Chapter 7: Gain and Loss

In a single dash, I closed in right up to his stony, statuesque stance with the intent to sweep him off of his feet. When I dropped down in a fluid motion onto my hands, I balanced on them while I attempted to swing my legs out and under him. From experience, swinging one leg was not going to be enough to take this giant down.

But my tail slipped out from my pants and I reoriented myself on all fours over this slippery wet ground. What the Hell that was all about?

...I guessed it was because of my posture that my tail was freed so suddenly? It didn’t feel that way, and that was what disturbed me. In than instant, my mind was reeling from the sense I had fallen and landed, not intentionally dropped with a means to land a first strike.

On all fours now, and on the ground, I rushed to move out from under the dangers of being stomped, or worse: ridiculed.

As I passed by him, I caught from the corner of my eye that he was keeping a watch on me and where I was going. Since I was behind him now, he had to have left his straight and tall stance to face the new threatening direction.

Spinning around on all fours, I proved myself right. He had his legs spread in a stalwart stance to prevent being floored so easily, like I had wanted him to be. A second opportunity to sweep him off his feet would be to invite danger to myself… but maybe I could draw him into a feint? He would keep that defensive posture if he thought I was repeating the same legsweep.

Planting both of my hands on the ground, I raised my posterior in the air and stretched a single leg out as far behind me as possible. He squatted, spreading his legs out wider. I watched as he brought up one of his strong-as-steel arms. His forearm raised, fist clenched, elbow locked, and his entire arm flexed with a readied block.

The feint might work. Instead of doing another sweeping kick, I pounced on him!

Straight into his blocking arm. But he obviously didn’t expect the full force of my body being launched directly up off the ground at him. Right on his chest, in his face, I practically glomped him and caused his once steady stance to topple backwards.

He yelled in surprise as he stumbled back a foot or two before we fell together. Only difference between our falls was he fell flat on his back and I straddled his waist and rode on top of him to both stay upright and keep him down.

Beyond anything else now, I was excited. I was finally right where I wanted to be and now was my chance for… for revenge, right?

I shook my head, just once to clear my thoughts, and turned my confusion into aggression.

With one swipe, I scratched four fine lines into his face. Red streaks formed from his cheek to the tip of his nose. He flinched away and I managed two more slashes before he grabbed me around the waist.

There was a single second where I seized up and froze in his hands. I didn’t know what I was doing, but that was because I wondered what he would do. My concern came down to Hideki’s intentions with me in his hands. But it wasn’t panic because I was still excited, hot, bothered that we weren’t closer, that I wanted...

Shutting my eyes, I nearly screamed out in frustration and took it entirely out on him.

Lithe as I was now, I wiggled out of his grasp and slipped down alongside, but not without leaving another few cuts up his jawline. A feral hiss from me, right in his ear, caused him to jerk his head away from me by instinct. It might’ve been the first time anyone witnessed a sign of fright from him.

And that was probably what prompted his gang to come in to rescue their fallen leader.

They were coming, I heard their shouts and turned enough to see them over my shoulder, but I didn’t respond the way I had expected. Instead of turning to face them, or rushing past Hideki to create some distance between his gang and me… I caught myself pressing in against my fallen adversary.

It took me a second to realize this, and Hideki and I exchanged a bewildered look before I scrambled off of him. I became scared of myself and what I was doing rather than Hideki’s friends almost being on top of me.

On all fours, I had no choice but to run away from them and distance myself. Maybe even retreat until I could discover the resolve I needed to properly fight Hideki. My head was not on my shoulders, that was confirmed in this encounter.

But instead of sprinting away, I ended up on the ground painfully. I’d fallen on my shoulder. All this moving around had my tail whipping around, keeping me oriented on Hideki, next to him, and on all fours to the point that damn tail pushed my pants down and got them tangled around my legs!

“N’yeow!” An agonizing pain shot up my spine.

That aforementioned tail had been yanked harshly back by someone. Yowling in pain, I scratched and scrambled at the ground to get back up. Multiple hands were on me and dragged my bare ass back into their huddle.

Something heavy pressed down on the back of my head and ground my cheek into the concrete. Hands were all over my back and side, restricting my movement. They were all holding me face down on the ground while one of those little shits was tugging my pants the rest of the way off.

“Check this out! She’s got a tail! A real fucking tail!”

Pushed more harshly down, I grunted out a yell: “Let go of meow!”

There was a sharp slap against my bare cheek. “Damn fine piece of a-- Ow! Oof!” And I heard a dull thud nearby. A lot less pressure on my back too.

“Watch your language and -- get off her!” One by one, the Hideki gang was being yanked off of me. When I only had one pair of hands on me, I scraped myself up off the ground and scratched at the last hands on me to wrench and crawl away.

After I finally put a little bit of distance between us, I stopped to make my last stand with the wall of my house behind me. As I twisted around to look back and see what had happened, I pulled down on my red shirt to cover what they’d exposed.

Hideki was back up -- royally pissed -- and throwing his own guys out of the way. At first, I thought he was directing his anger towards me, but then I saw where he kept darting his furious glare. He was upset with his friends, knocking each of his lackeys around, smacking, punching, and even kicking them until they were all on the ground.

Unable to pass up the moment, I took advantage of the confusion to create more distance between us. I wasn’t in a position to fight anymore. Especially after being dragged by his guys across the rough ground and forcibly held down in that scary position -- and my stitched side stung sharply.

But more than anything, I needed composure. It wasn’t the frightening situation I was just in that took away my cool. It was Hideki. Every time I thought about him, looked at him, or touched him, I burned with an unbearable heat.

Frantic for a moment, I looked away from Hideki’s rampage to search for an escape into my house. The stairs leading up the front door were still blocked by the fallen gang, and there was more than a full yard between me and the door, so I wasn’t going to be gaining any ground crawling from here to there without some unwanted interactions.

It couldn’t be helped. Going around back was out of the question with how I was currently dressed. And I felt too ashamed of the idea of finding someone to help me. Regaining some courage, I stood up and got ready to make a break for it across the beaten group.

With a quick sprint, I reached a hand out for the front door --

-- but a heavy hand fell on my shoulder.

By reflex, I instantly jerked my hand away from the door, elbowing back hard and hitting a solid wall. That was how it felt to elbow Hideki in the gut, since he didn’t even return a response, let alone react to my strike. Another heavy hand clamped down on my other shoulder.

All of my training, tolerance, and cool level-headed demeanor had vanished. It was already disappearing before this fight began, but I had at least relied on a trace of it to fight Hideki. Now I shook like a leaf in the wind, mentally telling myself to pull away from him, but at the same time… I didn’t want to.

Over the next few seconds, I was in utter terror over what might be wrong with me.

Then a panicked confusion settled over me as the time ticked by without either one of us doing anything.

At last, his hands bore down on my shoulders, firmly holding me still, and applying enough force for me to drop down onto my knees. I resisted for a second until I heard his demand: “Sit down.”

Just his voice alone held so much menace in it that I literally felt the white hairs on my head react with a static spike, like his shockingly commanding voice had struck me like lightning. He never had spoken to me like that before… I dropped and knelt while tugging down my shirt over my bareness.

“Stay here and don’t move. You try, I’m pinning your pretty ass back down.” Bright red, I knew that had to be the color of my face right there and then, and I simply nodded in response.

My shoulders were relieved of the pressure he’d administered and I could hear his footfalls fade behind me.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw him casually picking up my soaked pair of pants from a nearby puddle before he came back around to where I remained. He knelt down by my side and held the dripping black pants out in front of me.

“I don’t entirely know what you thought to accomplish today, but it hurt.” He dropped the pants over my naked knees, but I kept my gaze on his scratched-up face. “Know that I could have made things worse... a lot worse for you if I hadn’t stepped in to stop them.”

With that said, I knew what he was talking about. His gang had full advantage to do whatever they desired. That could have been simple taunting, spitting, or poking fun at me. But I knew they could’ve done much worse. All they had to do was drag me out of the public view for any more wicked ideas that might’ve popped in their empty heads.

My response was another silent nod.

Hearing him huff a harsh breath near me, I could tell he was frustrated, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of me or how his friends continued to cause trouble. I remembered… Hideki wasn’t a bad guy, just… maybe he didn’t hang out with the right crowd?

“Fuma Hitoshi…” He shook his head at me. “Is this your home?” I hesitated to answer, but I gradually gave him another silent nod. “Really?” Again, I nodded. He didn’t look convinced, and I didn’t feel convinced either. “Go. It’s safer in there.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice. I picked up my pants with one hand and held my shirt down with the other. Running up the stairs, I looked back before opening the front door.

Hideki stood and watched me. He was feeling the lines I’d etched into his face with one hand, but his other hand was flexing as if pent up with a need to vent his frustration on something. Beating up those friends of his was apparently not enough for him to experience a satisfying release.

My mind wandered into a scorching hot and entirely unwelcome territory with him in it.

Within two seconds flat, I opened and shut the door, then slumped down to the floor behind this two-inch-thick barrier of wood. From then on, I was determined to keep as far away from Hideki as much as possible…