs up, and, without bothering to stretch or check to see how bad the rope burn is, she leaps into the driver’s seat with him, falling across his torso, twisting herself into a strange, sobbing hug. She doesn’t bother to say it outloud, but she’s sorry.
“Good grief, it’s okay,” Saiki says as she continues to cling to him. He doesn’t teleport away this time, letting her stay on him. He even pats her hair, a gesture of comfort that she doesn’t feel particularly worthy of. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
She pulls away, surprised by these words. Of course, it makes sense. If he didn’t care about her well-being at all, he wouldn’t have come. But he admitted it. “For reals?”
He furrows his brows. “Obviously.”
A smile threatens to break out over her face, his subtle affection for her overriding the fear and regret she’d just been feeling.
But he can’t let her enjoy the moment too much. “But don’t go counting on me to keep bailing you out. Next time, the yakuza can just have you.”
She barks a laugh. She knows he’s bluffing, but she’ll obey him anyway. At least she’ll try.