Meeting Miyashita

September 14, 2023

On the surface, Ruka Kishio was a seemingly normal girl, though she normally kept to herself at school in Yokosuka. A second-year student of Hiroshi Junior High School at the time, she was at the exact halfway point between entering and leaving junior high in September. She bore short blonde hair and cream-colored eyes that seemed focused on only the papers she had out before her on her desk. Her uniform consisted of a blue button-up shirt, a dark green jacket, a dark green skirt, and a dark green tie to indicate the year of school she was in. She pondered what high schools to apply to starting next year, and wondered what her options would be depending on her grades this year. As she quietly completed some homework in her seemingly normal classroom, she heard one of the boys in class ask her, “Hey, Kishio-san.”

Ruka looked up and replied, “What is it?”

“Wanna go play basketball with us? We’re playing some guys from Class 2-3.”

Ruka smiled and replied, “Sorry, but I‘ll have to decline. I have some homework I have to do.”

“That’s okay,” the boy replied as he left with several other classmates. “If you change your mind, just come down to the courtyard!”

Once the boy was gone, she said to herself, “I better be able to finish most of this before I get interrupted…”

Ruka got decent grades in school, and in recent weeks was working to get her grades even higher so she could expand her options for which high schools she could apply for when the time came. She was not the greatest student in the world academically, but she was far from the worst.

As Ruka filled in an answer on a sheet of paper, she received a text on her phone and pulled it out of her bag to check who it was from. As she read the text, she sighed and said to herself, “Come on… I gotta finish this answer first…” She then quickly finished an equation on the homework sheet before getting up and running out of the classroom. “Thirty-five minutes,” she herself. “I got thirty-five minutes to find this beast and fight it.”

The text she had received was, ‘MAGICAL BEAST DETECTED IN THE AREA OF HIROSHI JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL. ACKNOWLEDGE AND RESPOND IF AVAILABLE OR NOT.’ As she typed in the word ‘AVAILABLE,’ she got another text from the same number reading ‘CLASS FOUR BEAST. ESTIMATED PAYOUT OF ¥3000.’ It was clear that Ruka Kishio was not a normal girl. As she raced down a flight of stairs and then through a set of double doors to the rear yard of the school, she began to wonder what challenge would lie before her today.

As she ran around to a more secluded area of the yard, she reached into her bag and pulled out a small ring, putting it on her left hand. As she did, she noticed the small red gem on the ring begin to glow brighter. “Alright, it shouldn’t be too far away.”

When she ran past a shed, the red gem glowed as bright as it could be, causing her to stop and run back to the shed when she noticed the light dimming slightly. She sized up the shed before opening the door and peering inside. What should have been a shed filled with athletic equipment was instead pitch black, almost as if it was a portal to another world far larger than the walls of the shed itself. It was clear that something otherworldly was going on inside the four walls of the small outbuilding.

“Alright,” she said as she walked in and closed the door. “Let’s get this shit over with.”

In a bright flash of light, her school uniform disappeared and was replaced with a totally different outfit. Her outfit, consisting of a knee-length skirt, a button-up uniform shirt with short sleeves, and armor around her abdomen and chest, was colored in various shades of gold, gray, and white. This instantaneous transformation allowed her to quickly pull out a long sword from her belt as a loud growl was heard in front of her. A few seconds later, as she readied herself to strike, a large humanoid monster emerged from the darkness. The beast was about nine feet tall and bore large, muscular arms as well as at least five eyes and three horns on its head. It roared at Ruka, who remained calm.

“Not the ugliest thing I’ve seen,” she said to herself before she charged at the beast. “Let’s see what you got!”

The beast swung down at her with its right arm, but Ruka was able to slice it with a counter-swing, causing the beast to scream in pain and its blood to stain her new outfit. The beast then tried to kick Ruka, but again, she blocked the attack with her sword, causing the beast to retreat several feet deeper into the world as it tried to deal with the pain from Ruka's earlier counter-attack.

“Oh no, you don’t, you little bastard!” Ruka chased after the beast, who once again screamed both in pain and to try to scare her away. “Stop screaming, damn it!” The beast ignored her and screamed once more, his wails of agony echoing through the entire world.

Undeterred, Ruka raised her sword and then stabbed the beast in its crotch and then again in its lower abdomen, causing it to fall to the ground. As its blood pooled on the ground, Ruka walked up to the beast, who tried to swing at her with its uninjured left arm. In the nick of time, Ruka chopped off its left hand and then swung for its neck. As the blade cut through the beast’s throat, it struggled and coughed as blood poured from the wound before it ceased moving and resisting.

Ruka stepped back as the beast died before her and said as she sheathed her sword, “Just another day in paradise.” She then pulled her phone out and took a photo of the slayed beast before then taking a photo of herself next to the beast’s body as confirmation that she was the one who had killed it. With this, she walked through the portal and back into the shed, saying to herself nonchalantly as she wiped off a small drop of blood on her face, “That one was pretty tall…”

As she walked out of the shed, she transformed back into her school uniform, all the blood on her fighting outfit now gone, and wiped any blood that was on her face off with her hands. Finally, she texted the two photos back to the number that had originally notified her of the beast's presence. Spotting a nearby bathroom entrance, she darted inside to wash the blood off of her face and hands.

“This beast sure bled a lot,” she said to herself as she set her phone down on a sink and began to wash her face. As she wiped her face with a paper towel, she got a text back, and when she read it, she said to herself, “They gave me a ¥250 bonus?” Upon checking the text, she saw that the reason for the small bonus was due to how quickly she had killed the beast. “Alright. There goes another ¥3250 into the bank.” She seemed happy to get the reward. Very few other people her age received a relatively steady source of income, even if the work was dangerous.

Indeed, Ruka Kishio was not a normal girl. In fact, she was actually a Magical Huntress, or someone who fought beasts that constantly tried to work their way into Earth from various other worlds. Magical huntsmen also existed, though they were somewhat rarer than magical huntresses. Contracted to fight by various people known as recruiters, she would get requests to fight magical beasts whenever they were near her, and she could either accept or turn down requests. For a successful kill, she earned a reward, with bonuses attached depending on how quickly she killed it or if she saved anyone. Using both her phone as well as a series of stakes she carried, she could easily document her kills. Ruka herself was already rather skilled despite only being fourteen years old, having started some four years prior.

As Ruka walked back into her classroom, she acted like nothing had happened. Indeed, as far as anyone in her class knew, nothing had happened. She sat down at her desk and put away her homework as her class got ready to begin the next lessons of the day. She said to herself, “I got time to finish it at home.”

The same boy from earlier asked Ruka, “Hey there, Kishio-san. You were gone for a while. We noticed your stuff was still on your desk.”

“Sorry about that,” Ruka replied to him. “I had to take care of something.”

“All good,” he replied. “We made sure nobody messed with it.”

“Thank you.”

…

After school, as Ruka walked past the front gate, she heard someone call her name from the crowd of people walking with her. “Kishio-san? Kishio-san?”

Wondering who could be calling out to her at a time like this, she turned around to see who was trying to get her attention. What she found was a girl of the same age as her who bore well-kept black hair that went down to about bob length. Ruka noted mentally that she seemed rather elegant in her looks despite being dressed in virtually the same uniform as her. She asked the girl, “Were you calling my name?”

“Yes,” replied the girl with a bow. “I’m Miyashita Hana. I want to talk to you about something I saw you do earlier.” She then pulled out her cellphone and scrolled to an app that Ruka recognized. “Do you recognize this app, Kishio-san?”

“Wait,” Ruka then asked her. “You’re a magical huntress too?” The app she had been shown was the same app that allowed her to hunt the very beasts she had fought earlier in the day.

“Correct,” Hana nodded. “But we shouldn’t discuss such a matter here where other people can hear us. Come with me.”

Ruka then followed Hana down the sidewalk and away from the other students of the school. As the two of them walked down the street, Ruka asked her, “How long have you been doing this?”

“About four years now,” Hana replied. “How about you?”

“Since I was ten,” Ruka answered. “So about four years so far for me too.

“You and I aren’t so different in that regard, I suppose.”

“What? That we began this dangerous job so young?”

“Yes.” Hana then commented on Ruka’s style of speaking, telling her, “You know, I’ve heard your family name before in very formal contexts. The Kishio Family’s reputation has waned in the past few years, but it hasn’t gone away. Are you a part of them?”

“I don’t associate with most of my family,” Ruka bluntly told her, suddenly flipping from her polite and refined tone of voice to one that was more crass. “They’ve barely supported me. I may share a name with them, but as far as I’m concerned, I have no connection with ninety percent of those assholes.”

Hana, surprised by how much Ruka’s tone of speaking had changed, asked her, “If I may ask, what happened?”

“I won’t get into a lot of details with someone I just met,” Ruka rebuffed her while also seemingly trying to return to a more formal way of speaking. “My apologies if that offends you. It is just a matter of my privacy, that’s all.”

“Understandable. I would be a bit more worried if you just trauma-dumped on me so suddenly, actually.”

“Wait a minute,” Ruka then said, stopping both of them. “Where exactly are you taking me? I wanna know what’s going on.” She then looked around, noting in her head that they had gone onto a deserted side street. “Not gonna lie, it feels like I’m gonna get jumped here. I’ve been jumped before, and I don’t feel like going through that again.”

Hana smiled and told her, “You won’t get jumped, Kishio-san. In fact…” She then suddenly got really close to Ruka, almost getting in her face. “I want you to be with me.”

Ruka, deeply confused, asked her, “Uh… Are… Are you a lesbian?” She thought to herself, “Wow, sudden much?”

Hana playfully replied, “What if I was?”

“There’s nothing wrong with being gay,” Ruka assured her. “If you’re wondering about me, just be honest. I’m probably gonna say no, but you won’t know if you just keep tip-toeing around that shit.”

“Well, I’m not a lesbian,” Hana replied to offer an explanation to her. “But I do want you to join me. I’m building a team of other magical huntresses, and we could use someone with your skills. I saw you battle that Class Four beast in the shed earlier, and I was amazed by what I saw.”

“Impressed by me?” Ruka then grinned. “Alright… Who else is on your team?”

“So far,” Hana explained. “I have three others with me, including a magical huntsman.”

“So you have a boy on your team, too? Interesting…”

“He’s a year younger than us, but he’s an excellent fighter. I’ve taught him everything I know about fighting magical beasts.”

Ruka asked her with some contempt, assuming the boy had been told by Hana to join due to her status as an upperclassman, “You got one of your juniors to follow you into this business?”

“No,” Hana assured her. “He joined of his own volition. I simply taught him how to survive.”

“Survive, huh…” Ruka then felt her phone vibrate with a text, and as she pulled it out of her bag, she saw that it was from someone she knew. “I gotta go, Miyashita-san. My uncle needs some help at home.”

“You live with your uncle?”

“Yes… Sort of.” Ruka then asked her, “Do you want my number? That way, we can keep in touch about your offer.”

“Very well,” Hana said before pulling out her own phone and handing it to Ruka.

Once Ruka had entered her information and phone number on her phone, she said to her, “I’ll talk to you later. I don’t know if I want to team up with anyone just yet.”

“That’s okay,” Hana assured her. “Just make sure you let me know.”

…

About fifteen minutes later, Ruka arrived at the apartment she lived in. As she has said to Hana, she did technically live with her uncle named Daisuke, although the arrangement was a bit unusual. Her twenty-seven year-old uncle, the youngest of her deceased father’s three siblings, had his own house and young son, and while he rented the apartment, she lived in it usually by herself. Today, though, her uncle was at the apartment in order to meet with her.

Daisuke saw her walk in and said to her as he placed down a Manila envelope of notes on a kitchen counter nearby, “I got the paperwork from the Protection and Research Agency. It’ll take a bit to fill out, but I can help you with it.”

“Thanks, Uncle Daisuke,” Ruka replied as she set her bookbag down and then walked over to the kitchen. “This is always a pain in the ass.”

“I know,” Daisuke replied. “But it’s important, Ruka. The Quarterly Report is crucial.”

“I know, I know.” She then sat down at the kitchen counter and opened the envelope before pulling out some papers and a pen. What she was filling out was a stack of papers she had to submit to the company that had recruited her into being a magical huntress in the first place: the Protection and Research Agency, or just the Agency. The Agency would send Recruiters to find people to fight the magical beasts, though instead of keeping them in an organized group, they largely let them fight on their own and form their own semi-cohesive groups as long as they followed a few standard operating procedures.

As Ruka filled out the paperwork, Daisuke asked her, “How was school today?”

“It was alright. I took a mission during lunch, so I should be getting a payment soon. I also met another girl who’s a magical huntress. She knew who I was for some reason.”

Curious, Daisuke asked her, “Who is it?”

“Miyashita Hana,” Ruka answered.

“Miyashita Hana?” Daisuke immediately recognized the name. “I know her family.”

“You do?”

“They used to be nobility,” Daisuke explained. “Her father would be a marquess today if it weren’t for the Second World War. I remember seeing his daughter’s name pop up on some lists from the agency. Her father does some work with us, too.”

“No shit,” Ruka replied. “I’m surprised she went down this path.”

“You never truly know what’s going on in someone’s life.”

“Fair enough.” As Ruka began working on another sheet of paper, she then told him, “She wanted me to join a small crew she made.”

“Be careful,” Daisuke warned her. “She could be leading you int-“

“Into a trap,” Ruka finished his sentence with. “I know. If I gotta fight someone, I will.”

“I know you can fight well,” Daisuke assured her. “I’ve seen you fight, Ruka. I’m just worried as your uncle, that’s all.”

“I get it.”

“You’ll understand when you have a family of your own one day,” Daisuke pointed out.

Ruka chuckled. “I don’t know about that, Uncle Daisuke.”

“I never said it has to be a biological family. It could be a group of close friends, too.”

“You make a good point.”

“My own friends were like a second family to me when I was younger, especially given everything that’s happened with our biological family besides my wife and my son.”

Ruka then finished all the paperwork and carefully placed it back into the Manila envelope it had come in. “Okay, it should be done. Check it over and make sure I didn’t miss anything.”

“Let me see…” Daisuke then flipped through the forms, and once he was finished, he told her, “You’re all set. I’ll run this down to the agency tomorrow.”

“Today’s a Friday,” Ruka pointed out. “You may have to wait until Monday.”

“Shit, you’re right… I’ll see if anyone’s around tomorrow. If not, I’ll submit it on Monday.” As he put the envelope in his briefcase, he asked Ruka, “So, with all that out of the way, what do you wanna do for dinner?”

Ruka replied, “Mind if I cook this time?”

Daisuke humorously chided, “Come on, last time we had dinner wasn’t too bad.”

“Aunt Himiko said you almost set the stove on fire,” Ruka pointed out, mentioning her aunt by marriage. “And I hate to say it, but I believe her.”

“Fine, fine,” Daisuke said, admitting defeat.

…

Around 7:30 PM, Ruka went into her room to change out of her school uniform, which had consisted of a dark blue jacket, a white undershirt, a black tie, and a plaid skirt. She closed the curtains to her bedroom window and opened her closet, pulling out a plain-looking blue sweatshirt and a black skirt that went down to her knees. She also opened up a cabinet in the closet and pulled out a blue sports bra. She then checked her phone and texted Hana on her number, asking her where she wanted to meet up.

RUKA: where do u wanna meet up?

HANA: meet me @ keikyu-kurihama station

RUKA: got it

Ruka then took off her uniform and began to get dressed in her new clothes. During this process, she put her phone under her sports bra. At the very end, she looked at herself in the mirror and said, “Okay, good enough.” She grabbed her bookbag and put it on her back, having put a portable phone charger and her wallet inside.

She then walked out of her room just as Daisuke was packing up his things. “I’m going to meet with Miyashita-san now.”

“Stay safe,” Daisuke replied. “Text me when you get home.”

“Got it,” she replied. Before leaving, she told Daisuke, “I love you.”

“I love you, too. I’ll lock up when you head out.”

“Thanks.” Ruka then closed the door behind her and walked down to the stairs. She lived on the fifth floor of a ten-story building with some offices on the first three floors and apartments on the upper seven, and almost never used the elevator to get to her apartment or leave it. The walk to Keikyu-Kurihama Station would not be long at all, given that she only lived about two blocks from the two entrances to the station.

…

Meanwhile, at Keikyu-Kurihama Station, Hana and three other similarly-aged teenagers were standing around at the station’s west entrance. Among them included a boy and two other girls. The boy, who was of average height and had short dark green hair, asked Hana, “This girl goes to school with us, right?”

“Yeah,” Hana replied. “She’s in my grade, Yoshiro-kun, so she’s a year older than you.”

One of the girls, who bore pigtails and red hair, asked, “How long did you say she’s been doing this?” Her name was Tenko Ikezawa, and was the newest member of the group at the time, being the same age as Yoshiro.

“Since she was ten, so about the same length of time as me, Ikezawa-san.”

The final girl in the group, Yoko Fujimori, was the oldest, being a third-year at their school. She had just selected the high school she desired to go to, in fact, something that Hana and Ruka had just begun to think about. Yoko had dark blue hair kept to shoulder-length, and she was roughly about as tall as Yoshiro, making her the tallest girl in the group. She also appeared to be not fully Japanese based on her physical appearance. Yoko asked Hana, “Should we expect a fight when she gets here?”

“I doubt it,” Hana assured her. “Besides, I’ll be the one to deal with her if it comes to that. If it does, we could get a taste of what her capabilities are. You guys can stand back.”

Yoko sighed and replied, “Alright, but if you need help, I will jump in.” She clearly did not want Hana to be alone if things came to blows with Ruka, but she respected her words. “We have no clue what we’re getting into here.”

“If she tries anything stupid,” Yoshiro added. “We’ll beat her up real good.”

“She’s not gonna mess with us when she sees what she’s up against,” Yoko assured him. “It would be four on one. No one would be that stupid.”

They all then heard Ruka call out to them. “Hello? Excuse me? Over here!” As they all turned to face her, Ruka waved and said to them, “Miyashita-san, are these the other magical huntresses in your group?”

“Indeed,” Hana replied with a smile. “These are the others I mentioned earlier.”

“You know,” Ruka then said. “I’ve never really been one for being in groups for hunting magical beasts. I have always hunted them by myself and haven’t had any problems doing so as of yet. This certainly is a bit of a change for me.”

Yoshiro, annoyed, told Hana, “She’s a loner, isn’t she? I’d give up trying to get her to join now.”

“Hey, watch it,” Ruka then told him off, changing her tone of voice from polite to somewhat rude. “Who the Hell are you, anyway?”

Hana told Ruka, “This is Arikawa Yoshiro. Don’t mind him. He’s very loyal to me, so he’s always a bit skeptical of newcomers.”

“Good to know,” Ruka replied. “Are you trying this hard to get me to join you guys?”

“Yes,” Hana acknowledged. “I’ve heard stories about how you fight. You hold a bit of a reputation in this area among other huntresses for your abilities in combat. It’s almost as if you value victory over magical beasts over your own life, like you live just to battle.”

Ruka chuckled, amused by Hana’s words. “Reputation, huh? Tell me, what makes you think you know about my life?” She also seemed annoyed by what she had said to her, feeling somewhat uncomfortable with Hana’s description of her.

“I’m good at reading people,” Hana informed her. “Not much can get past me.”

“If you’re so good at that,” Ruka then said as she showed her red gem ring to her on her right hand. “Then tell me what I want to do now.”

“You clearly wish to fight me. It seems as though my words got to you in some way.”

“You’re God damn right.”

Yoshiro tried to step in between them, telling Ruka, “Hey, back the Hell u-“

“Don’t,” Hana then told him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I told you and Fujimori-senpai already that I can take care of this alone.”

“But-“

“Trust me, Yoshiro-kun.”

Yoshiro then backed off. “Fine.” He was upset that he could not step in, but again wished to respect Hana’s orders.

Tenko then told Hana, “Maybe we should go somewhere not as crowded. There’s still a lot of people around.”

“Fair enough,” Hana replied. “Ikezawa-san, reach into my backpack and pull out the portal generator.”

“Got it,” Tenko replied before opening up Hana’s bookbag and pulling out a small pen-shaped device, handing it to Hana. “Here you go.”

“Look at you,” Ruka said to her. “You came prepared for a fight.”

“I always carry this with me,” Hana replied before pointing at a nearby wall and pressing down on a button on the device. Instantly, a small portal to the same world that the magical beasts called home opened up.

“That’s pretty expensive, you know. You don’t see a lot of magical huntresses waving one of those around. What makes you use it so casually?”

Ignoring her question, Hana instructed her, “Follow me, Kishio Ruka. Our duel will commence here.” As the whole group entered into the portal and stepped foot into the other world, they all wondered how the inevitable duel between Ruka and Hana would go.