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Kyoshika should have been happy, truly.
Lady Kurara and Lady Nozomi sat across the table from her, together. She hadn’t even needed to birth that tsuchinoko for them to reconcile!
But the cause of their reconciliation warranted no celebration.
And it hung in the air, a yoke over the Special Defense Unit that showed its weight with every half-hearted clink of Lady Kurara’s chopsticks, or in the weighty sighs that escaped Nozomi’s lips.
“Will you quit it?” Lady Kurara hissed, clenching her fist in a manner that strained the skewers in her hand until they creaked. “If you keep gasping like that, I’m taking back my apology.”
“I’m sorry, Kurara,” Lady Nozomi said, wincing. “I just wish that we could do something about this. It doesn’t feel right to let things lie.”
The scion grumbled, but didn’t retort. Kyoshika was in agreement; she was never one for subtlety, and allowing a companion to suffer in silence was a situation that she could never tolerate. At least, now that she actually had companions that weren’t well-worn paper and ancient ink.
“Perhaps…” Kyoshika sighed, tracing her finger over the table in aimless whorls. “Perhaps we should not have attempted to move past the loss of Sir Takemaru so quickly.”
It had seemed so simple at the time, to skirt around the topic, to force smiles onto their faces and alleviate some of the guilt resting on Takumi’s shoulders. The Last Defense students reminisced about Sir Takemaru, told stories that made the Second-To-Last group laugh and tear up. But Sir Takumi had remained stubbornly silent, and it almost seemed to have the opposite effect on him; he had walked into the room flinching at every word and movement in his direction, and left it with tension bunching his shoulders and a dead-eyed gaze, as if he could no longer see the people attempting to raise his spirits.
As if he were looking at someone else.
“But what other choice did we have?” Lady Nozomi asked, frowning. “We couldn’t just let him go on thinking that we’d blame him for his choice. That would just… hurt him. It’d be worse in the long run, right?”
And Kyoshika wanted to say something… fitting. Something about a little bit of hurt being necessary. Something about how… sometimes, platitudes and well-wishes would do naught but bring false hope to the hopeless. Especially if they were well aware of who they were going to lose. Who they’d already lost.
But she was no wordsmith.
“Perhaps his fighting style has evolved into one that functions on a burning desire for revenge? H-has anyone noticed his aura becoming more purple as of late?”
Lady Kurara crushed her chopsticks and flung them at Kyoshika, the samurai yelping and shielding her eyes from the spray of wood. “If you don’t have anything useful to say, just staple that filthy mouth of yours shut with your own sword!”
Sir Yugamu arrived at the table just as Kyoshika was picking splinters out of her gi, slouching down in the chair next to her and seemingly soaking in the troubled air.
“It looks like we might be thinking about the same thing, hm?” His tone was light, but the crook to his easygoing grin betrayed his worry.
She perked up. “Verily! Do you have any news as to Sir Takumi’s condition?”
Sir Yugamu paused, and the uncertainty in his eyes made her heart sink. He had spent their 18th day in a fervor within the school’s Bio Lab, working on something he’d said would “put the pep back in Takumi’s step”. But if he was looking this dejected…
He shook his head. “No dice, I’m afraid. I tried giving him the pills. I even gave him a whole speech about how it’d fix his confidence issues right up.”
“And?”
“I got about three steps away from his room before he chucked them outside. He’s really…” he paused, before shaking his head. “...determined to see this through.”
Lady Kurara rolled her eyes. “In his defense, I wouldn’t ingest anything a pervert like you offered either.”
Sir Yugamu pressed a hand to his chest, scoffing theatrically and leaning back in his chair. “You wound me, madam! I had only the best of intentions. Is it so awful for me to want my guardian angel in top form?”
A rictus grin bloomed over her mask. “It is when you’re planning to dissect that form.”
He snickered softly, and the mood around the table lifted the tiniest bit, the malaise of their Team Leader failing to further infect them. But soon, Lady Nozomi sighed once more.
“I just hope he finds it in himself to work through this. We won’t be able to fight at our best without a proper leader.”
They all hummed in agreement, then turned their attention to their meals. But Kyoshika remained silent, his words from that day echoing through her mind.
No… I’m not fit to lead anyone.
Her hand tightened around the hilt of her blade.
“God, a night battle. This totally stinks.” Sir Gaku grumbled, scuffing a worn sneaker into the steel plating of the War Room’s floor.
Normally, Lady Kurara would follow up on that. She’d say something like… ‘You of all people shouldn’t be talking about stink, you lowborn gutter urchin. I’ve smelled better at actual pigstys!’ And then they’d banter for a bit, and then Sir Takumi would drag their attention back to the matter at hand.
But the source of that unity was missing, and Sirei was clearly in no position to act as a substitute with how he was staring at the doors as unabashedly as everyone else.
A minute passed, and then another.
Lady Tsubasa coughed. “Maybe he didn’t hear the alarm or something?”
Sirei sighed. “No, no. He’s definitely awake. But we can’t afford to wait any longer.” He raised his cane, rapping it against the floor. “Special Defense Unit, move out-!”
The doors swung open, a telltale flash of red shuffling through them.
“Sorry,” Takumi mumbled.
It was the first time she’d seen him in days. Some people had caught sight of him shuffling into the Cafeteria at irregular hours, scraping something together with the Ration-O-Matic and rushing back to his room, like a rat returning to its warren. They’d said he didn’t look well.
But this was worse than she would have ever thought.
He seemed to shrink and bristle under the attention of the SDU at the same time, slumping down further into his hoodie as his eyes turned haunted. Hunted. His lips were red and bitten, welts and pockmarked flesh scattering the surface of them. His tongue flicked from his mouth, white, and ashy with neglect.
He swallowed, then shoved his hands out of his jacket pocket. Forced them, like revealing even the slightest bit of himself was a monumental effort.
“L-let’s go. Right? We’re all here, so…” his fists clenched. “Let’s go.”
The room was silent, aside from an assortment of gasps and uncertain gulps.
Sir Ima broke it with a cavalier grin. “Color me surprised, Mr. Sumino. Another minute and I would have suggested that you’d bowed out of the fight entirely.” Lady Kako hissed and slapped his arm lightly.
But Takumi didn’t respond. He just looked at Sirei expectantly.
Their commander tossed his Infuser to him without a word, the blood-red blade soaring through the air to land smack-dab in the middle of his palm.
“Will you be able to fight?” Lady Hiruko said, grasping the hilt of her own Infuser.
He nodded, sharp and decisive.
“Hm.” She looked away, towards the rest of the group. “Then there isn’t a problem. Initiate the defensive battle.”
And that was that, she supposed.
Kyoshika swung her infuser down, the routine motion allowing her to do it even as her eyes drifted from her chest. She watched him, as he grasped the blade in a death grip to quell the minute trembling in his fingers.
She couldn’t shake an… uncanny feeling of familiarity. The way he spoke, the way he moved…
It was like looking in a mirror.
And it made her ache for her blade.
She swung her swords in a cross, two crescent arcs shooting forth to bisect a Grizzlei. The invader crumbled into a pile of technicolor sludge, and her eyes turned away from her side of the battlefield-not for the first time that night.
Takumi was fighting no better than he’d looked. Sure, on the surface he was fighting the same as any of them, but the essence of his style, the almost instinctual way he used to glide across the battlefield… it was gone. Wide-sweeping, warding slashes were replaced with short, punching stabs of his blade, and more than once he’d nearly broken formation to chase down isolated invaders.
It was like he had no interest in fighting with the team. No interest in preservation of his life, or of anyone else’s within the SDU.
He wasn’t even unhelpful, which was the worst part. He’d given them vital information about the tactics of the commander and convinced the Tsukumos to work in tandem to take out the vehicles generating the mist. He didn’t avoid helping out when he was called to support certain sections of the battlefield, charging across the courtyard to pierce through scattered Darumarr and the flanking, ball-throwing invaders.
But he’d even died. It shouldn’t have been unusual; most of them had gone through the bowels of the Revive-O-Matic at least once. But he was supposed to be good, talented enough to scrape through situations that would have resulted in an instant death or at least a critical injury.
This time, he’d thrown himself at the third wave and been thoroughly crushed by a Tubrilla while the rest of them dealt with an increasingly desperate commander.
Perhaps that was what made her so… incensed. It wasn’t that he was fighting poorly enough to draw attention; it was that he wasn’t. Or at least, not from the rest of the Special Defense Unit. They seemed relieved that he was fighting at all. But he was just… average, now. As if the fire she’d seen in his soul, the conviction that had suffused his every action, had escaped him utterly.
He was revived just as they finished the commander and heard her plea, tears and blood carving streaks of ruin down her maskless face.
“We can’t really kill someone who’s begging for life, right? T-that’d just be cruel,” said Sir Shouma.
Sir Ima frowned. “But she got me killed in Takumi’s future. Would you really have me die and leave my poor, sweet sister to fend for herself in my absence? How cold, Mr. Ginzaki!” He clutched a hand to his forehead, swooning.
“I-I’m sorry! I forgot, I didn’t mean to! I'll keep my stupid trash hole of a mouth shut from now on!”
“I won’t kill you! I won’t, I won’t, just please don’t kill me please please please please-”
“Shut up,” Lady Hiruko hissed. They fell silent, and she pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing. “Takumi, what do you think?”
He barely looked at her, eyes drifting down into the dirt. “It doesn’t matter to me. I’m not your leader.”
And it made Kyoshika’s blood boil.
Eva whimpered, clutching her hands together and whispering desperately under her breath. It sounded almost like a prayer.
Hiruko just shook her head. “Typical. Then we’ll keep her alive, for now.” She turned towards the school, then twisted back, leveling a scathing glare at their ex-Team Leader. “When you’re done with your little pity party, try to join the rest of us in the real world.”
He didn’t respond, just keeping his eyes locked on the ground.
They followed her, Sirei’s drone buzzing over to snatch up the woman and drag her back to the school. There was no debrief; Sirei just sent them to sleep, and Takumi was the first one to detransform and shuffle out of the War Room.
“Hm,” the commander said, stroking his chin. “If this keeps up, I might have to take some measures to get Sumino back in fighting form.”
“Measures?” Lady Nozomi said. “What kind of measures are you talking about?”
“Oh, a little of this, a little of that…” he waved his stubby hand in a so-so gesture. “Nothing you’ll need to worry about, Kirifuji. You just get yourself to bed.”
She paused, but nodded. She turned towards Kyoshika, frowning. “Um, Kyoshika? Aren’t you going to take your class armor off?”
Kyoshika gritted her teeth, but shaped her face back to a decidedly neutral expression before facing her. “I… apologize, Lady Nozomi. There is something I must discuss with Sirei. I’ll only be a minute.”
Some of her consternation must have leaked through, because Nozomi vacated the room with naught but a nod of acknowledgement.
Sirei hummed. “Well, isn’t this a surprise? I wouldn’t have ever thought you’d have anything to talk to me about, Magadori. So? What’s the deal?”
She forced herself to take a breath. “I need Sir Takumi’s infuser.”
His robotic face twisted. “What, that sword isn’t enough for you?”
“What?!” Heat rose to her cheeks, her mouth hanging open for a split second. “No! I have no such intentions with his blade! I only wish to…”
She couldn’t put it into words. She wished to… what? Would her idea even work? She didn’t truly know Sir Takumi, did she? Their relationship involved a hundred days that she was utterly unaware of, and twenty-one days that she was. Three weeks was no time to understand a person, was it?
But she felt like… she’d seen something. Something familiar that lingered in the swing of his blade, in the rhythm of his footwork, in those eyes that made something she’d long since locked away ache horribly.
“I wish to…guide him,” she said, finally settling her nerves.
Sirei stared at her, his beady, unblinking eyes almost looking straight through her. But she didn’t blink either. She would not lose her conviction, not here.
Eventually, he relented, sighing and tossing her the blade. “Knock yourself out. But if this doesn’t work, it’s my turn.”
She snatched it out of the air. “Trust me, Sirei.”
“I have no intention of failing.”
She rapped on his door, hard.
Takumi didn’t respond. But she’d never expected him to.
She cocked back her leg, leaning back from the door just the tiniest bit…
And kicked, the door flying clean off its hinges and crashing into the opposite wall.
She strode into the room, wrinkling her nose at the familiar scent of filth, and turned her gaze towards the shock of red in the corner of her eye. Takumi was unmoving, his jaw dropped open in shock. He wasn’t swaddled in the covers, but instead on the edge of his sheets, legs hanging over the edge of the bed.
“K-Kyoshika? What the hell are you-”
She tossed his Infuser to him, shutting him up as he instinctively snapped the blade out of the air.
“...My Infuser? Why…?”
She was never a good conversationalist. She’d spent her childhood in the forests of the Tokyo Residential Complex, speaking to none but her grandfather. Later, she spoke to none but her blade and herself. Even now, she didn’t know what to say, not truly. Her words threatened to spill out of her mouth in an undirected slurry, a Mugen Train-wreck waiting to happen.
But the song she sang with her blade was a universal language.
She leapt forth, bringing both blades down in a plunging stab that he barely managed to avoid by rolling off the bed, yelping as he tumbled to the floor.
“Kyoshika, are you nuts?!” he cried, scuttling backwards on hand and foot. He bumped against the wall and turned his head, paling as he realized he’d cornered himself.
Without a word, she flung his discarded Infuser at him, eliciting a yelp of fear as it nearly punched clean through the thin wall of his room, and used the opportunity to free her swords from his bed, twin shunks heralding their unsheathing from their spongy prisons.
She charged at him, swinging both swords down in a cleaving execution-
And was riposted, golden sparks flying from their clash as he rose to his feet, pressing upwards against the downwards arc of her blades, gritting his teeth from the effort.
She grinned.
“Good,” she said, before breaking the lock of blades, flinging her own out of the open door, and grabbing him by the scruff of his hoodie. She flung him the same way as her weapons, turning and dashing out of the entryway in pursuit.
He landed on his back, scraping backwards in the gravel for a meter or so before he rolled to his feet, hissing with pain.
She snatched her swords from the concrete, pointing them both at him as he sprang upwards.
“Y-you’ve lost it,” he hissed, crouching slightly and readying himself to dodge.
She had nothing to say to him. She just leveled her blades, curling her wrist to curve the tip of the Holy Jumonji Sword in a mocking motion; up, and down.
Something in his face shifted at that. Like the facade of indifference had shattered utterly, leaving nothing but raw, unbridled emotion. It wasn’t rage, at least not entirely. It was sorrow, and regret, and fear, and a thousand constituent emotions that sprawled across his face, spilled out through his eyes.
He let out a strangled, inarticulate cry, then reversed his grip on his Infuser and plunged it into his chest.
She waited for him to transform, for him to regain his composure after his shell of hemoanima burst, dousing the surrounding roof in pseudo-blood.
And when she leapt at him again, he was ready.
Her blades rained down upon him, a storm of steel that he warded off desperately, backstepping towards the entrance of the roof.
“You won’t-” She cut downwards, a double-edged overhead strike that had him gritting his teeth, forcing his heels to scrape backwards in the gravel. “-win without retaliation, Sir Takumi! So stop holding back and fight!”
“Shut-gggh,” he lost ground, sweat beading on his brow as he swung his katana around himself, switching stances to ward off the onslaught. “Shut up, Kyoshika-!”
He overextended. A simple shift in his shoulders left him skidding in the gravel. And, quick as a flash, she punished it. Her true blade snaked through his guard, flickering its silver tongue against his cheek.
He hissed, and their clash hit a lull as he brought a hand to his cheek, wincing as he pressed at the wound. Red bloomed through the fabric of his glove.
“Kyoshika, I-I… I don’t know what you’re playing at, but-”
She plunged both blades into the door behind him, fencing him in and leaning close enough to smell the recent sweat he’d worked up on the battlefield, alongside a painfully familiar scent of days-old rot and neglect.
“This is no game, Sir Takumi.” She tightened her grip, spitting out the words like poison. “If you believe that your life is something to toy with, then surrender it to me. Save us all the torment of your indifference, and give your life up to a cause far greater than your own self-recrimination.”
She leaned in closer, until they were nose-to-nose, looking deep into his eyes for a sign of that spirit, that fire that had served to enthrall her during their battles together on that fateful day at Second-To-Last.
“But if you wish to live? If you wish to continue your existence, to rekindle that urge to strive… then cease your pointless refusals and fight. Fight as if the world itself will end today, with me, and with you.”
And there it was. A spark, a kindling of the desire that burned in his breast, shone through his gaze, and her scowl turned to a demonic grin.
“K-Kyoshika? What are you doing to Takumi?!”
His eyes shifted behind her, to the voice of Lady Nozomi, and she yanked her blades from the steel of the roof’s door.
“Keep your fangs bared towards me, Sir Takumi!” she cried, kicking outwards with her right leg. The air left his lungs in an explosive gust as he crashed through the door, tumbling down the stairs. She dashed after him, only pausing to leave the mirrored image of the Holy Jumonji Sword jammed in the doorway, barring it despite Lady Nozomi’s desperate pleas.
Sir Takumi needed no comfort at this time.
She leapt down the stairs after him, landing lightly before he had the chance to recover. He pulled himself off the ground more slowly, now.
But the rock-solid grip upon his blade never faltered for a moment.
“We will not be interrupted for a time, Sir Takumi.” She crouched slightly, taking the defensive position in their dance. “So honor the calling of your soul, and leave nothing unspoken.”
He paused as he stood, punching his sword into the tile as a brace before rising to his full height, his stance and sword deceptively loose.
“H-honor?” He flicked his tongue out, white flesh tinging itself red as he licked at the blood running in rivulets into the corner of his mouth.
“You’re JOKING!” he howled, swinging wild and wide, an azure arc cutting through the air that she’d left behind when she leapt backwards. He paused once more, just for a moment, before advancing.
This time, she was on the retreat. He finally had space to swing in the wide hallways, and he made use of it. She ducked backwards, unable to enter his guard with how quickly he swung his katana across the length of the hall. And all the time, he ranted.
“I never asked for-” He swung, cleaving through a classroom’s door with a shower of sparks. “-ANY of this! Not for the ‘honor’ of ANYTHING! How is it my fault that-” She weaved, her neck uncomfortably close to a slash of his sword. “-people keep asking me to fulfill their promises? Fighting a WAR for humanity, going back in time to fight it again-” They rounded a corner, and she caught sight of the stairs in her peripheral vision. “-how the hell is it my fault that I keep failing them when I never asked for any of this in the first damn place?!”
He panted at the lip of the steps, and she looked at him askance.
“Your fault lies in your sloth, Sir Takumi.”
“My-!” He bristled, and she took the opportunity to leap down the stairs in two quick bounds.
She didn’t have to look to know he’d followed her.
Kyoshika twisted, wielding her true sword with the two-handed grip she was used to, nearly scoring a blow across Takumi’s side, only for it to be parried in a shower of sparks.
“What the hell are you-” He warded a blow off from her, their roles in the dance tilting from moment to moment now that both of them were on equal footing. “-talking about? I’ve worked harder than anyone to-”
“I speak not of your physicality, Sir Takumi! I speak of-” She stepped forth, layering a pattern of descending cuts that hammered through his guard, making him gasp with exertion even as her own lungs burned from the extended duel. “-your soul! The sloth of your soul! You abandon your promises like dust in the wind, and it is because you are unwilling to carry the weight of your emotions! So you leave them behind! You-” She feinted high, then kicked out with her leg, nearly bringing Takumi to his knees were it not for his quick reversal, pivoting on his palm and swinging his sprawling legs out into a tight arc that threatened to clip her own, were it not for a timely backstep.
“-You refuse the burden you carry! You refuse their dreams, their very hearts-”
She swung forth, and even as it traveled, she knew it was sloppy. Her stance was off, the slash made while she was recovering from a turn around a corner. And Takumi knew it too, judging by the wicked scowl on his face racketing up a notch.
He deflected her blade downwards, the tsuka vibrating dangerously in her grip, and she managed to raise her eyes just in time to see the boot soaring for her gut.
And, as she flew through open air, gasping from the weight of the kick, just in time to realize that she was at the stairs down to the first floor.
She landed and bounced, the pain nearly enough to make her whimper as her head dribbled against the tile. As it was, she just bit down, her teeth punching clean through her bottom lip, iron filling her mouth as she restrained her cries, the Holy Jumonji Sword clattering away to land in some dark corner.
She almost felt bad for kicking him down two sets of these.
“Their hearts?” he said, poising himself at the top of the steps. “Their hearts?!”
He leapt, curling himself in the air and settling both hands on the hilt of his blade, plunging it downwards.
She rolled, desperately, forcing herself out of the path of the blade and to her feet, turning her sloppy evasion into an equally messy kip-up.
“What about MY HEART?!” he screamed, driving the katana into the ground with vicious force.
They both panted, her hunched over from the energy it took to simply roll to her feet after their hallway chase, and him on his knees, sweat dripping down his brow and onto the tiles.
“W-why…” He grunted, trying to unsheathe the sword, but to no avail. It was stuck firmly in the ground. “Why… Do I have to be the one living for everyone else's sake?”
She didn’t even consider recovering her own sword. She just strode towards him, arms trembling from overexertion. Soon she stood before him as he, still, futilely attempted to retrieve his weapon. She reached down, and…
Flicked him on the forehead. Once, chidingly.
“Because you want to live that way, Sir Takumi.”
He pressed one hand to his head and looked up at her, dumbfounded.
“You… you do not fight as if you wish to die, Sir Takumi. So I must suggest an alternative. That… you wish for us to kill you. For us to gaze upon your sloth, upon the loathing that shrouds your very soul, and to look away. For us to allow you to rot your heart through with guilt until you have nothing left to feel. Nothing left to lose. And I refuse.”
She gritted her teeth and punched a fist into her chest, the next words as booming as she could make them. “I refuse! I saw you, Sir Takumi. I saw the fire in your eyes, the dream shining within them. Why did you come back, Sir Takumi?”
He flinched at the unexpected question, eyes fixed on her own. “B-because-” his eyes drift down. “-because I was selfish. Because I lost… the one I was supposed to protect. The one I-” he cut himself off. “Nozomi. Karua. I went back for her. There’s no other reason.”
“You lie!” she cried, forcing his chin upwards, clasping his head within her palms. “You lie to me, and to yourself. If you cared for none but Lady Nozomi, you would never have mourned Sir Takemaru like this. You came back to make things better for all of us.”
“And I failed,” he moaned, tears welling in his eyes. “He didn’t die last time. He didn’t die, and neither did Darumi. I failed them both as soon as I chose to come back. And he… I promised him.” He sniffed. “I promised him that I’d get a better ending this time, and I failed him already. I don’t have any place here, not when… when you’re just going to keep dying. It’s easier to just…” He laughed weakly.
“To just not care at all. That way, when everyone I knew, everyone I trusted… when they die, it won’t hurt as bad. It won’t feel like I’m failing them anymore.”
She went silent, for a time, holding the boy as he sniffled wetly, tears running down his face.
Then she sank to her knees, pulled him close to her, and forced his face into the shoulder of her Class Armor.
“K-Kyoshika?” He mumbled.
“When…” she hesitated, pursing her lips. She kept this part of her held close to her chest, locked away with the rest of the hurt in her past, where it could no longer touch her.
But he had a hundred days' worth of connection with her that she lacked. This would simply… even the scales.
“When my master, my grandfather, passed, I did not take it well. I had days where… where I could no longer muster the urge to move. To eat, to bathe myself… They were insurmountable challenges. And… I considered giving up, Sir Takumi. I was so alone, and I felt that there would be nothing in the world for me. That training, that living itself, was pointless. Because I would only be alone in the end.”
“Kyoshika…”
“There is no shame in… in wanting to give up, Sir Takumi. In wanting your pain to end. But… I could not.”
She mustered herself, pushing him away from her shoulder to meet him face to face.
“I could not give up, not while his dream remained. He wanted nothing more than… for me to be normal. For me to have friends, to go to school, to live and learn and love as everyone else in this world. And while even the slightest hint of hope remained, I could not give up.”
His tears had dried, but the emptiness in his red-rimmed eyes remained. “But I… I don’t have anything to hope for. I-I already told you-!”
She brushed her index finger against her lip, blood smearing over the length, and reached forth.
“What are you…?”
“Shush,” she said, drawing one quick stroke over the wound on Takumi’s cheek, smearing the barely coagulated gash with even more blooming red.
“Sir Takumi.” He stiffened at the steel in her voice. “This is a contract, sworn on the blood we now share. I shall not die before you. In exchange…”
She clasped his hands within her own. “Surrender your life to me. You will not give up until your duty here is carried out. And if you must die, then we shall die together, surrounded by boon companions.”
He gaped openly, his eyes blown wide with shock.
“Do you accept, Sir Takumi?”
He forced his mouth closed, swallowing loudly. “T-this… you don’t really mean that. You can’t.”
“A samurai’s word is her bond, good Sir.”
He stared, and stared, and stared. But she didn’t break eye contact, not even to blink. And as that one moment seemed to stretch into an infinite, sprawling experience-
“Y-yes. I accept.”
“Good.” She nodded curtly, then pulled herself to her feet alongside Takumi, staggering under the sudden weight of two.
“Guh,” she grunted, bracing herself on the wall. “Our first contracted activity shall be physical training. You are far too heavy.”
“I-! I’m not heavy!” He cried. “You just chased me down three flights of stairs, obviously you’re gonna be tired!”
“Sir Takumi!” She gasped, mock offended. “That was a warm-up compared to how I trained in the mountains! I lifted boulders larger than trains, and slashed through bundles of logs the width of an ogre’s club! In fact, I…”
She went on, and on. Ninety percent of the story was utter boondoggle, and the rest only partially reflected the intensity of her training.
But the way Takumi looked at her, exasperated and exhausted but warm, and hopeful in a way he hadn’t looked for the last few days?
That part was entirely real.
Hey, I was meaning to ask…
…You got that contract idea from Ch*ins*w Man, right?
!?!
…I-It… It befits the situation! And!
…And?
…I do truly like the series…
*snrk*
D-don’t laugh! Don’t you dare laugh, you… You miscreant!
I-I’m not! I’m not, ow, not laughing! Quit it!