What time was it? Past midnight, that’s for sure. Told mom I was gonna be back home soon, but now I’m sneaking in the dead of night? I’m gonna get scolded in the morning for sure. Delinquents, not scared, murderous angels… a little scared… but mom yelling at me?

Terrifying.

I threw away my ruined clothes, washed off the blood from my body, then headed to my room. I must have been exhausted, because I don’t even remember going to bed at all. The smell of breakfast roused my still weary body, and I slowly righted myself in my futon. I rubbed my eyes and yawned, the events of the previous night feeling like a bizarre dream more than reality. My untied hair, which reached to my upper back, fell over my face. I blew a strand of my bangs out of my eyes and stood up, and the fatigue from yesterday made itself quickly apparent in my aching muscles. 

“I know it’s getting warmer sweetheart, but you should still wear something before you go to bed.” my mother scolded me from the hall, my door sitting wide open. “You don’t want to catch a cold.”

It then dawned on me that I was almost completely naked, only wearing a pair of black boyshorts and a single sock… wait, where did my other sock go?! I looked around my room, but it was so dirty I couldn’t tell which sock was the one I wanted and I quickly gave up.  

“I just fell asleep while I was getting changed is all, mama.” I apologized and got dressed as fast as I could. I looked at the pile of dirty laundry in my room and, instead of fixing it, discarded yesterday’s underwear into the same mess. The sarashi I used instead of a bra was ruined, and I couldn’t find a spare. I looked at my dresser, an abyss of frilly, pink underwear my mother always bought me staring back at me, and decided I probably didn’t need to wear anything since my chest was pretty small anyways.

I went to brush my teeth and while in the bathroom I looked at the old bandaids on my face from the last few fights I had been in, and pulled them off. The bruises and scrapes were all gone, just like the stab wound from last night… 

“Honey, I know you’re a bit of a tomboy…” while eating breakfast, my mother Kikyo paused to talk to me. “But you should probably wear… something.” 

She pointed at my chest with her chopsticks, and I looked down. Two nubs on my chest pointed through my t-shirt. I placed a piece of omelet in my mouth and chewed it, continuing to stare at my chest, as I pondered how to respond.

“So? I see guys' nipples through their shirts all the time, what’s the big deal?”  

“Jeez, Takeru, I wish you would act more like a girl.” my 40 year old mother pouted like a child at me, but it had no effect on me whatsoever. 

“Shoulda thought about that before you gave me a boy’s name, huh?” I replied, hopping to my feet. I looked at the time on my phone, then headed to my room to grab my spare jacket, instead of the blue that matched the school uniform it was a bright green. “Well, I have somebody I need to meet soon, so I’m heading out.”

“T-Takeru, stop right there missy, you’re not going to get into another fight are you?” She tried to stop me, but I headed out anyway. 

“I’m meeting a girl from my homeroom class, god. Not everything I do is a street brawl, can’t you just trust me once and a while?” I complained, sliding my arm through my jacket sleeve. Of course, I had done nothing to deserve trust here. 

“P-Please put on a bra! Takeru~!” my mom called out after me, but I quietly closed the door behind me and headed down the stairs. It was a peaceful, sunny day that showed no signs of the chaos brewing below the surface. Everybody walked around, going about their lives without a care in the world. 

I I headed along the river that ran through town, on the way to the shopping center. After a short while, I noticed a group start to form around me. The rough looking men followed me to a clearing, where they completely surrounded me. It was fairly common for delinquents to want to fight me, but this was a lot more than usual, and they looked a bit too old to be high school punks.

“Yo, I heard you took good care of my little brother yesterday.” The man in the front, presumably their leader, addressed me. “I mean, assuming you are Hatsu Takeru? I don’t want to send the wrong guy to an early grave.”

“Hey boss, I don’t think this is him…'' one of the other gang members looked at me and laughed. “This one’s a girl, I think?”

“Ya sure? They fit his description perfectly… don’t tell me my brother lost to a woman of all things?”

“That's right, I am Takeru. Now, you have two options.” I said coldly, my glare piercing the leader’s body. “You can leave here in the back of an ambulance, or you can run back home on your own two feet.” 

“Tough talk for such a little lady, and one who's all alone too!” the leader laughed, his hand reaching out and wrapping around my left breast, giving it a light squeeze. “Oi Oi, this bitch ain’t wearin’ a bra? What, you think you’re a boy or something, girly?”

“Ah, I see you’ve picked the third option.” I replied, closing my eyes and curling my hands into fists. 

“Oh, and what option is that? A Love hotel?” they laughed, and a smile spread across my lips.

“Death.”

My coiled fist crashed into the college aged delinquent ‘s chin, and he went soaring into the sky. He cleared past his gang and splashed into the river behind us, having travelled an absolutely absurd distance from one punch.

“A-Aniki!” one of the gang members shouted and ran after their downed leader, but the rest turned to me with rage in their hearts. They lunged at me, but their movements seemed slow. 

A right straight punch aimed at my face, I merely had to tilt my head to the side to avoid it, the rush of air around me displacing only my hair. My loosely tied ponytail flowed behind me as I weaved past his blow, jamming him in the gut with an elbow strike. He keeled over in pain, clutching what was likely a shattered rib.

A second man tried to punch me at that moment, but his attack was so slow I decided to catch his arm mid swing. The look on his face was priceless as I swung him by his own arm, knocking down half of the group like bowling pins. 

This body was no longer human, the realization finally set in. two men charged at me, and I knocked them away like they were weightless. I barely had to put in any strength to send them flying, and they were only moving at human speeds. I blocked all of their punches and kicks, countering them each one at a time until they were all on the ground, broken and defeated, except one…

“Please, don’t h-hurt me, I’m sorry!” The final delinquent begged for mercy.I held my hand up to his chin, poised to flick a single finger into his face. With just my index finger, I launched him into the river along with his boss. How boring, they were less of a threat than usual.

This town was used to gangs fighting each other on the streets, so nobody even called the cops on us. Not that it would have mattered, the fight was over in the blink of an eye. Nobody got in the way anymore as I made my way to Coffee Paimon, a locally run cafe and bakery, where I had been headed before I was rudely interrupted.  

As I arrived, a waitress in a french maid uniform bowed and asked me how many seats I needed, but I pointed to an occupied booth in the back and headed there instead. The person I was meeting was already here, the Daeva Yuuki Raza looking over the menu and not taking notice I had arrived until I sat across from her. 

“Sorry for being late… I had to… take out some trash on the way.”

Raza closed the menu, brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes, then picked up a very fancy looking iced coffee and took a short sip. 

“Are you late? I hadn’t even noticed.”

“Well, I’m still sorry.” I rubbed the back of my head and picked up the menu. Most of what was on it was sweets, and I wasn’t really that into sweet things. I turned to the waitress beside us, the same one from the entrance. “Uhh, just a black coffee for me for now, I guess.” 

“Double chocolate chip pancake supreme, two jelly donuts, one slice of your triple layer cake... and a refill on my iced caramel fudge mocha espresso, extra whipped cream.” Raza gave a ridiculous order of nothing but the most sickening sounding sugary items, her face completely void of expression as she did so. 

“No problem, I’ll leave the menu here in case you change your mind~” she smiled kindly at me and headed off to another table after taking our orders.  

And we were left alone in silence, awkward silence. The events of last night didn’t feel real, and the adrenaline of the situation had worn off. Now all that remained was two students, and I had never really talked with her before. Punching people was easy, but talking to them made me sweat. The silence stretched on endlessly, I needed to say something, anything!

“H-How’s your injury, are you doing okay now? Cause like, I woke up fully healed.” I asked her, and she merely shrugged in response. 

“Same, My regeneration as a Daeva is slower than a Heir of Ahriman, but not by much.” 

I wondered if this was a conversation we should be having in public, but nobody was paying attention to us at all, and we were alone in this back corner, so I guess it was fine. 

The waitress came back over with our orders, placing the single coffee in front of me, then unloading an entire tray of desserts for Raza. I stared at the sickening plate of gourmet sweets, which began to quickly disappear into Raza’s mouth. She was so small… How did she eat so much?

“My liege, you're aware that you forgot to wear a bra today, yes?” Raza asked me through a bite of her pancakes. God, I wish she would drop the liege thing already, it sounds really weird, I hate it. 

“Oh, yeah, my Sarashi got damaged before, remember? I couldn’t find my spare one so… uh, yeah.” I laughed awkwardly, realizing how dumb of an excuse this was. “And please stop calling me Liege, it creeps me out.”

 “Well, with the blood of Ahriman running through you, you don’t have to worry about them sagging, so I guess it’s fine as long as you don’t mind the stares from horny men.” she replied, biting into an absolutely massive jelly donut.

“Souls are blood now?” I asked, sipping the bitter black coffee. “Cause I thought I was a reincarnation, not a descendant.” 

“Don’t be pedantic, my Lieg- Takeru.” she stopped herself and forced my proper name from her mouth, though it looked like a struggle to say it. “Those born with a shard of Ahriman’s soul are human until they awaken, when they are reborn with his blood, his flesh. You are an Heir now, Takeru.”

“Yeah, humans don’t regrow limbs very often.” I said, flexing my left hand. The power I felt in my body was unreal, I could sense the immense energy within every fiber of muscle I had. “That angel got away though, you think she’ll be back?”

“Her, or another, staying in this city is no longer safe.” Raza replied, putting down her food to talk seriously for a moment. “We must leave, go into hiding until they forget about us.”

“Fuck no, I’m not running away, didn’t you see how I kicked that angel’s ass?” clenching my fist tightly, I smirked. “I was already unbeatable before I awakened, so who’s gonna threaten me now?”

“Your power was passable, for a newborn Heir. But against anyone but the lowest of Heaven’s Executioners...” She shot me down immediately, giving me a grave look. “You managed to manifest some spiritual armor, but you did not summon a Suura, the most basic of combat techniques.”

“The fuck’s a Suura?”

“A weapon born from your soul, my spear is one of them, this is a power angels possess as well, her sword is her Suura.”

“A real man does his talking with his fists!” I interjected, the muscles in my arm tensing enough to make my fist shake despite being held still in the air.  

“You’re a woman, though.” she retorted, and I had no comeback since well, she was right. “Hand to Hand combat is fine, but without a Suura your destructive power will be limited. You should work on summoning one as your next step if you wish to survive this fight.”

“Got it, summon a weapon… I can do that.” I said that, but I couldn’t think of a single weapon I would be good with, maybe a katana or something? “Are you regretting picking me as your champion yet?” 

“I did not pick you, it was fate that brought us together, reincarnated in the same time, at the same location… and, if you can bring out even a third of that strength you might actually stand a chance of changing the fate of those trapped in the shadows.”

“No, that won’t be enough.” my body shuddered as I spoke, a long forgotten memory resurging inside of me. Ahriman’s primal fear when he went up against the strongest member of the light tribe, when he went up against Him. “I need a hundred percent, no, I need to become stronger than the original Ahriman to dethrone that.”

“D-Don’t be ridiculous!” Raza slapped her hands onto the table, causing a few people to look our way for a second before they returned to their days. “We’re not trying to do that, our only goal is to find a way to survive!”

I didn’t like it. I knew she was right, He was overwhelmingly strong, not even an army could take him down so what could the two of us do? But it left a bad taste in my mouth, were we just going to run away and hide for the rest of our lives? In our next lives as well? Slaughtered like vermin, hunted down for the rest of time? No, I won’t allow that!

“Then go find a new Heir... if you wanna bury your head in the sand, I won’t stop you.” I stood up, put some money on the table and headed out. “But I’ll be doing things my way. I don’t care if I have less than a zero percent chance of succeeding, that’s just how I am!”

“Wait, Takeru!” she chased after me, finally catching up a few blocks away. Seems I was walking faster than I thought, as she was out of breath by the time she reached me. “I’m sorry, I just… got scared. The Heirs' last cycle, they all said the same thing, but I couldn’t do anything but stand by and watch them die!” 

“Heh, don’t worry about me, I won’t die until I wipe that smug look off His face and make him pay for what he’s done!”

“I’ve heard those words before, countless times.…” Raza’s voice quivered, her body shaking in fear. “I remember all of my past lives, this is the fifth time I’ve been revived… I watched Ahriman die, then I watched as hopeful Heirs rose up only to be defeated, again and again!”

I pulled the trembling girl close to my chest, resting my hand on her head. She was over a full head shorter than me, and she fit perfectly against my body. She stopped crying, mostly because she seemed confused, and so was I. I’m pretty sure I didn’t swing this way, but I wanted to stop her tears, I felt a strong need to comfort her. A distant memory of Ahriman doing something similar passed my thoughts, so it must just be influenced from my past life. 

“I’ve never lost a fight, and I don’t plan on starting now either. People around here don’t just call me One Tap Takeru for fun, you know?” I told her, “I’ll protect you, and beat up the light tribe so badly they’ll never mess with us again, I promise.”

“Mm, I’ll hold you to it, if you die I’ll follow you into the next life and punish you for it!” She replied softly, wiping the tears from her eyes. 

“Well, I don’t wanna find out what that means, so I’ll try my best.”