Andromeda

The girl flew through the air launching her entire self at Saki so fast that Saki did not know what to think. She wanted to shout out to the girl, but it was already beyond words at this point for the girl. There was only one intention with her and that was to fight Saki. As the girl got into the air and pulled her leg around from behind adding spin to it as she turned, Saki could only raise her arms up block the incoming kick bracing for the impact.

Chapter 40 – Strength to See

Saki was able to take the blow keeping her head safe, but it knocked her off her feet throwing her into the bushes that she had just ran out of a minute before. The girl landed on the ground lightly watching and waiting to see what became of Saki.

‘I didn’t even do anything!’ Saki was poked and stabbed by the bush that she was lying in holding her position for the moment trying to find a way to deal with the problem. She had seen the middle schooler attacking the boy without mercy and expected it to be no different for her, but she did not understand the reason. It seemed so pointless to want to fight just for the sake. ‘…Yuki…’ The word rush her head recalling memories and feelings forcing her back to her feet to stare down the girl, hair a little worse for wear. “What’s your problem?”

“What’s your problem? I can tell that barely even hurt you and yet you lay there in the bushes wasting my time.” The girl threw a straight, easy to block, punch at Saki like she was testing her rather than trying to do harm. “You know how to fight, but you’re wasting it defending yourself. Fight me for real!”

Saki felt the punch vibrate through her arm even though she blocked it with an open palm. She shook her head at the girl in disappointment. Afterwards, she lowered her body down and used her shoulder to push the girl back clearing the distance between them. “You don’t understand the meaning of having strength!”

The girl slid and stepped back as she was thrown free of Saki. She sprinted back launching a high kick towards Saki’s head. “No, you don’t get it! Strength is wasted if you don’t keep it sharp! You have to push your limits!” Saki blocked the kick and grabbed her leg keeping her from going anywhere. However, the battle hungry girl was not taking it as a failure as she pushed herself into air throwing her body into Saki bringing up her arm to strike down at Saki’s face.

The punch thrown was evaded with the tilt of her head and partially releasing the girl from her grasp, but Saki still felt the sting from the edge of the hand passing her cheek. ‘The girl’s crazy and completely closed minded. I can’t get through to her!’ Saki let the momentum of the girl’s body carry her through and let her go into the grass landing on one knee staring up at Saki. The mix of anger and pleasure from a challenge seemed to be interwoven on the girl’s face as she launched for another attack.

“Thank you, sir!” the cashier at the local bookstore said to Yuki as he hauled away his load of manga in his arms.

He smiled back to her and nodded lifting his books up a little to get them back into position on him. “No, thank you! I’ve been looking for several of these in tankoubon, but they’ve been sold out.” Yuki left the store with a very wide grin on his face pleased to have plenty of reading material for the week. However, he looked around the sidewalk outside looking for an angry upset Saki and found none. He was supposed to meet with Saki outside of the bookstore ten minutes ago, but he lost track of time in the store. When he realized that he was late he rushed to get his purchases, but now she was nowhere to be found. “Where’s she gone? She said to meet here I know… She didn’t get tired of waiting and leave did she?” Yuki looked around the sidewalk and across the street once more with no more luck in finding her. “No, she wouldn’t leave. If anything she’d just barge into the store and pull me out by my collar without letting me pay.”

The image of Saki looking impatient and angry storming through the bookstore played through his mind. It made him laugh a little to himself knowing how often it had happened that he had lost his purchases because she did not want to wait on him any longer. Unfortunately, the mood turned sour when he pictured himself getting dragged out of the store losing all of the manga that he had in his arms. He tightened his hold on his books reflexively. “…scary…”

Yuki took a few steps around the bookstore trying not to go too far away knowing that he had a lot to carry and preferred not to run the risk of ruining them. “Saki! Saki!” However, he was not finding any sign of her nearby. “Where’d she go? Saki?” Yuki stood around for another minute thinking to himself and weighing the choices that he had. The decision soon came when he was distracted by a noise and murmuring of a crowd across the street that were stopping as they passed by trying to figure out what was going on in the park.

“Huh? What’s going on over there?” He shifted the weight of his manga and made his way to the crosswalk nearby at the intersection. It was a longer way around, but he did not want to run across the street with the precious cargo in his arms. When he arrived the crowd had shrank some, but it was still gathering people with curiosity. He leaned over to a businessman that had stopped for a while looking confused. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“No, there’s just some strange noises coming from there like someone’s breaking the park.”

“Has anyone gone in there?”

“No, not that I saw.”

A woman that had been there longer corrected the man speaking up to Yuki. “I saw a teenage girl go in there a while ago, but I haven’t seen her since.”

Yuki was becoming increasingly curious about what was going on as another loud crash of metal echoed out to their feet. Yuki looked at the other onlookers through his books questioningly. The adults seemed only interested enough to listen and not investigate making Yuki a little frustrated. ‘I wonder if the girl they saw was Saki… Only one way to know…’ He readjusted himself with his book once more and pushed through the remaining thin crowd to get to the entrance of the park. “I’m going to find out what’s going on.” The others looked back at each other trying to figure out if he was expecting them to go with him or just announcing it to them for no apparent reason.

Everywhere he walked he could see things thrown about the park. It looked like someone had emptied all of the trash bins in the park and spread the contents. Then as though unsatisfied with just throwing junk around they drove a motorcycle or bicycle through destroying all of the flowers and half the bushes. “Saki?!” he shouted hoping that he might get a response from her, but there was nothing. “What happened here?”

As he went deeper into the park there were even more than just clashes of metal and things breaking. He was certain that he was hearing girl’s voices shouting and grunting, but he did not know why. “What the…” Yuki pushed on walking with some caution in his step as he approached closer to what he believed to be the source. The noises became louder along with the voices becoming clearer to him. “Is someone fighting back there?”

“Are all you going to do is preach to me?”

“I’m not going to fight you!”

“I’m not letting you go!”

“I think that’s Saki!” said Yuki as he recognized her voice. It pushed his feet forward a little faster to get through the distance and appear around the foliage with Saki jumping away from a girl attacking her. “Hey Saki!”

The middle schooler caught Yuki’s voice by reflex and turned her head over to him. There was not even a moment’s thought as she charged for a loaded down Yuki. Yuki stepped back not certain what he had gotten himself into now that he had a young girl sprinting for him with a look in her eye that he was all too familiar with.

Saki had slid back to keep her distance from the girl, but it was only an instant for her to see the change in target. The Yuki Protection Meter jumped to an immediate five and Saki burst into a full sprint to close the distance in time. Her mind was no longer thinking about anything other than protecting Yuki. The thoughts of staying out of the fight and being peaceful vaporized with a narrowed look in her eye.

The girl was in mid-air pulling back her arm for a quick punch closing the distance quickly, but Saki covered the ground with remarkable speed coming into striking distance. Using the already built up momentum she brought up her leg horizontally as she leapt into the air keeping the motion going connecting her thigh to knee with the girl’s stomach knocking the wind out of her and making her cough up some saliva. The sudden change in speed and direction on the girl bent her over and around Saki’s leg before throwing her away into the bushes disappearing with only her legs sticking up. Saki came to a sliding landing on the cement rotating around to check Yuki. “Are you alright?”

“Wow, Saki! That was an awesome kick!”

Saki could not hold back the sweat at hearing his reaction. She marched over to him glaring at him a little annoyed, when she got over her shock. “I asked if you’re hurt!”

“Oh uh? Yeah I’m fine. Not even a scratch.”

Saki looked Yuki up and down trying to get through the wall of manga that he was carrying with him. “I thought you were only getting a few today?”

Yuki’s face turn red looking embarrassed. He almost lost control of his books, but salvaged them in time. “Well I found some that I’ve been looking for a while for.” He blinked catching the moving, twitching leg of the girl that tried to attack in the bush. “Who’s the girl?”

“I’m not sure yet. I’ve been trying to calm her down.”

“By hitting her? She looks like she’s in middle school!”

Saki snapped her head over at Yuki getting taken off guard by Yuki’s accusations. “What?! No, she attacked me!”

“But look how hard you hit her. You probably knocked her unconscious!” Yuki set down his books realizing that they were getting in his way. He walked over to the bush looking in and then away getting a little embarrassed from the sight he caught. “How could you be so mean?”

“What?! But I didn’t…” Saki was swinging back and forth between anger and guilt and trying to prove her own innocence in the matter. She did not even realize that she was being defensive with Yuki. “I was protecting you!”

“Well you didn’t have to hit her so hard, she’s younger than you.”

“She was attacking me and that other guy! Why you treating me like the villain here?” Saki grabbed Yuki by the shoulder pulling him back so that he would look at her face rather than shouting to his back.

He pulled away from her fishing into the bush trying to find something safe to grab onto of the girl. “Help me get her out of the bush, Saki.” There was silence from behind him as he looked around for an arm in the bush. He thrashed around with his hands going between the branches trying to keep free and not get scratched up in the process. “Hah!” he said finally locating an arm of the girl. When he went to grab the girl’s arm he felt the bush shift and move suddenly making him look over at the girl to see if she was trying to get out. However, he saw that it was Saki who exchanged Yuki’s slightly confused face for a grudging assistance. “Saki…”

It took her a moment, but they finally had the girl by the arms. Yuki counted the time down with Saki to pull together getting her freed from the bush and dropped on her knee slouched over with them still holding her arms. Yuki let her go making sure that she did not fall over while she was still unconscious. “Umm…little girl? Are you alright?” He put his hand on her shoulder hoping to be able to get her to wake up with a little shaking. “You hit her pretty hard, Saki…”

Saki was turned away trying to keep her anger in check while Yuki took the wrong side of the situation. The words coming from Yuki continued to grate on her making it worse until she turned at the waist to look back at him. “What you want from me?! You want me to say I’m sorry? Fine! I’m sorry! Happy?”

Yuki faced turned blue for a moment trying to figure out where all of the rage that Saki was venting was coming from. “Uh, can you search her for identification?”

“Huh?” Saki’s emotions cracked in half taken off guard by Yuki’s redirect. She was not sure if she had missed something that Yuki had said.

“We need to find out who she is and try to get her to her parents.” Saki looked back at him still staring a little blank at him trying to catch up. “I’m not doing it! S-She’s a girl!”

“Fine…” Saki pushed useless Yuki out of the way and knelt down staring at the girl. She was a little surprised that for some with so much energy and fighting talent she had been knocked out so easily. The matter of finding identification was going to be difficult for them if she did not have it on her. She could not find any school bag or pack that she might have been carrying leaving only her school uniform. Saki swallowed slowly not sure what she was feeling about having to help this girl knowing how she was acting just a few minutes ago.

The search had to wait; the girl started to move on her own slowly looking up. It only took a moment, as though it was programmed into her, for her to leap to her feet taking a safe distance away from a still kneeling Saki and go into an attack stance.

Yuki jumped in between the two hoping that he could defuse the situation. “Woah! We aren’t here to hurt you! It’s alright Miss…” He offered his hand out to her as an invitation. However, she just stared at him almost with disgust. “I’m Yuki.”

The girl did not change her stance towards the two of them and checked out of her left eye to see that the boy she had targeted before was still nearby keeping his distance from any of them. His silence nearly made him seem invisible, contrary to his size. “I was mistaken…”

Saki stood up from the grass looking around Yuki at the girl. “So you’re apologizing for attacking us?”

“I thought he was a worthy opponent, but he’s just a weakling.”

Saki could not help but sweat a little from the unexpected respond as well as seeing the stone statue remains of Yuki. Yuki could feel the laughing wind blow through as he turned stone white at the word ‘weakling’. It did not make any sense, but he could not say a word. Upon seeing Yuki’s reaction and letting it set for a moment, Saki started to laugh uncontrollably with the others staring at her confused.

Once she was done laughing, Saki stepped around the still petrified Yuki towards the girl. “I’m Saki! What’s your name?”

The school girl still looked narrowly at Saki, but finally backed off her stance standing normally. She looked disappointed or frustrated. “I’m Chiharu…”

Saki looked over towards the boy from their school hoping to finally get a word out of him. However, he remained quiet not quite staring, but more just watching them. They were interrupted by the sound of something breaking under feet. Chiharu immediately snapped turning towards the noise in a prepared stance. Saki rushed over to Chiharu putting her hand on her shoulder hoping to ease her down.

Out of the exit of the park, or entrance in this case, came three boys with rough trouble seeking looks. They stopped just inside the park taking notice of the four students. However, as Yuki was coming out of his frozen state and turned the center boy, wearing a different high school uniform, pointing to Yuki. “Hey boys, looks like we got lucky! Wait…You’re Hayashi aren’t you?! I’ve got some payback for you!”

To be continued…