"Oh shit, it's the rampaging ogre, Oga and the Field King Furuichi, from Kata Middl!" One of the thugs shouted.
I sighed. Field King Furuichi. If I ever find out who came up with that fuck ass nickname, I'm breaking their knees. At least Oga's nickname was decent, but fucking Field King? Sure, it's because whenever I hit a battlefield, I can clear it in minutes and stand alone over a mound of bodies like a king, but come the fuck on, Field King!
I stood beside Oga as the thugs edged back in fear, well, most of them did. Kiriya still acted like everything was under control; he had no idea how wrong he was.
"We figured we should help you find whatever it is you lost."
"Didn't expect you to be having a party without us." Well, I did, but whatever.
"You need our help?" Oga and I looked at Miki. He relaxed and put on a brave face; having us there as backup clearly made him more confident. "No. I got this."
"Huh? You must be joking. You're going to fight me, boy?" Kiriya bristled, insulted that Miki would face him. To Kiriya, Miki was just a weak middle-schooler; Oga and I, however, were known to most of the city's thugs. Kiriya figured that if he could beat us, his street cred would skyrocket.
"Get your damn foot off my charm!" Miki yelled, stomping towards Kiriya. That's when it happened. Kiriya's arm moved like a whip. Miki didn't even see it coming before two cuts ran down the side of his cheek.
"Did you know that these could be just as sharp as a blade? If I got caught with a pocket knife, I could go to jail for a long time. Just for a small knife. But you know what I can't get in trouble for? Sharp nails. Not as durable, but sometimes it works better than a blade." Kiriya held up his hand, nails stained with blood.
Miki fell to his knees, trembling.
"Look at you, pathetic," Kiriya said as he shoved Miki behind him. "You're next. Think I'll start with you, ogre." He pointed his bloody hand at us.
Oga and I exchanged a glance, smirks plastered on our faces. "Should you really be focused on us?" I asked, while Oga simply pointed behind Kiriya.
Miki lunged forward and shoved Kiriya hard toward us, snatching his charm from under the bully's foot. "I told you to give it back!"
Kiriya tried to catch himself, but Oga was faster. He grabbed Kiriya's hand, and with what could only be described as a devil's smile, said, "Wow, these do look sharp." Then he twisted Kiriya's wrist and slowly dragged the sharpened nails across the older man's face.
"AHHH!" He let out a blood-curdling scream of pain.
"Well, Oga's had his fun. My turn." What I did next wasn't actually all that fun. It took me less than sixty seconds to drop the thugs and leave them sprawled across the ground, groaning in pain.
I turned to Miki and Oga, who had just watched me fuck those idiots up in under a minute. Miki had stars in his eyes; it was the first time he had seen me fight, but Oga didn't care. He'd seen me do this shit too many times over the years we'd known each other.
"Come on, we should probably get that cleaned up before it gets infected," I said to the still bleeding Miki.
"Oh, right." He must have still been running on adrenaline, because it seemed like he'd only just remembered he was injured.
"You've got guts standing up to them, but next time learn to fight." Oga patted Miki's back, making the guy beam.
We left the morons behind, all of them groaning in pain, and one sporting a nice big new facial injury.
----
Miki leaves in a few days. It had been a while since the episode with Kiriya. The three of us sat outside in the courtyard. The spring air was crisp yet warm, carrying the faint scent of freshly cut grass and blooming flowers.
"Now that you're leaving tomorrow, are you gonna tell us why that charm was so important yet?" I asked Miki, not looking up from my notepad as I sketched out the characters of what would be my next manga, Soul Reaper.
It was just Bleach with a better name. I had already renamed Naruto to Shinobi, which started running after Fullmetal Alchemist ended. My plan for Soul Reaper was a little different. I was going to talk to the head editor at Jack and see if I could release it directly in volume format instead of weekly chapters.
"I got the charm from my father." Miki continued. "My parents are getting divorced, and I'm staying with my mom.
"That's why you're transferring to the Buddha statue place?" Oga leaned over my shoulder to see the character designs I was doing. I shooed him away and shut my notebook, looking up.
"Yeah," He winced. He still had the bandage on his face from the cut.
"Is that cut really alright? It seems like it's taking a long time to heal."
"I'm alright. My mom really gave me a tough lashing, though. She was so pissed when she found out it was in a fight. But I'm happy that it happened too," he touched the bandage with a smile on his face.
"You're happy you got your face cut up... What are you, a masochist?" I asked, to which he just laughed it off.
----
Hisya Miki
"Did you hear? Oga and Furuichi did a number on those guys from Mano High."
"I heard that Kiriya guy vowed to get revenge or something, right?"
Miki overheard two girls talking while he sat at his desk during break, reading. He froze for a moment before standing up and rushing out of the room to find them. It didn't take long to spot Oga walking down the hallway, though Furuichi was nowhere in sight.
"Oga! Are you alright?" Miki called out, seeing the state of his friend. Oga was covered in bruises, with a few fresh bandages on his face. "You're all beat up, man! This is my fault, I should've been there to help! Where's Furuichi? Is he alright?"
Miki's words came fast and panicked, but Oga only looked at him with a calm, almost blank smile. "…Do I know you?"
Miki was too stunned to speak for a minute, "Are you trying to cover for me, Oga? pretending like you don't know me, so I don't get involved? You don't need to, I'm moving away tomorrow!"
Oga didn't respond, just kept walking away. Miki stared at Oga's back, thinking. 'But I thought we were friends.'
Later, as the school bell rang signalling the end of the day, somebody from the hall shouted, "Hey, look outside, it's guys from Mano High School." "Kiriya is here, and he brought a bunch of others too."
"OGA, GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE!" Kiriya yelled at the school.
Miki watched from the third floor as Oga calmly exited the building, prompting him to run for the stairs. 'There are too many of them, I gotta help him'
"So you're Oga, huh? You don't look so tough!" One of the thugs said, metal bat in hand. Oga disregarded him entirely and stared at Kiriya.
"Look at you now. Oga, all alone. Where's Furuichi, huh? Oh, I know by now he's probably covered in blood, lying in a ditch. The guys I sent after him are strong, but I wanted to deal with you, myself!" Kiriya spat with unfiltered hate.
"Yeah, those guys weren't as strong as you think." A voice cut through Kiriya's bullshit with ease. At the gate stood Furuichi, blood on his hands and a bit splatterd across on his face. "Well, at least you got the covered in blood part right. Don't you worry, though, it's not mine."
Furuichi grabbed the sliding metal gate and slammed it shut behind him before calmly walking over to stand beside his best friend. "Ya know the saying, Kiriya. If you want something done right, you do it yourself. Of course, if you did try to come for me yourself, the outcome would have been the same. Hey, but don't worry, man, it's 2013 and medicine has come a long way. I'm sure your boys will be able to walk again...eventually."
The mocking tone dripped from his voice; every word meant to piss Kiriya off even more.
Kiriya was furious. Not only did the guys he sent to take care of Furuichi fail, but now he had to fight both of them.
----
Takayuki Furuichi
"You look a little annoyed, Kiriya. Is it because of the impromptu facial reconstruction surgery Oga performed on you?" I love mocking idiots like him who do not understand how fucked they are.
I could see out of the corner of my eye that Oga was trying not to laugh, but the way his lips twitched made it obvious he was fighting a losing battle.
I heard the doors behind us open up, and I knew what was about to happen. "Oga, Furuichi wait-" Miki couldn't even finish his sentence before Oga had swung his fist back at him, hitting Miki in the face. This shocked not only the students in the school but the thugs in front of us.
You could see the shock, confusion and hurt on Miki's face as he struggled to stand back up. "Stop trying to act like we're friends, I don't even know who the fuck you are!" Oga kicked and stomped on him until he was unconscious.
I stood stoically and watched it happen. 'I'm sorry, buddy. This sucks, but it's better this way. Now Kiriya won't even remember who you are; he'll only remember hating us.'
Once Oga was finished, he made his way back to me. "Ya know, Miki's gonna resent you for that, right?" I whispered so only Oga could hear.
He said nothing, and I sighed. "You deal with Kiriya, I'll deal with the rest."
I moved towards the first guy. "Are you all sure you want to do this? I asked, rolling my shoulders loose.
"Look around, kid, you're surrounded, and you even locked the gate yourself!" he laughed as the first swing came fast. It was wide, sloppy and had barely any coordination. Before his knuckles could even brush my hair, I turned my palm, guiding his arm past me like a current splitting around a stone. My other hand followed through, two fingers striking his bicep as his arm went limp.
He stumbled back, confused. "What the hell-" I stepped in close, grabbing his limp arm, throwing him over my shoulder to the ground and kicking him in the head for a quick knockout.
Other than Oga and Kiriya, who were fighting a bit further away, the rest of the crowd stood stunned. Three moves, that's all it took. If I swung first, then it would have only taken one.
I looked around the silent crowd of thugs. "None of you seem to understand. I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me!"
Before they could react, I moved on to the next. My hands flowed like water, one or two jabs per person to take them down. By the time I was halfway through the crowd, they began to realize how fucked they were.
I redirected every strike, I dodged every weapon, and each desperate hit thrown was another body added to the mound. Soon, I was stepping over bodies just to get to my next victim.
It didn't take long for me to finish, and when I was done, I took a break on the mountain of unconscious bodies beneath my feet. "...Field King, fucking dumb," I muttered as I glanced at Oga's fight.
Fight might have been the wrong term. I could see Kiriya on his knees, Oga holding him by the hair as he kneed him in the face repeatedly. I shook my head before heading over to the still unconscious Miki.
He was face down in the dirt, so I rolled him over. he was bloodied and bruised, but nothing that would leave a permanent mark. I glance around to see if anybody was watching, and to my annoyance, a lot were. I guess after what I just did, I should have expected it.
I sighed and cast a notice-me-not charm on both of us before using a scourgify to clean off the dirt, followed by a minor healing spell on him. It wouldn't remove the scars on his face, but it would ease the pain, hide the bruises, and temporarily speed up his natural healing.
I stood up and walked over to Oga, who was now at this point just punching a clearly unconscious Kiriya. "Uh, hey man, I think you got 'em"
"You want what he's having?" Oga said in the worst Batman impression I've ever heard.
"Uh, no," I played along with a smirk.
"That's what I thought. For Gothem, Justice!" He continued to beat him.
===
Author's Note.
I probably could have folded this chapter into the last one, but what's done is done. Oh well.
If you like this story, leave a review. It helps. If you don't like it, that's fine too; that's your opinion. Your opinion's wrong, but at least it's yours. Love you, bye ;)