Quick and Clean

"Not bad at all, Shugo. Why don't we call it a day for now, eh?"

Furukawa Shugo and Ashihara Riku laid their wooden swords down on the table as they ended that afternoon's training session in Chief Hikawa Ryoma's basement training hall.

"Is it just me, or might you have a talent for this sort of thing?" the detective quipped with a friendly grin on his face.

May 11th, 6:00 PM. A week had passed since the murder of one Tsukiyama Haruna, and the subsequent discovery of the sinister sculpture that had been crafted from her body. Shugo had taken Kurona's advice to heart, asking Riku and the chief if they knew anyone who could give him combat training. The teen wasn't surprised when both lawmen obliged, but even then, he wasn't expecting Riku himself to be his teacher. "You'd be surprised, Shugo," the chief said with a laugh upon seeing his amazement. "Every single one of my staff's a black belt in at least one martial art. Riku here was in the kendo team as a high schooler, and if memory serves, he once competed in the nationals."

"Actually, sir, I won the whole tournament," the detective corrected his superior. "Sprained my ankle in the finals, too, but it was worth it in the end."

And so Detective Ashihara Riku agreed to personally train Shugo in the way of the sword, albeit not before laying down some ground rules he expected the teen to follow. First and foremost, the continuation of his training followed similar rules to his 'internship'; if his grades began to drop, they'd have to cut back the training sessions, suspend them for an indeterminate period of time, or possibly even cut them short altogether, depending on how drastic the decline in his academic performance was. 'It's troublesome, but I'll have to deal with it.'

Once they'd gotten that out of the way, Riku then confronted Shugo over the way he and Kurona had massacred all but one of the hired thugs that had been sent to try and kill him. He backed down slightly when the teen protested that it was either him or them, but nevertheless maintained that it hardly explained the excessive brutality with which they'd dealt with their enemies. To that end, the detective – who, as it turned out, was proficient in kenjutsu on top of his accomplishment as a one-time national kendo champion – warned Shugo that his training wasn't to be used outside of self-defense and life-or-death situations.

"More importantly, let's try to keep the killing to a minimum if we can help it," Riku reminded the upstart avenger. "And if you've absolutely have no other choice, just please, please try to make your kills quick and clean instead of playing with your food."

Shugo thought back to those terms as he leaned back in the Monobloc chair and wiped off the sweat that had drenched his head and neck, taking short but steady breaths all the while. Today marked their fourth training session, and already he was taking to it like a duck to water. Riku noted his preference for a relentless offense while praising his enthusiasm, but at the same time, the detective chided him for his penchant for overextending himself and leaving himself open. "Those thugs you've been fighting won't always come at you one at a time, you know. Next time you expose yourself to attack, you might not live to regret it."

At that point, teacher and student sat down for a 5-minute break. While they rested, Riku reminded Shugo of the kendo matches worked. Legal attacks were strokes that were aimed at the opponent's head, wrist, and torso, as well as thrusts to the throat, all of which were worth a single point apiece. Official bouts were contested under a 5-point time limit where victory required scoring 2 points, or otherwise being ahead in points at the end of regulation time. In the event of a tie, they would then go to sudden death overtime, where there was no time limit and the first to score a point would take the win.

"Wait a minute," Shugo interrupted midway through the explanation. "Why do I have to learn all this, anyway? It's not like I'll have time to care about scoring points when I'm up against criminals and my life's on the line."

"You've already got raw talent and power, so all you need is the training to use those properly," his teacher the detective pointed out. "Besides, your tendency to go for deathblows and wild power blows could end up biting you in the ass if you miss. Sometimes it's better to save those for after you've worn your enemy down with glancing blows here and there, which is where our lessons come in."

"Still, this feels like a waste of time," the teen protested. "Shouldn't we skip to the part where I learn how to kill them quickly and efficiently?"

Riku sighed. "Getting ahead of yourself, are you? Besides, wasn't I supposed to be the one doing the teaching and lecturing around here?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Alright, here's an idea," the detective cut him off while raising his hands in a placating gesture. "You do well enough in our kendo training, and we'll see about teaching you kenjutsu on top of it."

Needless to say, thought Shugo as he prepared his dinner for that evening, he now had yet another new goal to shoot for. If Riku was requiring him to earn the privilege of learning all the myriad ways to kill quickly and efficiently with a sword by first developing a satisfactory level of proficiency with the basics, then that was exactly what he was going to do.

"A worthy goal, to be sure," said his spectral partner in his head. "It pleases me to see you taking my advice to heart."

"Yeah, well," Shugo began as he turned on the stove and began pan-frying chicken fillets, "you did have a point. I've been relying too much on my accelerated healing factor, and karate won't be enough if I'm up against guys with guns and swords."

"Indeed," agreed Kurona in a tone of clear approval. "Broadening your horizons can only be to your advantage, be it on the battlefield, in the dojo, or even in life itself."

"How unexpectedly philosophical of you," the teen commented, surprised. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were mellowing out on me."

Kurona didn't immediately respond. Nevertheless, the way Shugo's insides suddenly turned frigid gave him a good idea of her reaction to those words. 'Maybe I touched a nerve?'

"Assumption is the mother of all failures, Furukawa Shugo," she retorted, leaving the teen stunned just as much by the icy tone in which she spoke to him as the fact that she used his full name. "Never forget that."

"Relax, I was joking," the teen replied with a nervous smile as he turned over the fillets in the pan so they could cook evenly. "I didn't mean to offend or anything."

Shugo was sensing a pattern. From what he'd noticed, Kurona didn't seem to take kindly to him broaching the subject of her past life. While she'd softened enough on that end to become comfortable opening up about what she was like when she was still human, it seemed she had yet to reach the point where she was willing to have him be the one to bring it up.

"Your levity leaves much to be desired." It was unclear whether Kurona had accepted her contractor's apology, at least until her next words came. "Even so, your words were not inaccurate, nor were they truly offensive. The warriors of my time were expected to strengthen themselves in mind, body, and spirit, and I was no different from my brothers and sisters in arms in that respect."

"So what were you like as a warrior?" The teen asked, unable to contain his curiosity. "Don't worry, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"As with my fellow onna-musha, I was trained in the ways of the sword, the bow, and the naginata, in addition to the fundamentals of mounted combat. Unlike the women of your modern era, we were expected to fight alongside our husbands and our male peers in times of war. And in times of peace, we guarded our households, our families, and our honour, with our lives if necessary."

Hearing Kurona's explanation, Shugo couldn't help but think back to his lessons at school. As his spectral partner had said, the onna-musha were quite literally female warriors, women who were born into the warrior class. They fought alongside their husbands in times of war, which starkly contrasted societal expectations of women in other cultures not just at the time, but even well into the modern day. In fact, at least one classic novel had immortalized the tale of one of the most famous and legendary onna-musha in history, none other than Tomoe Gozen herself.

"To us, she was simply Tomoe-dono, a reliable sister in arms who I am honoured to have fought and served alongside," Kurona commented, in a tone that clearly conveyed her respect and reverence for her comrade. "She was truly a warrior worth a thousand, and entirely as valorous as both history and legend remember."

"Yeah, that was pretty much what we learned in our History class," the teen commented. Of course, it was one thing to be learning about a legendary historical figure in school, and quite another thing entirely to hear about it from someone who had personally known the woman behind the legend. 'One of the fringe benefits of contracting with an ancient spirit, I guess?'

"Our teacher made a big deal about her renown as both an archer and a swordswoman," Shugo added, unable to hide his feelings of awe, envy, and inadequacy. "And here I'm just beginning to learn karate and kendo."

"Even so, you have been off to a remarkable start so far," the spirit assured him. "Certainly you have accomplished more than you might have, had you never embarked on this journey. Do not doubt that both Tomoe-dono and I were novices once ourselves."

The teen perked up at his spectral partner's reassurance as he turned off the stove, the better to finish cooking his chicken dinner with the stove's residual heat. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Though now that you mentioned it, I don't suppose you're willing to talk about how you started?"

"Perhaps," the spirit replied, her tone more amused than anything. "But that tale can wait another day. If you wish to hear it, you will then need to work for it."

And Shugo knew that was it. Kurona's voice bore no anger or irritation, but there was a finality to it that told her contractor that there was no point trying to cajole or wheedle her into telling him the story right now. If nothing else, it gave him yet another incentive to strive for continuous progress, especially where his training and his duties were concerned.

'Well, it was an illuminating talk while it lasted,' the teen thought, just before he looked over his chicken fillets and saw that they had been adequately cooked. 'Oh, it looks like my food's ready. Let's dig in, shall we?'

He set down the plate of chicken and tucked in, but just as he was about to put the first spoonful in his mouth…

"One more reminder, child."

The teen stopped chewing his food for a moment.

"I want you training as though your life depended on it, because it does. I will not have you slain on my watch, least of all without even fulfilling our contract."

"Alright," Shugo replied as he swallowed that first mouthful, right before finally turning his attention back to his dinner.

------

May 12th, 12:30 AM.

By that time of night, the streets of Rakuen were all but deserted. The same city that was always awake, alert, and alive all throughout the day until early in the evening had seemingly been left bereft of human life as nearly everyone had returned home to rest after a hard day's work. And of the few who were still awake, many of them were young professionals who'd had the dubious luck of having been assigned to the graveyard shift.

'Oh crap, I'll be late!'

Anyone who happened to be poking their head out the window in the residential area just beyond St. Stephen's Academy at this exact moment might have caught sight of the young, pale-skinned woman in office attire rushing down the street as quickly as her legs could carry her.

'That shift change next week really can't come fast enough…'

The young woman's shift began at 1:00 AM and ended at 9:00 AM, so she decided to leave home when the clock struck 12 midnight. She reached the nearby bus stop barely 10 minutes later, so she took a few gulps of water from the small, collapsible water bottle she always made sure to have on hand. With any luck, she'd be able to catch a bus ride or a taxi, in which case she was likely to arrive at the office in 20-30 minutes at most.

'No rides at all? Really?'

Unfortunately for her, there weren't any taxis that happened to be driving past that route at that particular time. More frustratingly, while she did catch sight of at least 3 or 4 buses driving in the direction of their office building, all of them were either point-to-point buses or shuttle buses for other companies that couldn't allow her to hitch a ride even if they wanted to. As it was, she wound up waiting there for 10 minutes without any luck, before she gave up and walked on.

'Un-fucking-believable.'

She took just a moment to stop by the take-out counter of the Krispy Kreme she happened to come across on her way to the office, at which point she bought just a single glazed donut – more out of stress than anything else – before resuming her long walk and going on her not-so-merry way. To her, it seemed like the universe was conspiring against her. The live-action Cinderella remake starring Emma Watson was showing, and she had wanted to catch the film together with some of her friends from work. Unfortunately, her oh-so-considerate-and-totally-not-a-douchebag immediate superior had taken the liberty to assign her to the graveyard shift for the first half of May.

"We're short-staffed on the graveyard shift, so I've put you on the graveyard crew until the 15th," her superior had told her. "Think you can come through for me?"

She nodded in agreement, not that it meant much. From her superior's choice of words, she'd already been assigned to the graveyard shift, which made this little more than a formality.

"Thanks, Koyomi. I knew you wouldn't let me down."

She knew there wasn't much point moaning about it, but she and her friends had planned to go out last Friday night. They were supposed to hit their favourite yakiniku joint right after their day shift had ended, after which they were headed to the cinema at the nearby mall to catch the Cinderella remake, but her boss evidently had other ideas. Her friends were sympathetic and understanding about it, even offering to postpone their movie night to this week's Saturday instead, but that wasn't the point. As far as Koyomi was concerned, it rankled that her boss thought nothing of assigning her to the graveyard shift without even consulting her first.

'You knew I wouldn't let you down, huh?' Koyomi thought bitterly. 'Well, I'd happily let you down the side of a building if I could get away with it.'

She then turned the next corner, after which she finally caught sight of their office building not much further away-

'Ow!'

-Only to wince and gasp in pain as something was jammed in her upper arm.

'What…?'

Kusakabe Koyomi felt the world spin once.

'No…'

Next thing she knew, she felt a sensation as though her head had been submerged in deep water, mere moments before her world went black.