Failed Rescue

September 17, 2023

The Fox Knights had all gathered at an abandoned warehouse in the late evening on very short notice. As Ruka and Hana ran up to join the others, Yoshiro asked the latter, “Did you get that update from the Agency?”

“I haven’t looked at my phone yet,” Hana replied. “What did they say?”

“Look,” Tenko said as she showed Hana and Ruka the additional text she got.

“UPDATE: REPORTED ENTRAPMENT, 10 YEAR OLD MALE, PAYOUT INCREASED TO ¥7500 WITHOUT SUCCESSFUL RESCUE AND ¥10000 WITH SUCCESSFUL RESCUE.”

“Damn it,” Ruka said as she read the update text. “We gotta get in there ASAP.” Her heart began to race as she prepared herself for a very time-sensitive battle to save whoever was trapped with the Class Two beast they had been sent after. “This is bad. Really bad!”

“Let’s move in,” Hana commanded as all of them began to transform in bright flashes of light. Ruka, of course, had a red light. Hana had a white light. Yoshiro had a blue light. Tenko had a gold yellow light. Yoko had a green light. Once all of them had transformed, they ran into the building, which was almost pitch black and had next to no windows due to the few it had being boarded up. All of them could hear a roar from the second floor of the warehouse. “Up there!”

Ruka asked, “Where are the stairs?!”

“This way,” Yoko said as she pointed in front of her. “I’ve been here before! Follow me!”

Yoshiro and Yoko used flashlights to see in the warehouse as they could hear rumbling above them, presumably from the beast trampling around upstairs. Hana commented, “It sounds like he’s gonna crash through the floor at this rate!”

“It’s loud as Hell,” Ruka replied to her as she pulled out her sword, ready to attack. “What’s that God damn thing doing up there?!”

Then, all of them stopped as they felt the floor above them rumble and shake as pieces of the ceiling began to fall. Yoshiro called out, “Holy shit, it’s gonna come down!”

Before any of them could run for cover, a large monster in the shape of a lizard came through the ceiling and crashed into the floor, sending tons of concrete and dust all over the place. Everyone coughed as the dust filled the air, and when they opened their eyes, they saw the lizard roaring at them as it dropped a body onto the floor. Hana yelled, “That must be the boy! Ikezawa-san, Yoshiro-kun, go grab him!”

As Yoshiro and Tenko ran over to grab the boy’s body, Ruka told Hana, “I’m gonna go for it!” Ruka then charged at the monster, running ahead of Yoshiro and Tenko before slashing the lizard’s hand when it tried to take a swipe at her. The lizard yelled in pain before it tried to punch Ruka, forcing her to dodge the attack.

“Wait for me!” Hana also charged forward, intending to back Ruka up with an attack of her own. However, it was around this time that she noticed the lizard about to try to kick Yoshiro and Tenko. She shouted as she diverted to them, “Guys, look out!”

Yoshiro and Tenko grabbed the boy’s body and began to drag it away as the former shouted, “Hana-senpai!” As they tried to move the boy, the lizard’s foot got within a few inches of them before Hana blocked the attack with her sword, slicing right through the foot and coating all of them in the lizard’s blood when she struck an artery. Yoshiro yelled as he was soaked in blood, “Agh, it’s everywhere!”

Tenko pulled her handgun from her waist belt and fired off several shots at the lizard, causing further pain for the beast as the sound of five gunshots rang out throughout the warehouse. She asked Hana, “Do you need more help?!”

“No,” she commanded. “Get the boy to a safe place and assess him!” Hana then blocked another attack from the lizard when it tried to swing its tail at her, though this attack still managed to knock her down to the ground.

Yoshiro shouted in horror, fearing the worst, “Hana!”

“I’m fine,” she insisted as she quickly got up. “Focus on the boy, not me, damn it!” She then attacked the beast directly, swinging down on its tail when it tried to make another swing at her. Her sword cut through the tail and split open part of it, causing the beast once again to yell out in pain. She looked at the beast and then looked around her, saying to herself, “This one’s too stubborn!”

Ruka then emerged from the darkness of the unlit warehouse and jumped up a bit before swinging down at the lizard. After managing to block another swipe by his uninjured hand, she let out a loud roar as she sliced through the beast’s neck diagonally, beheading it and causing a small fountain of blood to emerge from the body. With this, the beast was finally dead, and the gang could now focus on the boy as Ruka caught her breath. “Hah… Shit… Damn, this one was tough.”

Yoko then ran forward with her crossbow in her hand, yelling, “Guys, where’s the beast?!

Ruka told Yoko to stop her from needlessly attacking the corpse of the beast, “I already killed the bastard.”

“Damn it,” Yoko said in reply as she slowed down. “You’re too fast for me.”

“I guess I am,” she replied with a faint smile, feeling good after having slayed the Class Two giant lizard-like beast.

Both of them were then interrupted by Tenko yelling out, “He’s not breathing!”

Ruka and Yoko looked at each other before the former said with a sense of dread, “Oh shit…”

As both of them ran over, Yoshiro was attempting CPR on the boy, who had been gravely injured by multiple broken bones, puncture wounds from the lizard’s claws and teeth, and a ripped-off right hand. Hana meanwhile was making a call to the Agency to report the incident and request assistance, while Tenko was pulling out a small mask to administer rescue breaths. All of them were soaked in blood from both the lizard and the boy’s wounds. Hana explained over the phone to a dispatcher from the Agency, “I need help here now, damn it! This boy’s in cardiac arrest!”

Yoko asked Hana, “Did they get a doctor or nurse on the phone yet for you?”

“No,” Hana replied. “I don’t even know if they’ve got an ambulance on the way! Just keep doing CPR and cycle through! Yoshiro-kun and Ikezawa-san have done two rounds of compressions and breaths, and I want them replaced after the third! Move it!”

“If his ribs weren’t broken when we got him,” Yoshiro said as he paused to let Tenko do two rescue breaths. “They definitely are now.” He then began doing the last of three rounds of thirty compressions.

Ruka told Yoshiro, “I’ll hop in when you’re do-“

“No,” he rejected her. “Fujimori-senpai will. Just stand back.”

“Are you su-?”

He aggressively yelled at her, “Yes! Now back the fuck up!” Once he was done, he ordered Yoko with, “Get over here and start doing compressions.”

“Got it,” she replied as she set her crossbow down and began doing compressions while Tenko gave Yoshiro the mask to do rescue breaths. The team almost effortlessly cycled through CPR, administering high-quality compressions and breaths. Even with this, however, their chances of saving the young boy were growing slimmer by the minute.

Just as they ended the sixth round, Yoko told Ruka, “Start doing compressions.”

“Got it,” Ruka replied as she took Yoko’s spot.

Just as she was about to start, however, Yoshiro told Yoko, “Don’t let her do compressions! Have Ikezawa-san do it!”

As Tenko moved into position to take over from Ruka instead, Yoko said, “But she hasn’t do-“

“I don’t give a shit,” Yoshiro yelled back. “Ikezawa-san will do compressions!”

Yoko, a bit frustrated, relented and told Tenko, “Come here and do compressions. Hurry up!”

As Ruka got up, she sighed in frustration, severely annoyed that Yoshiro was not giving her anything to do while Hana was busy communicating with dispatch. She herself how Yoshiro was being rather petty, willing to potentially compromise patient care if it meant screwing her over. Even so, she did acknowledge mentally that the boy would probably not survive regardless.

After the eighth round of compressions, Hana suddenly called out, “Stop! Stop compressions!” Everyone turned to her with a look of dread as she sighed and told all of them, “I… I’ve received word to stop compressions from the Agency Hospital.”

Yoko sighed and muttered to herself, “God damn it…”

“They’ve notified the police and the fire department to deal with his body,” Hana told them all. “For now, we have to do our best to preserve the scene.”

All of them got up and looked around, the realization that they were unable to save the young boy, who looked to be no more than ten years old. Yoshiro sighed and kicked the ground in frustration, saying to herself, “Fuck this shit… We were too late.”

Ruka meanwhile sighed, saddened to see the young boy’s somewhat mangled body. “Man, this sucks.”

“You should have done more,” Yoshiro then suddenly yelled at her. “Why the Hell didn’t you do more?!”

Ruka backed up and pulled out her sword, replying to his sudden aggression with, “Hey, hold it! You told me not to get involved!”

“You could have still done something!”

“Not with you telling me I couldn’t touch him!”

Yoshiro then screamed at her, “Just shut up already! I’m the one who’s been here the longest compared to you! Don’t you God damn dare talk back to me, bitch! If you ask me, this boy could still be alive if you weren’t here!”

That comment in particular set Ruka off, causing her to drop her sword and storm over to him, intent on punching him. Yoko noticed this and immediately stepped in between them, yelling at both of them, “Stop it already! We don’t need this right now!”

“Don’t break us up,” Yoshiro yelled at Yoko. “Let me get her!”

Ruka yelled at Yoshiro, “You’re a fucking lunatic! I was following your ord-“

All of them were interrupted by a sudden gunshot from nearby. They all turned to find Tenko breathing heavily as she pointed her gun up at the ceiling, having just fired a warning shot to get all of them to stop arguing. She then yelled at all of them as tears began to slowly fall down her anger-filled face, “Enough! Stop arguing with each other! The last thing we need now is for us to argue! We have jobs we have to do, so stop fucking yelling at each other and do them!” She then lowered the gun and her arm as she began to cry. “Please… For the boy’s sake, we need to get along…”

Yoko walked over and comforted Tenko as she began to sob, saddened that they could not save the boy. “I’m sorry, Tenko…”

Yoshiro and Ruka looked at each other and sighed, realizing that Tenko was right. Yoshiro admitted, “Okay, maybe I took it a bit to the extreme there…”

Ruka replied, “Let’s just focus on making sure this boy’s family can get his body back.”

“Agreed,” Yoshiro nodded.

Meanwhile, Hana was staring at the boy’s lifeless body, haunted by what had happened to him. She noticed that around his left arm, which still had a hand, was a small rubber bracelet with airplanes printed on it, a sign of his presumed innocence. She said to herself, “Airplanes… Airplanes…”

Yoshiro noticed Hana staring at the bracelet and asked her, “Hana-senpai, are you okay?”

“His bracelet has airplanes on it,” Hana said to him in a very emotionally drained tone of voice. “I wonder if this boy dreamed of being a pilot one day.” She then looked at his t-shirt, which was bloodied, and began to realize what was printed on it. “His shirt… It has the Japan Air Lines logo on it… He must have really loved airplanes, then.”

Yoshiro nodded. “He must have.” He could tell that Hana was haunted by the boy’s death and what he possibly could have been if he had lived. Now, though, any dreams he had were crushed under the weight of his death.

…

Ruka had de-transformed, but due to the blood from the battle also splashing her skin, it managed to stain her regular street clothes as well, prompting her to take a shower as soon as she was dropped off back at her apartment by another Recruiter from the Agency. She ran in, hoping no one would notice the red stains on her clothes as she got into an elevator and pressed the button for her floor. Once the elevator opened up to her floor, she ran to her apartment and unlocked it with a key she carried, but not before looking back at the floor to see if she left any spots. Relieved that she did not, she said to herself before walking into the apartment, “Thank God.”

Inside, she walked into the bathroom after taking her shoes off and immediately stripped herself of all of her clothes. As she looked over herself in the mirror, she sighed before turning the shower on and stepping in one she checked to make sure the water was warm enough. While she began to wash her body, the image of the young boy’s dead body stayed in her mind.

“Today’s been too rough,” she remarked to herself. As she ran her gold-colored hair under the faucet to wash shampoo out of it, she heard her phone, which she left on the toilet next to her shower, vibrate with a call. She reached out and grabbed it to see who it was, seeing that it was her uncle Daisuke. She turned the shower off and answered the call with, “Yes, hello?”

“Hey,” Daisuke said to her. “I just heard about what happened. Man, that’s rough.”

“I know,” she replied. “I’m actually in the shower right now washing some of the blood off from the battle.”

“Do you wanna call me back when you’re done, Ruka?”

“No, I can talk for a bit,” she assured him. “Yeah, uh… The team tried doing CPR on him, but it didn’t work. I wasn’t expecting it to work given the boy’s injuries, though.”

“I’m reading the report that Miyashita girl filed on the battle now,” Daisuke replied as he sat at a desk at his home and read the report on his laptop. “Damn, it sounds bad.”

“It was bad.”

“If you ever want to talk to me about how you feel, you’re more than welcome anytime. I’ll listen to whatever you gotta say.”

“Thanks.” Ruka then said to him, “Well, I gotta go finish some homework after I shower. I’ll talk to you later, alright?”

“Sounds good,” Daisuke replied. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Bye.” Ruka then hung up and put the phone back down on the toilet. She had not told him about the argument she and Yoshiro had after the battle had ended. “God damn it… I can’t wait for today to end.” As she turned the shower back on and began to wash her body again, she thought back to how Hana had been after they stopped CPR on the young boy. “She really focused on those airplanes…”

In her mind, she too thought about the possible dreams of the boy. They did not know who he was, but they could infer his hobbies and ambitions based on his clothes and his bracelet. The thought that his dreams were now forever dashed by his death saddened Ruka, who hated seeing young children hurt or killed by magical beasts. She also thought back to her own past, remembering events from when she was also around nine to ten years old. In her head, she said to herself, “Why am I thinking back to all this? I’ve seen death plenty of times, so why is it now, of all times, that I’m thinking about it so much?”

One memory in particular, however, caused her to snap out of her thoughts. Her eyes widened as she stared at a small mirror hanging on the shower wall. She then slowly wiped the fog and water off of the mirror to see herself in the reflection. Once she saw herself clearly, she took a deep breath and said to herself to calm down, “You aren’t in danger. Please, calm down.” As she turned the shower off, she stared at herself in the small mirror to look at part of her body. “I should measure myself again. I might need some new bras soon…”

…

September 18, 2023

“Do you really trust her?”

Tenko looked at Yoshiro as the two talked in class about Ruka and the battle the day before. “I mean… I haven’t really gotten to know Kishio-senpai too well yet. I know she’s a good fighter, but that’s really it.”

“She’s more like a mad dog,” Yoshiro derisively referred to her with. “She goes all-in and aims solely for the kill without considering the others around her.”

Tenko chuckled and playfully asked him, “Are you jealous of her?”

Yoshiro denied any jealousy on his part. “Absolutely not!”

“I can see it. You’re a bit jealous that Hana-senpai is giving her so much attention despite being new to the Fox Knights. Admit it.”

“No way,” he once again denied to her. “I just don’t want her recklessness putting Hana-chan at risk.”

“If you insist.” Tenko could tell that Yoshiro was bad at denying his jealousy for Ruka. “Anyway, speaking of… I got word about the boy’s family.”

“You did?”

“He has an older brother in a high school nearby,” she explained with a heavy sigh. “His family’s taking it pretty hard. He had just turned ten a few weeks ago, too.”

“Damn,” Yoshiro commented, shaking his head. “That really sucks.”

“I guess from what I heard that the boy did indeed like airplanes, too.”

Yoshiro sighed. “Just as I thought.”

Tenko then asked him, “How is Hana-senpai taking all of this? You’re the closest to her in the group out of all of us.”

“I haven’t talked to her since the battle itself, actually,” Yoshiro realized. “It’s kinda weird. We usually talk with each other at the front gate before we head in and go to our classes for the day, but she only said hello to me before walking away. She didn’t look like she was in the mood to talk, so I didn’t push it. I’ll have to find her later.”

“I’m a bit concerned for her. She seemed really messed up by that shit we saw.”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“Fair enough,” Tenko shrugged. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night myself either. I imagine she didn’t get any.”

“I barely got any,” Yoshiro replied with a yawn. “I’m gonna sleep well tonight, though, or at least try.” He then felt his phone vibrate with an alert, and when he pulled it out, he saw that it was a notification for a beast in the area of the school. “Oh, great, a beast near the school.”

Tenko asked him, “You still mark up as available during school hours?”

“You don’t?”

“Not on most days.”

“I do it since I could get a hunt in during a break,” Yoshiro explained. “I won’t say no to free money most of the time, after all.” He then looked down and saw that Yoko had already accepted the mission, which was for a Class Five beast. “Meh, looks like Fujimori-senpai already got i-“ He then looked again when his phone vibrated once more and saw that Ruka had also accepted the mission. “Ugh, why would she accept that knowing Fujimori-senpai’s already on the way? A Class Five doesn’t need two God damn huntresses to kill.” He then put his phone away.

“I’m sure there won’t be a problem,” Tenko assured him. “Kishio-senpai doesn’t seem to actually hate any of us.”

Yoshiro sighed and replied to her, “I hope there isn’t a problem.”

…

Yoko, who had ditched her school uniform by transforming once she had left the building, was running to the reported location of the beast, who had apparently breached the portal it had spawned and had just made entry into the real world at an apartment building right next to the elementary school located right across from the middle school the team all attended. She did not care if anyone on the street saw her in her outfit, knowing that stopping the beast before it could reach the elementary school took priority, even if it was a relatively weak beast.

As Yoko rounded a corner, she saw a transformed Ruka emerge from an alleyway. She immediately called out to her, yelling, “Kishio!”

Ruka turned around and saw Yoko running behind her. “Fujimori?! You accepted too?!”

“Yeah,” she replied. “We gotta stop that beast before it gets to the elementary school!”

“Oh shit,” Ruka realized as the two ran across the street. “You’re right! That apartment building’s right next to the elementary school! Do you wanna take this one?!”

“Just follow me,” Yoko replied back as they ran into the parking lot of the apartment building in question. “We’ll worry about that when we find the damn thing!”

“There!” Ruka pointed at a bear-sized and two-headed dog-like beast with red eyes as she pulled out her sword. “It’s got two heads!”

“I got it!” Yoko pulled out her crossbow from behind her back and took aim as she stopped, firing a poison-tipped arrow at the beast and striking it in the neck. Both of the beast’s heads let out yelps of pain from the poison before it charged in her direction.

Before Yoko had a chance to fire again, however, Ruka swung at the beast, managing to dodge a swipe from one of its paws before slicing off one of the heads with her sword. The other head roared in severe pain from the attack, revealing its sharp and grotesque teeth as well as almost overwhelming Ruka with its foul breath when it exhaled. She coughed several times and yelled out, “Shit, this one smells horrible!” The beast’s remaining head tried to bite her, but it managed to only bite her sword.

Yoko watched as Ruka tried to rip her sword out of the beast’s grip, but when she pulled, the beast simply tightened its hold on the sword until finally it snapped, causing Yoko to yell out, “Kishio!”

Ruka yelled in frustration, “You gotta be fucking kidding me!” She then used the half of the sword she still had to stab the beast in the neck with the jagged edge made by its fangs, slicing through several arteries and veins and spilling its blood all over the ground. The beast tried to struggle, but it quickly weakened due to blood loss from the wound. Yoko took the chance and fired another bolt from her crossbow at the beast, finally ending its life.

Yoko walked over as Ruka dropped her broken sword and pulled out her phone to begin taking pictures for the report, “We’ll have to split the reward money.”

“I don’t really give a shit about the money right now,” she replied as she snapped a picture. “This bastard broke my sword. It was only a few months old, too. I’ll be out of commission until I get my hands on some kind of weapon.”

Yoko looked down at the corpse of the beast and said to Ruka, “I’m surprised this one was classified as a Class Five. You’d think with those twin heads it’d be a Class Four or something.”

“Whatever it is or should be, it’s dead now.” Ruka then looked at her broken sword on the ground and sighed in annoyance. “It’s only Monday, and I already hate this stupid week.” She then snapped two more photos before attaching the files to the report, which she would save in her drafts before completing later on after school. “I already notified a crew from the Agency for cleanup. I’m gonna head back to school before they get suspicious.”

“Same here,” Yoko replied as the two of them began to walk back to the school, with her putting her crossbow away on her back. She was somewhat annoyed that she would have to split the reward money with Hana, but decided not to bring it up given that Ruka was probably already angry due to her sword breaking. “You said you got that sword a few months ago, right?”

“Yeah. I broke the one I had since I was about twelve before then during a battle with a Class Three. I’ve used three swords since I became a huntress, and it looks like I’m gonna need a fourth.”

“I’ve used the same crossbow since I became a huntress about four years ago now. I’ve never had to replace it.” It was clear Yoko placed pride in her crossbow. “It’s served me well for this long, and I intend to use it as long as I hunt magical beasts.”

“I hope it does,” Ruka replied. “It sounds like you take pride in your weapon, Fujimori.”

“Of course. It’s saved my ass on more than one occasion.”