She took out her phone and showed me the text she typed in big letters, "Are you okay?"
Left speechless from the fight, I could only nod in response.
And then I heard someone shout, "No way, no how Yamimura would lose to a dweeb like that! You guys must have cheated!"
It was one of Yamimura's followers. He was just some mob I never got to talk to, so I won't waste time describing him.
"Hey, hey, hey," Mirai said as he walked towards me and took my side. "How could we be cheating? It's not like we could tamper with a sword you brought over yourselves. Not to mention Yamimura of Yamimura from Yamimura was using his power this whole time. Even if we wanted to, only Underling Hisao, his opponent, would be able to do anything. And since this is not just a clash of swords, but a clash of psychic powers, all's fair."
"Furthermore, how could you say you guys won?" the mob continued. "Yamimura knocked that guy's sword right out of his hand!"
"That's enough . . ." Yamimura said. (Note the three dots, it's been a while so I completely forgot the mob's name.) "You heard the rules as clear as day. There were three conditions for victory, to make the opponent unable to battle, give up or destroy their sword. My sword's broken. I agreed to the rules, so there's no room for debate. I lost."
The mob was clearly unhappy, but he stopped talking and trained his eyes to the floor. At that point, I could no longer stay silent.
"Uh . . . so what are you going to do about that broken sword?" I asked. "It's not yours, is it?"
Yamimura looked at me funny and then glanced at the sword half he was holding before shrugging his shoulders.
"It's just an old sword that was already on its way to the garbage can," he said. "In any case, you don't have to worry about that. But although I lost, I have to ask, how did you get that much power? You've only been a psychic for a few months, right?"
"I don't know," I replied, shrugging. "I just did what Mirai told me and wear my Psy-Armor every time I go out."
"That's it?" Yamimura said. He looked surprised. "That's all you did?"
"Well, sometimes I wear it while mimicking fighting moves I see on TV," I said. "But yeah, that's about all I did."
"Psychic powers are like muscles, Yamimura of Yamimura from Yamimura," Mirai said. "Exercise everyday, they naturally get stronger. You should try it sometimes, Yamimura of Yamimura from Yamimura. I noticed your defence is a little lacking."
"Is repeating my name like that three times over and over again really necessary?" Yamimura asked. "Well, I'll think about it. I did lose to you, after all."
"Speaking of losing, we never did discuss YOUR penalty, did we?" Isaneko said. While putting her finger against her chin, she had a really evil grin on her face. "I wonder, what shall I have you do?"
Even though that smile wasn't directed at me, I could feel my spine tingle from a cold chill through my nerves. She was even cackling like a witch. It was downright scary. Even Yamimura couldn't help but gulp nervously.
"There's nothing to be nervous about, Yamimura of Yamimura from Yamimura," Mirai cut in. "All you have to do is answer a question of mine honestly."
Isaneko scowled and grumbled, "Way to spoil my fun."
"Hey, it's only fair, since the main bet was info," Mirai said. "So, how about it?"
"Fine," said Yamimura. "It's only fair. Just what question do you have, though?"
"I just want to know why you're so interested in hunting down the Piper," Mirai said.
I felt a jolt at the mention of the Piper, and I couldn't help but look around nervously. This is even though I shouldn't have a reason to.
Yamimura looked at Mirai, shocked.
"How'd you - !?"
"The timing," Mirai said. "At almost the same time an alleged victim of the Piper shows up, you come to me about making more psychics, even though rumors about that should've been spread a long time ago already. Your real aim couldn't be more obvious. But even though catching a killer like the Piper might earn you some rep with the town, there must be tons of better, easier ways to raise your reputation. A smart guy like you, who's not wet behind the ears when it came to this town's politics, must know that. So there must be some other reason you're after the Piper, a reason beyond anything I could figure out. So? Come on. I'm waiting."
We all looked at Yamimura anxiously. Earlier, he seemed like the type who was used to attention, but with all our eyes on him, he looked the most anxious of us all. He couldn't resist the pressure for long.
"You all remember that guy they found floating in the river, right?" he said.
There was an unpleasant churning in my stomach as I knew exactly who he was talking about. There was only one guy floating in one river that could come to mind.
Yamimura continued. "He . . . has a close connection to someone in my family. When news got out of his death, that someone in my family got a mental breakdown."
"I see," Mirai said. "So revenge was your motive."
He turned away as if unable to look at Yamimura anymore. And as he did so, I thought I heard him mutter something like, "I wish I had known this before." But that could have just been my imagination.
"Anyway," Yamimura said, "I wanted to find and give that Piper payback. I tried to get my old man to take action, but he just shot me down and said that it'd be better to leave it to the police. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands. But I knew that I couldn't do it alone. Taking him down won't be a problem, but I have to admit even I would have a hard time finding a criminal that the police can't seem catch."
"And that's why you came to me, hoping to learn how to create allies you can depend on to get what you want," Mirai finished.
Yamimura nodded.
"That's everything," he said. "Satisfied?"
"Greatly," Mirai said.
"Then that's my cue to leave," said Yamimura. "Come on," he said to his lackeys. "Pick everything up and let's go."
But then Mirai stopped him and said, "Hold on, Yamimura of Yamimura from Yamimura. There's just one more thing, but you can say no if you'd like."
"What is it?" Yamimura asked.
"Can I have your phone number?"
**********
It was about One in the morning when my eyes flew open to the rapid beating my heart made against my chest. I was so hot and sweaty beneath my covers that I threw them off and sat up in my bed, panting like I had just run in a marathon.
Because of that talk we had with Yamimura earlier about the Piper and the guy we found in the river, I ended up reliving the day we found his dead body in my dreams. It was no less unpleasant than when it happened for real.
But that wasn't the only feeling that still lingered on me. While looking down at my right hand, which was silvery white like the moon shining down on it, I could still feet the sensation from when it held that sword. The fight with Yamimura was the first time I ever won a sword fight, or ever fought for real. Fighting with a sword . . . To think that I would actually do something like that.
The image of the dead body in the river suddenly flashed in my head, as did what Yamimura said, how that guy was connected with his family. It got me thinking that even someone from a bigshot family like the Yamimura family could end up the way that guy in the river did. If anyone I knew had been at the town the body was from, they could've ended up that way too.
Thinking about it got the unpleasant churning in my stomach to become stronger.
I stared at my hand some more and then muttered, "A sword . . . Now that I think about it, didn't we get some katana-shaped bokuto a while back?"
I remembered that a distant relative of ours sent us a bunch of wooden swords as souvenir gifts from some trip. I think it was someone from my mom's side of the family, a sister-in-law of her cousin by her mom's cousin. Or something like that. Basically, we should be complete strangers, but for some odd reason a lady who liked to travel a lot, who was connected to my family in a really roundabout way decided to send us swords.
Wondering if we still had those swords, I decided to tiptoe out of my room and made my way towards the storage room where we put all the junk we didn't need anymore. I sure as hell wasn't going to go back to sleep anytime soon, so may as well use my time constructively.
My room was at the very end of the hallway, while the storage room was at the exact opposite side, which meant that I had to go past both my parents and Yuna's rooms. I tried to be as quiet as I could in order not to wake anyone up. I noticed light seeping out from beneath the door to Yuna's room, but didn't think much of it.
As soon as I reached the storage room, I carefully opened the door and dug through the boxes. I had to be careful not to make any sound as I sorted through all that stuff, so it was really slow and long work until I found a whole bunch of long, cloth bundles leaning against the wall.
I took one of the bundles, closed the storage room door and went back to my room. There, I unwrapped the slightly dusty green cloth and pulled out a smooth, red wood sword. Even though it's been a few months, the sword looked and felt brand new.
After admiring the sword beneath the ceiling light, I straightened up and drew the sword in front of me. I held the sword with two hands and lifted it over my head before bringing it down with a hard swing. There was a satisfying woosh, and I swung the sword again. After maybe five swings, I wrapped the sword back up in the cloth, tied the bundle tight and put it in my closet.
The next day, I brought it with me to school.
No comments:
Post a Comment