"Ho-boy. Get ready, Hana-chan. The Idiot Brigade is ready to strike," said Arisa wearily as they spotted the five-some-odd girls making up the Souma-Stormtroopers. Waiting at the gate, they looked up and...
"KYAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!"
...and screamed their little heads off. They scrambled into chaos, running like chickens about to get their heads cut off, bumping heads against each other blindly, as if C'thulu had risen and taken their sanity.
Tohru watched, eyes circular with amazement.
Arisa watched, puzzled at the stormtroopers' behavior.
Saki... was being Saki.
"Their waves are chaotic," she remarked, eventoned.
"Didn't need wave-power to tell me that, Hana-chan," Arisa commented.
After a few minutes of bumping around, the Stormtroopers organized themselves (speaking very loosely here, folks) and beat a hasty, screaming retreat into the school.
"That was interesting," Saki stated simply.
Arisa bit her lip in thought. "And very suspicious," she added. "We never got that kind of reaction before. In fact, the only reason they'd be wigging out this bad is if..." Arisa trailed off. "Masaka... you don't think they found out, did they?"
"Eh? Eh?" asked Tohru.
"Considering their reactions... and they reacted that way when they looked at Tohru... very probably..." came Saki's very analytical reply.
"Find out what? What about me?" Tohru asked again, very proturbed, glancing back and forth between Arisa and Saki. "Hana-chan? Uo-chan?"
"Never you mind, Tohru. I'll find out for sure," Arisa stated definitely and started trooping after the Stormtroopers, an intense look on her face. Her rage seeping through her pores, everyone gave the Yankee a wide breadth.
Tohru watched Arisa leisurely pursue the Souma-Stormtroopers, then turn to Saki. "Hana-chan, what's going on?"
"Merely something we don't want you involved in," answered Saki.
"Wha... Why are you following us, Yankee?!" loudly demanded the Sergeant, the leader of the Souma-Stormtroopers. "We didn't bother your precious H... Ho-Honda-san today! Leave us alone!"
Arisa failed to be intimidated. Instead, she asked in feigned offhandedness, "Oh, no real reason. I was just wondering if you knew about the 'Destroyer of Souls'..." She caught the Stormtroopers' reaction to that name: severe. "So you do know about Tohru's other self."
A look of terror on her face, the Sergeant nodded.
"You want to tell me how you know?" said Arisa, but the tone was anything but a question.
The Sergeant swallowed, and related the tale...
The Previous Evening...
The Sergeant clenched her fist. With the fulfillment of this plan, Honda Tohru would be out of the picture, and Souma Yuki would be free of the little harlot. All she had needed was to contact the local bunch of thugs, and then scare Honda-san into staying away from the prince. She even had the perfect batch of toughs, if only she could get them to go along with it.
"Lissen here, missy," came the reply from the biggest man in the group. "We don't got no beef with no little girl, you dig?" He was obviously the leader, this being how things go in a gang of young toughs.
The Sergeant wasn't allowing her plan to fall to pieces right now. "But she's an easy target! It's perfect! Just put the fear of god into her, and the money is yours."
"You e'en hearin' what I'm sayin', gurl?! Blow summa dat wax outcha ears wit' dy-na-mite!" came the gang leader "Dat ain't what we all about. We're da Dragon Fangs—we live ta fight, an' we fight ta live! Ya think sum little gurl's gonna give us any sa-tis-fac-tion?" Sounds of agreement from the other gangmembers floated in.
Dragon Fangs? What a lame-o name! And no, those goofy jade earrings don't impress em, thought the Sergeant, though she didn't let any of it show on her face. "You don't understand, we have five-hundred thousand yen that want you to do it." She produced a wad of bills.
The leader snorted. "Keep yo' money, bitch!" came his curt and burlesque reply to that offer. "Dis gang ain't about money!"
The Sergeant was stunned. What gang worth its salt would refuse money for a job? The deal was falling apart before her eyes. "B-But..." she stammered, "...you don't need to beat Honda Tohru up! Just—"
"Honda Tohru?" asked the leader, his eyes widening.
"HONDA TOHRU~~~?!" yelled one of the others. "Innt she the one who..."
The big man, obviously the leader by the way he pushed around the others, waved him off and turned menacingly to the girls. The intense glare directed at them forced them back. "Dis changes everyt'ing, sister!" the leader chuckled, a sick grin forming on his face.
The Sergeant was quite unprepared for this sudden reversal of luck after the sudden reversal of luck. "Wha... you mean you'll do it?"
"Babe, we'd pay ya for information about meetin' wit' her!" the leader said, laughing, "We gotta score to settle with that Honda bitch."
The Sergeant blinked. "Really." Whoo, Honda-san! What kind of trouble did you get yourself into? "Alright! How about this? You do what you want with Honda-san, and we'll tell you where she is."
"Deal!"
The Sergeant was just about to put the ream of bills away when they suddenly disappeared from her hand and into the leader's. "HEY! I thought you didn't need the money!"
The gang leader counted the bills in his hot big mitts. "We ain't stoopid, babe!"
"...We struck the deal, and we f-followed the gang to where we told that gang where Ho-Honda-san would be passing. Then Honda-san..." The Sergeant paused, paling. Then she steadied herself. "I was puzzled when they called her the 'Destroyer of Souls'... then I saw her in action. She was brutal! Twenty tough young men, and she all but butchered them in a few minutes." The girl shuddered, recalling the carnage dealt by Tohru on the gang they had 'hired'. "All this time, we were provoking that... that thing!" She clutched herself, shuddering. The other Stormtroopers slid closer for a group hug.
Arisa watched the three Souma-Stormtroopers huddled together, shaking in fear and giving each other what little comfort they were capable of. They were truly scared.
"So... now that you found out about Tohru's vicious side, what do you intend to do about it?" asked Arisa.
"We... we won't b-b-b-bother Honda-san anymore!" the Sergeant stammered, shaking with fear.
(Posted Tue, 05 Oct 2004 19:16)
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