13

Christmas came and went and the final third of the schoolyear came and with it came the final push before finals.

In the classes where I acted as assistant, most of the students were doing quite well... with a few exceptions, some quite surprising.

"96…"

"90...."

"82"

"71"

"55... dangit Hina…"

"100... excellent, Kohta."

In the teacher's office, I was helping Kurokawa grade quizzes we'd handed out earlier that day. While I wasn't teaching all of my boys, I was proud to note that the ones I did teach were knocking their English assignments out of the park. I guess they didn't want to come up short in what I was officially supposed to be learning.

I grinned, those boys had come a long way from what they had been when I'd started that after-class weight-training group nearly a year ago. And glancing at myself, I'd done damn good for myself as well.

I wasn't exactly a strong-man competitor, nor was I cut enough to compete in a body-builder competition; but I was damn strong now, easily twice as strong as I had been when I arrived here and I was certainly leaner than I'd ever been in my entire life. I didn't know if that was Anime physics at work, me finally putting my all into my training regimen, or both, but it had paid great dividends.

I was brought back when I came across a specific quiz. I quickly graded it… and was greatly concerned by the results I found, considering whose it was.

"Hey, Kurokawa-san, take a look at this." I spoke up to my superior, who set down the quiz he was grading and walked over to my desk.

"Yes, Brody-san? What is it that you've found?" I didn't say anything, but handed him the quiz I'd just graded.

He looked it over, then frowned. "Are you sure this is correct?"

"Yes I'm sure. I made sure to grade this correctly. But look at the name….there's got to be a mistake." I said, glancing back at the name at the top of the paper. Rei Miyamoto, one of the members of the Canon Crew.

While I hadn't interacted much with her, aside from getting some pointers in spear work from her and her club captain, she'd always been an excellent student when I and Kurokawa were teaching English for her class. Getting an F was disturbing, and it might mean that whatever issues she was having in Shido's class was starting to affect other parts of her life.

Glancing over at him, I asked Kurokawa in an even tone: "How much do you know about Ms. Miyamoto's father?"

Kurokawa's eyes widened in surprise… and a little fear. His eyes darted around the room a few times before turning back to me. "I-I..." He was stammering… Kurokawa, a man that was the definition of calm and confident eloquence was stuttering...Good God what did Shido DO to this man?

Kurokawa finally calmed downed with visible effort and said: "I've been here for six years, and one thing I've learned is not to go against Shido-san. He may not look much but the man's as vicious as snake and just as cunning."

I stared at him. Just how many tendrils did that smug shit-stain have in this school?

"You don't believe me? I'm honestly surprised, didn't you have a run-in with him earlier?"

"I did but I'm a weird foreigner, it's easy to get dirt on me." And wasn't that a weird concept that took a while to get accustomed to. "Are you telling me he's blackmailing other teachers as well?" And just when I thought I couldn't hate that son of a bitch any more.

"Yes, and don't think it's just his father, Dietman Shido, doing all the heavy work either, Brody-san. Shido's more than his father's connections, though he won't hesitate to use them…" Kurokawa trailed off there.

He seemed unwilling to continue and seeing the turmoil on his face I wasn't going to press him. Then he sighed and turned back to me. "This happened a few years ago, when Shido had just started teaching here and his brother had started classes here at the same time."

"His brother? I didn't know Shido-sensei had a brother." I knew full well he did, but I didn't have a way of letting others know that I knew that without uncomfortable questions being asked.

"From an affair, Shido seemed completely unfamiliar with the boy so we figured he didn't know about him until right before classes started that year. Ken was a smart kid, VERY smart, but he was terrible at foreign languages; he could study English exclusively until his eyeballs melted and he'd still BARELY pass. Now, Ken's English teacher was a Tetsuo Hiruma, I'd known him since high school, upstanding guy though he had a terrible taste in women especially considering what his wife… I'm getting ahead of myself.

Towards the end of the schoolyear, Ken was on track to flunking his English class. Shido-san tried to convince Tetsuo to fudge Ken's grades enough that he'd at least pass. I heard later from Tetsuo that when he refused, Shido promised that he'd regret doing that.

We had both laughed it off when he told me it but damn were we wrong, we were SO wrong."

He stopped again, seeming like he didn't wish to continue. I remained silent, simply waiting for him to keep going.

"About a month later, police stormed into the class with a warrant for Tetsuo's arrest. A senior girl at our school had accused him of raping her. It was all shit, though, Tetsuo was a good man through and through. He loved his job and had a loving family, or at least he thought so. None of us could have imagined that he'd have done something so heinous.

I immediately came to my friend's defense and acted as a witness and as a support for his alibi, I knew for a fact that he couldn't have harmed that girl when she said she did because he'd been with me drinking that entire evening. But during the trial, there had been massive amounts of evidence against my friend, recordings, photographs, things that never should have been possible, but the evidence kept on coming showing my friend as some depraved, voyeuristic paedophile, and once that accusation was out and parents took a look at the so-called evidence and... well, it was all over but the screaming."

Tears were actually forming in his eyes now. "Tetsuo was sentenced to life, in one of the most brutal prisons in the entire country. His wife filed for divorce two weeks after the sentencing, took the kids, everything he owned, put his son on her family's directory. His own parents and siblings disowned him. I was the only one to ever visit him there... and it was so far away it was almost impossible to do so… one time… one time I was too worn down from a hard month to visit him... and when I wasn't there... he... gave up."

Kurokawa, one the most happy-go-lucky men I'd ever seen in my life, now had his hands over his face and was weeping. "My best friend since highschool gave up because of me not being there when I should have…"

He looked back up at me. "Shido is a cunning monster and he'll ruin the life of anyone he thinks is trying to obstruct him. So I'm begging you, don't go against him on this. Help Miyamoto-san however you think you can, give support, sympathy, whatever you can but don't go against him on this… please…"

I sat there, stunned beyond words. I knew that Shido was a sadistic snake as was his father, because there was no way in hell that Shido was able to do this all on his own, but this went so far beyond the fucking Pale that you hit Achill Island. My fists clenched so tightly that blood was beginning to pool from between my fingers - I never thought you could actually do that.

Taking a deep sigh, I forced the fury raging in me down for at least the next few minutes. I stood up and grabbed Kurokawa by the shoulders, wrenched him to his feet. "Kurokawa-san, I'm not one to normally do this, but God do you need one." And with that I wrapped him in a bear hug because GOD did that man need it.

After a minute I let go, looked him dead in the eye and said in as serious a tone as I could muster: "It wasn't your fault, Kurokawa, you couldn't have known, nor is it Tetsuo's fault because it takes the strongest of men to keep going in the face of something like that. It's Shido's fault, Tetsuo's blood and the ruining of his life is entirely on his hands and his father's, because as cunning as Shido is I can't imagine that he was able to have done all that by his lonesome."

Glancing at the papers that still needed grading, I sighed and after straightening them up stuck them into a desk drawer. I then grabbed my coat and keys. "Alright then, since it'd be utterly pointless to try and finish these grades now and since we don't have work tomorrow, you and me are packing things up right now, I'm calling my girlfriend, you call your wife and together the four of us are going to get utterly shitfaced as we toast in memory of Tetsuo Hiruma."

Kurokawa blinked for a few moments, then grinned and, after shoving his still ungraded papers into his own desk drawer, grabbed his coat and hat and followed out the door, hitting the lights as we left.

The hangover the next day was ten types of utterly horrible but I think I made a friend that evening, and an oath that Shido, his father and his brother were NOT going to last past Z-day any longer than I could allow.

********************

I stared at the thirteen young men sitting meekly in the lunchroom chairs that had been pulled out for this meeting. I was sitting across from them along with principal Yamada and, oddly enough, Miss Hayashi. I wasn't sure why she'd been included, but it was trivial compared to the story that the boys had to tell us.

When Hayato finished speaking, I sighed, covering my eyes with one palm before dragging it down my face in frustration.

"Alright boys, let me get this straight: you, just the thirteen of you, without any help from the newer members, managed to take over the entire delinquent population of Tokonosu city?" I asked in a flat, accusatory tone.

The boys flinched almost as one before Kohta spoke up. "W-well Sensei, it wasn't like we did it on purpose."

I gave him a flat stare, a headache forming behind my eyes. "Explain."

"Well, Sensei, what happened was me and Hayato were walking down to the convenience store when we saw a bunch of punks bothering this girl in a side alley. Now, we couldn't just leave her there, right? So we stepped in to make them stop. They didn't take kindly to our butting in, violently so. We were just defending ourselves and helping out a girl in need."

"Alright… but how does that translate into becoming pint-sized warlords?" I prompted, though I got the feeling that I knew the answer to that question. When Miss Kyoko sqeaked indignantly at my flippant words I just glanced over to her. One look at the exasperation in my eyes shut her up and she turned back to the boys, Hayato speaking up this time.

"Well, we'd, erm... defended ourselves against those guys and after saving that girl we didn't think anything more of it. Seems those guys remembered... and they held a grudge. We... kinda had to keep defending ourselves when more and more gangs came, either trying to get revenge or they thought we were a gang who were trying to challenge their position, whatever that meant. Eventually they stopped showing up and we thought it was over and done with." Kohta trailed off there.

"Apparently it wasn't." I muttered, pointing my thumb to the window that allowed a view of the front gate… and the two dozen or so gang leaders who had camped their butts outside waiting for the 'Huscarl Gang' to show themselves likely they wanted a grand battle royale or some crazy shit… I wondered if it was too late to just take Shizuka and move to Alaska… my damn sense of responsibility said otherwise… dammit…

Yamada then decided to speak up. "While I can't condone the violence, I can understand why you did what you did, boys. You intervened in something that needed to be stopped and you didn't actively chase these fights after the first.

While I would have preferred that you had gone to the police after the first fight, I can't condemn you for defending yourselves when those young men kept coming after you, and I can't say that I'm not a little impressed at your prowess. So my verdict is that you boys go out there and talk with those young men waiting for you out there. See if you can talk them into leaving. If that fails I'll have the authorities on the line and they'll be here in less than ten minutes. Do NOT antagonize them. Understand?"

The boys showed their understanding by nodding quickly in response to Yamada's question.

He then pointed at me. "You'll accompany them, Brody-san, and act as a referee to keep anything from getting too out of hand."

I opened my mouth to protest for a moment, then stopped myself. I was the best one for the job present without bringing in the police. "Alright then, Yamada-san." Rising from my seat I turned to the boys. "Alright boys, follow me, let's deal with this once and for all."

Like a gaggle of ducklings the boys rose and followed me out the door to the front gate.

I glanced back at them to remind them to stand straight with their shoulders back, but was pleased to see that they did so on their own.

When we were within twenty paces of the front gate, I came to a stop and looked behind. "Alright boys, talk to them see what they want."

The group of young men glanced at each other, then Hayato stepped forward. "I guess I'll do it. I was the one to jump to that girl's defense first…"

"Alright then, Hayato-san." I said, as he walked past me I clapped him on the shoulder. "However this turns out, I'm proud of you boys, not enough people have your courage and I wish more did."

Hayto tensed up for a moment then moved forward. The others followed behind him as moral support and what I assumed was a show of strength.

The delinquents, all thirty of them, noticed us approaching the gates, excitement flashed in their eyes and they made towards the gates until they were crowded right in front of the metal bars.

The one at the front was big bastard, easily six feet tall, his hair was worn long with red highlights at the ends, his ears were pierced multiple times and he didn't wear a school uniform - at least not one I could decipher as such.

He sized up Hayato for a moment then said, in a baritone voice: "So, you're the boss of the gang that's been kicking our collective asses up and down the whole damn city for the past month? Figured as much."

Hayato glared the bigger boy in the eyes and said: "What do you want, Sasuke? Another rematch? You remember what happened last time, right?" Damn, didn't think Hayato had that in him.

Sasuke glared at Hayato for a moment and I thought I was going to have to interfere or worse, have the police involved: instead I was surprised when Sasuke broke into a deep belly laugh. He was laughing so hard that tears formed in his eyes. The other street toughs and delinquents behind him started laughing as well and just as hard.

Standing in stunned silence, we let the guys on the other side of the gates laugh themselves out. Sasuke wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and said: "No we don't want another rematch, none of us do. You've proven you and your 'Huscarls' are the toughest outfit in the entire city, repeatedly."

A few of the delinquents rubbed their heads or limbs as if they had been reminded of a drubbing they took in the recent past… good GOD HOW DID I MISS THIS FOR SO LONG?!

I had barely recovered from that little revelation when Sasuke made a deep bow at the waist and said: "I, Sasuke Urameshi, do swear me and my Iron Tigers gang an oath of loyalty to Hayato Shirakawa and his Huscarls gang. We're your boys now, boss."

Before Hayato or the others could respond, another teenager strode forward and bowed as well. "I, Hikaru Tendo, do swear me and the North Street Alliance gang an oath of loyalty to Hayato Shirakawa and his Huscarls gang. We're your boys now, boss."

On and on it continued, each and every one of these young men came forward, told their names and said that their gangs followed Hayato and the Huscarls gang.

When the last one made their oath, one of the others glanced at me, he jabbed a finger in my direction. "The fuck's the old-timer here for?"

Bristling at the insult, I was about to put this punk in his place when Kohta spoke up. "He's Tom Brody, assistant english teacher, he's our club advisor and he's the one who taught us how to fight. A year ago, each and everyone of us were the worst kind of nerds imaginable, look at us now and I dare you to insult him again."

The street toughs looked back at me again, eyes as wide as saucers, the one to disparage me quickly bowed and apologized. The others, apparently impressed by my credentials, bowed as well. Then one of them spoke up. "Any chance you could show my boys how you fight like that?"

And like a dam bursting the others began asking the same thing as well.

I stared at the bowing crowd, jaw hanging and eyes glassy, I could barely comprehend what was happening… Alaska was starting to look better and better...