Taking the Oath

WARNING: Chapters 9-14 detail Ruka's past, which includes several forms of abuse, the deaths of guardians/parents, and other potentially upsetting topics. READER DISCRETION IS HEAVILY ADVISED FOR THESE CHAPTERS.

October 9, 2019

Having barely slept the night before, Ruka walked home from school with Shiho by her side. She yawned rather loudly, prompting Shiho to ask her, “Ruka-chan, did you not sleep at all last night?”

“No,” Ruka replied. “I could barely sleep.” She had not told her anything about what had happened when she got home. “I don’t know why. I guess I had a lot on my mind.”

“You yawned a lot in class,” Shiho pointed out. “I hope you get some sleep tonight.”

“I hope so too,” Ruka replied.

“Well,” Shiho said as they approached an intersection. “I gotta go back home now. I’ll see you tomorrow at school, Ruka-chan. Bye-bye.”

“Goodbye.” The two waved at each other as they went separate ways, with Ruka crossing the street and Shiho continuing down the sidewalk. As Ruka walked alone, she sighed and said to herself, “I couldn’t bring myself to tell her anything.”

While she walked past a ramen shop, she spotted Himiko, Shiho’s older sister, walking the opposite way towards her and waved hello, prompting the older girl, who was dressed in the third-year uniform of Hitoshi Junior High School, to wave back. “Hello, Kishio.”

“Hello, Kaya-san,” Ruka replied to her. As the two approached each other, she noticed that Himiko’s left hand had a small bandage wrapped around the palm. “Kaya-san, did you get hurt?”

“Oh, this?” Himiko then showed Ruka the bandage. “Yeah. I got cut working on something at home this morning. It wasn’t too bad, thankfully.”

“I’m sorry to hear that happened to you,” Ruka replied. “I’m glad it did not seriously injure your hand.”

“You know,” Himiko then said to her. “You speak very formally for a ten year old girl. Are you sure you aren’t an old man in a kid’s body?”

Ruka chuckled, amused by her comment. “I know, I know. It’s just that I’ve been taught to speak so formally around people I don’t know too well.” Both of them then heard the sound of leaves rustling nearby, followed by a rush of wind. They turned to an alleyway to their right and saw it suddenly become very dark, as if a shadow had fully encased it. “Huh?”

“Oh shit,” Himiko mouthed under her breath. “So this is what it’s like…”

“Wait a second,” Ruka said as she began to partially realize what was going on. “Is this what my uncle was talking about?”

“Your uncle?” Confused, Himiko asked her, “Who’s your uncle?”

“Kishio Daisuke,” she replied. “He tells me about things like this, and that it’s his job to help.”

“Wait a minute,” Himiko replied out of shock. “You’re saying your uncle’s a magica-?!” She was interrupted when they both heard a roar emanate from down the alleyway, causing her to dash into it to confront whatever was inside. “Damn it,” she said as she held out her left hand and a ring on it began to glow. “Stand back, Kishio!”

As Ruka looked away from the ensuing blinding red light, Himiko transformed into the same outfit she had had on when Ruka had seen her the day before. When she finished transforming, she wielded a rifle along with several throwing knives attached to her outfit. “Woah,” Ruka said to her. “You look so cool!”

Himiko used her free hand to pull out her phone and then open up the Agency app on her phone to report the sighting by calling in. “Hello, this is Kaya Himiko, Yokosuka 15051! I got a portal opening up and an unknown class of magical beast coming through now at my location! I may need backup! I got no clue what I’m getting into at all!”

Ruka had never seen a magical huntress or magical huntsman in action before, so seeing Himiko move in to kill the beast coming through was exciting for her, although she also knew that it was also really dangerous. “Kaya-san, be careful!”

Himiko then fired several shots of her semiautomatic rifle at the beast, which was similar in appearance to a lion but over twice the size of one, as well as having two tails that seemed to be able to grab onto things. As one of the tails grabbed a piece of concrete on the ground and flung it towards Himiko, she ducked out of the way and then threw a knife at the beast, causing it to yell in pain. The beast then charged at her, prompting her to fire two more times at the beast, although this only slowed it down long enough for her to dodge its front paw when it tried to take a swipe at her. “Damn it, why won’t you drop dead already?!”

“Look out,” Ruka shouted as she noticed the beast’s other tail racing towards Himiko. Unfortunately, Himiko was unable to see the tail in time, and it grabbed her by her injured hand and pulled her up. Himiko screamed in pain as the force of the pull broke her arm and shattered most of the bones in her hand. The beast then threw her onto the ground, knocking her out from the force of the impact as it roared in anger. “Kaya-san!” Ruka, almost without a second thought, raced towards Himiko and began to pull her away by her unbroken arm as the beast’s eyes zeroed in on her. She pulled her as quickly as she could as several bystanders rushed over to help, only to be scared away when the beast roared at them.

One of the bystanders yelled as he ran away and left Ruka and Himiko alone, “What the Hell is that thing?! Where did it come from?!”

Another yelled, “Get away! That thing’s gonna kill us!”

Ruka meanwhile did not run, not wanting to leave Himiko behind. “Come on,” she yelled at her. “Wake up already! We gotta go!”

She then heard Himiko’s phone ring audibly and pulled it out of her outfit to answer it. When she did, she heard an unfamiliar voice on the other end. “Hello?”

“Who is this?!”

“This is the Protection and Research Agency’s Yokosuka Branch,” said a dispatcher on the other end of the line. “We called back because we lost contact with Kaya Himiko. Who am I speaking to?”

“This is Kishio Ruka,” she said as the beast tried to lick its wounds while salivating at the chance to eat both her and Himiko. “My uncle’s with you guys.”

“Wait,” said the dispatcher. “Are you Kishio Daisuke’s niece?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “I need help! Kaya-san got knocked out by this lion thing!”

“We got a magical huntress on the way there,” said the dispatcher. “Help is on the way, Ruka.”

The beast then roared and charged towards Ruka and Himiko. “Oh no! It’s coming towards us!”

“Grab a weapon,” instructed the dispatcher. “It can be anything! It could be from Himiko, even! Grab something and throw it at the beast, Ruka!”

Ruka then picked up the last two throwing knives Himiko had and tossed them at the beast as best as she could, causing the beast to get distracted for a few seconds. This allowed her to drag Himiko back further as the beast decided to then retreat into the portal it had come from, too injured to continue the battle in the normal world. “Hah! I chased it away!”

“Is it going back into the portal, Ruka?”

“It is! I scared it off!”

“Good. Now stay outside with Kaya until help arrives, okay?”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” she replied. She then looked down at Himiko and asked her, “Kaya-san, hey! Kaya-san, can you hear me?”

“Ugh,” Himiko said as she rubbed her forehead and came to. “Damn it, my arm hurts…” She looked over and saw that her left arm and hand were clearly broken. “You gotta be kidding me…”

Then, the sound of two people running towards them caused Ruka to turn around, finding another girl around the same age as Himiko and a man who was about the same age as her uncle coming to help them. The girl, who was dressed in a dark green dress and carried a spear, yelled over to Ruka, “We’re here! We got this!”

Ruka stood back from Himiko as the girl with the green dress raced forward to kill the beast by crossing through the portal. Meanwhile, the man, who was dressed in a business suit, began to attend to Himiko. “Hey, Kaya,” said the man to her. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” she replied as she rubbed her forehead again. “I think I got knocked out.”

The man then asked Ruka, “Are you hurt at all?”

“No,” she replied as she shook her head. “Kaya-san protected me.”

“Alright, good.” The man then turned back to Himiko and told her, “We got an ambulance and a cleanup crew on the way for you, Kaya. You’re gonna be alright.”

“Thank you,” Himiko said before she let out a yelp of pain from her broken arm. “Agh, shit… My fucking arm…”

Ruka then felt her phone vibrate and pulled it out of her bookbag. As soon as she saw who it was, she went completely pale, trembling as she saw what time it was as well. “Oh no… Grandpa…” She nervously answered the phone, her hands shaking, as she said, “He- Hello?”

Ryota yelled at her through the phone, “Ruka, where the fuck are you?! You should be home by now!”

“Grandpa, I got held up by-“

Interrupting her, he yelled back, “By what?! By what?! What was it that was so important?!”

Partially lying to him, she told him, “There was a bad accident, and I got stuc-“

“You could have taken a different way! I told you that you were to not do anything after school for three days!”

“Grandpa, I’m sor-“

“Don’t give me that shit! You aren’t sorry!”

“But I a-“

“Enough! Get your ass home now!”

“But-“ Ryota then hung up with her own granddaughter. Ruka shook in fear as she dropped her phone on the ground, breaking the screen. “Oh no… No, no, no, no, no…”

The man, who had been talking with an ambulance crew who had just arrived at the scene while Ruka was on the phone with her grandfather, noticed Ruka panicking and walked over to her as the ambulance crew began to load Himiko onto a stretcher and splint her broken arm and hand. “Hey, uh… Are you okay?”

“My… My grandpa…”

The man, who was in fact a recruiter for the Agency, then realized who he was talking to. “Wait a minute, are you Daisuke’s niece?” Ruka turned to him and nodded, tears running down her face. “What’s wrong?”

“My grandpa wanted me home right after school, and… And… Now I’m really gonna get it…”

“Oh no…” The Recruiter could infer that something was wrong. “Look, Kishio, I…” He then sighed and pulled out a business card from his coat. “Take this, okay? If you’re in danger, call me, and I’ll take care of it.”

Ruka took the business card and read it, studying the name of the recruiter and his phone number before picking up her phone, which now had a crack in the screen. “Th- Thank you…”

…

An hour later, Ruka was sitting in her room, her face red after she had been struck by her grandfather upon coming home. She cried to herself on her bed, the weight of what happened to herself and to Himiko on that day hitting her hard. “Why,” she said to herself. “Why is this happening to me?” As she continued to cry, she pulled out the business card the recruiter had given her and read his name out loud. “Akamatsu Junpei…”

She then sat up in her bed and began to think about what she could do. She knew she needed to talk to someone, but in her mind, she had another idea as well. She had seen how Himiko and the spear-wielding girl in the green dress had protected her from the lion-like magical beast, and in that moment, she realized she too could regain some control over her life if she had access to the same powers they did. She also thought back to her uncle, and how she had adored him and looked up to him despite his warnings to not follow in his footsteps. As she looked out to the evening sky and wiped away her tears, she began to realize what she had to do.

“I need to become a magical huntress,” she thought to herself. “No matter what my uncle says, I need a way to take control again.” She then pulled out her phone and dialed the number she had been given.

“This is Akamatsu Junpei,” said Junpei as he answered the call. “Who am I speaking to?”

“This is Kishio Ruka,” she said to him. “I want to become a magical huntress. I know it’s risky, but I need to become one.”

Junpei, surprised, replied to her, “Wait, really? You don’t need me to speak to you about the risks or anything?”

“My uncle told me enough about that,” Ruka assured him with determination in her voice. “I know it’s dangerous, but I don’t care.”

“Okay, well, uh…” Junpei paused briefly to check something on his end of the line. “We’ll have to meet at some point. Just text me when you get out of school. I’ll be sure to bring a magical huntress with me to reassure you and observe, okay?”

“No,” Ruka replied as he looked at his address on his business card. “I want to see you now, and I’ll do anything to do that.”

“But it’s pretty late,” Junpei pointed out. “Are you sure you don’t want to do this tomorrow?”

“I’m doing this now,” Ruka replied before she hung up with him. She then got up from her bed and opened a window, looking down and finding a short drop to a roof over a deck on the first floor. Taking a deep breath, she snuck out of the room and jumped down to the deck roof. “Here we go…” She then hung down from the roof, dangling by her hands briefly, before swinging over and landing on the deck. As she got up, she ran off the deck and into the small back yard of the house, determined to find Junpei. “I have to become one tonight,” she thought to herself. “I can’t wait until tomorrow!”

…

Junpei opened the door to his more modest house about thirty minutes after Ruka had hung up with him. When he did, he found Ruka standing before him, her expression being one of both desperation and determination. “Like I said,” she told him. “I was willing to do anything to become a magical huntress now, Akamatsu-san.”

Junpei sighed and told Ruka, “Look, you’re ten years old, alright. That’s the very bottom floor for when I can recruit people, and I really don’t like recruiting girls that young to become magical huntresses.”

“I’m not leaving until you sign me up,” Ruka told him. She then pointed out the mark on her face from where her grandfather had hit her. “Does this convince you?”

Junpei looked at the mark and sighed. “Someone slapped you, huh?”

“Yeah,” Ruka admitted. “Someone did.”

“Who did this to you?”

Not wanting to tell him the truth about who slapped him, Ruka said, “A girl from class shortly after I left that attack.”

“Has she been doing this to you for a while?”

“Yeah, but this is the first time she hit me.” Ruka knew several girls in her school did not like her, so in her head, the fictional bully she imagined was a composite of those girls. She thought to herself, “I wish I was telling the truth. I wish it was some girl from school and not my own grandfather.”

Junpei paused for a brief moment before closing his eyes and shaking his head. “God, I can’t believe I’m about to do this, but…” He then pulled out a small badge-like object called a gem-holder that had a triangular symbol on the front with a red gem in the middle. “Let’s do this. Place your left hand on the gem-holder.”

“Okay,” Ruka replied as she did so. “What next?”

“Repeat after me,” Junpei told her. “I, state your name.”

“I, Kishio Ruka.”

“Am making a contract to become a magical huntress of my own free will.”

“Am making a contract to become a magical huntress of my own free will.”

“I, state your name.”

“I, Kishio Ruka.”

“Will protect the innocent from harm.”

“Will protect the innocent from harm.”

“And will hunt down all magical beasts that enter our world.”

“And will hunt down all magical beasts that enter our world.” Upon her finishing the oath, the gem glowed, and Ruka was immediately bathed in a bright red light. Within the span of a second, the light dissipated, and instead of her regular clothes, she was now wearing a similar but smaller and less-ornate version of the magical huntress outfit she would have in the present. When she opened her eyes, she looked down at herself and said in shock, “Woah… I… I look totally different.”

“It looks like you were thinking about becoming a swordswoman,” said Junpei, noticing that Ruka was equipped with a very basic sabre as her initial weapon. “Is that what you desire?”

“I mean… I guess it’s what I’m used to.” Ruka then stepped back and pulled out the sabre. “Wow… So this is my weapon…”

“For now,” Junpei pointed out. “You can upgrade it with the money you earn from killing magical beasts.” He then pulled out his phone and texted Ruka’s number.

Ruka felt her phone vibrate within her armor and felt around it to find it. When she did, she pulled her phone out and saw that she had gotten a link to download an app from Junpei. She clicked it and asked him, “What’s this for?”

“Before you can do anything else,” Junpei told her. “You have to download the app and get registered.”

“Oh.” Ruka then downloaded the Protection and Research Agency app to her phone with one tap of her finger. “By the way, uh… How do I turn back?”

“You just think of it subconsciously.”

“Wait, really? I jus-“ Before she had a chance to finish, she suddenly was bathed again in a bright red light before she regained her normal clothes. “Turn back like that?” She then looked down at herself. “Huh… Not gonna lie, I always thought the transformation would be longer.”

“It’s not like in anime,” Junpei corrected her. “There’s no extended transformation sequences in real life.”

After looking over the app on her phone a bit more, Ruka then told Junpei, “Thank you.”

“You’ll have to watch some videos on how to use the app over the next few days,” Junpei told her. “Please, if your uncle finds out, don’t tell him I recruited you, okay?”

“I won’t,” she replied.

“And by the way,” Junpei then instructed her. “If anyone asks, Kaya Himiko was injured in a hit and run accident.”

“Understood.”

…

October 10, 2019

The next day at school, Shiho was being comforted by several of her classmates, including Ruka, during a break in the day. “I’m really sorry that happened to you,” Ruka told her. “I hope they find the driver who did that soon.”

“Thank you,” Shiho replied to her. “My sister’s gonna be home for a while.”

“I can imagine given how badly hurt her arm and hand were.”

“I almost didn’t come to school today, actually,” Shiho pointed out. “But I decided that she wouldn’t want me to miss school. I…”

“I get it. You want to do what you think she wants you to do.”

“Yeah.” Shiho then hugged Ruka, telling her, “Thank you for talking to me about this.”

Ruka, startled by the hug, awkwardly returned it as she stifled her own discomfort with such physical contact. “Oh, uh… You’re welcome.” When the two separated from their hug, Ruka asked her on an unrelated topic, “By the way, I didn’t see Murata-san or her brother at all today when I walked in. Are they okay?”

“I don’t think they’re here,” Shiho replied. “I last saw Kaede-chan yesterday, and I haven’t seen Kosuke-san since the eighth when he was over at my house.”

“I hope they’re not sick or something.”

“Me too. What kinda confuses me a bit is how he acted when he was over at your house.”

Shiho agreed with a nod. “Yeah. He seemed worried about something when he was there. He also didn’t say anything specific about why he had to go home.”

…

Later that night, Ruka was up in her room since this was the last day of her grounding from her grandfather. She had spent almost all of her time after finishing her homework watching the instructional videos from the Agency’s phone app and taking notes in a journal she had while she sat up on her bed, her transformation ring stowed away in her dresser. As she finished jotting down notes at the end of a video, she heard a knock at her door and quickly exited out of the app and put the journal under her bed. “Come in.”

“It’s me,” Ryota said as he opened the door. “You’ve been cooped up in your room long enough. Come on down.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he said as he turned around to head back downstairs.

Ruka then got off of her bed and left her room. As she went down the stairs, she saw a face that made her freeze in fear just as she was halfway down. “Ah,” said Aki as he looked up and saw her. “It’s so good to see you again, Ruka.”

“Oh, uh,” Ruka replied, doing her best not to show her panic. “Good evening, Murase-san…”

“We’re just hanging out and talking about some business stuff,” Ryota explained to her. “If you want, you can practice fencing in the basement. Maybe later, we can show him what we’ve practiced. How about that?”

“Well, uh, sure,” Ruka nodded, still nervous. “I’d be glad to show him that.”

Aki asked Ryota, “How long have you two been practicing?”

“For a few months,” he replied to him. “Ruka has been really improving since we started, actually.”

While the two of them talked, Ruka slowly walked to the basement by herself. When she got to the bottom step, she stopped and took a deep breath, asking herself, “Why is he here?” She then looked at the wall and grabbed an épée, and upon doing so, she began to practice with it. As with before, she aggressively moved against the practice dummy in the basement, channeling her anger against Aki for what he did to her into her moves. “Damn you,” she muttered under her breath. “God damn you….”

As she took one last swing at the dummy, she suddenly stopped when she saw a vision appear in front of her. The vision was one of Aki, although unlike reality, he appeared to take the form of a monster. His eyes were yellow, his teeth were much sharper, and his nails had turned into claws. Additionally, he towered over Ruka, being at least four feet taller than he actually was and almost touching the ceiling. The vision of Aki growled at her before reaching a hand out, almost as if he desired to once again touch her.

Ruka yelled in anger as she swung down at the arm, “Get away from me!” As soon as her épée made contact with his arm, the vision disappeared into thin air, and Ruka began to breathe heavily. “What… No… How did… Why…” She then dropped her épée and fell to her knees, tears now flowing down her face. She cried as quietly as she could as she said to herself, “Please… I don’t want this… Haven’t I suffered enough?” It was at this moment that Ruka looked at her épée and had a realization. “He… He needs to die.” She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes once more as a feeling of anger once again filled her. “Soon, Murase, you’ll meet your end.” In one single moment, she had decided that the first target of her activities as a magical huntress would not be a magical beast, but instead Aki Murase.

As she heard the door to the basement open, Ruka immediately got up and wiped away her tears, collecting herself emotionally and stifling her sadness. She took a few deep breaths and turned around to find Aki and Ryota coming down, with the latter telling Ruka, “Let’s get suited up. We’re gonna give Aki here a show.”

“Right,” she said to him, having seemingly managed to suppress all of her sadness and anger at Aki. “Let’s do it.” As she grabbed her fencing armor, she turned to Aki and told him, “Take a good hard look at what we’re about to do.” Of course, this was not merely just her inviting him to watch, but also an implied warning of what Ruka was capable of.

Aki said to the two of them, “This will be fun to watch.”

Once both Ryota and Ruka were done putting on their fencing armor and grabbed épées, they put their masks on before Ryota told Ruka, “En garde.” The two then got into position. “Allez!”

As Aki watched, Ruka and Ryota battled it out, the two of them moving briskly and dodging each other’s attacks. He thought to himself as he paid close attention to Ruka in particular, “She’s feisty. I knew that much from when we had our little bout of fun a few days ago, but I never knew she could do this.”

Ruka thought to herself as she continued to battle Ryota, “He better see what I’m capable of doing. One day soon, I’ll shove a sword right into his throat!”

Then, at the very end of the battle, Ruka dodged a strike to her face that came within only a few inches of hitting her, to which she responded by striking her grandfather in the chest, winning the battle. Ryota said to Ruka as the two of them took off their helmets, “Not bad.”

Ruka smiled and told him, “Looks like I win.”

“Watch it,” Ryota warned her as he wiped sweat off of his forehead. “We still got two more battles to do.”

…

October 11, 2019

Ruka, having finished the last of her mandatory instructional videos on the Agency app, was now officially active as a magical huntress. During school, she had debated internally whether or not to tell Shiho about her status since her sister was one as well. As the two of them walked out of school with Kaede and Rena and talked among themselves, Ruka was thinking in her head about how to break the news to Shiho, and wondering if she even knew the truth about Himiko. “I don’t know how to tell her I’m a magical huntress like her sister,” she thought to herself as the four of them stepped onto the sidewalk outside of the school. “Does she even know her sister is one? If I tell her, and she doesn’t know, then I could get in trouble.”

Meanwhile, Kaede was telling the others about her brother. “He came back to school today,” she told them. “But it’s like… It’s like he isn’t all there. Whatever my parents did with him over the past few days must have done something to him.”

“He must have gotten in a lot of trouble,” Rena replied. “Did he do anything bad?”

“Nothing that I can think of. Believe me, if he screwed up, I would have known about it.”

Shiho asked Kaede, “What do you mean he’s not all there? He was here.”

“I mean, it’s like… He was more distant. I think that’s the right word.” Kaede had some trouble describing how her brother was doing now that he had returned to school. “I don’t know how to say it.”

“It’s fine,” Shiho told her. She then turned to Ruka and asked her, “What about you? What do you think is going on with Kosuke-kun?”

“Hm?” Ruka, who was still lost in thought, snapped out of it and turned to Shiho. “Oh, uh… I think there’s something else going on. Perhaps he isn’t in trouble like we think of, but there’s something else he’s doing that’s not making his parents happy.”

“I hope he’s alright, Ruka-chan. It doesn’t feel right to see him like this.”

“Speaking of that,” Ruka then asked her. “How is your sister doing?”

“She’s home now,” Shiho informed her. “Her left arm and hand are in a cast, but she should be back to school tomorrow.”

“Is she willing to talk to anyone? I’d like to see her.”

“Hmmm…” Shiho paused to think if she had anything going on that would prevent Ruka from visiting her home. “I don’t think I’m doing anything. You guys can stop by for a bit if you want and say hi to her.”

“Unfortunately,” Kaede then told the other two. “I have stuff going on at home, so I won’t be able to go.”

“That’s okay,” Shiho told her. “We’ll hang out another time, Kaede-chan.”

…

When Ruka and Shiho walked into the latter’s home, they noticed that Shiho’s parents were not home. “Looks like my sister was by herself.”

As Ruka looked at a rug next to the front door and took her shoes off, she noticed something odd. “There’s an extra pair of shoes here.”

“Huh?”

“It’s just you, your parents, and your sister who live here, right?”

“Yeah…” Shiho then looked at the shoe rug and noticed what Ruka had seen. “Why is there an extra pair of shoes here? I don’t recall my sister having any visitors today.”

Curious, the two of them walked upstairs after taking their shoes off, but as they got to the top step, they both heard sounds coming from down the hall. Ruka asked her friend, “What’s that noise?”

“It sounds like…” Shiho, like Ruka, could also plainly hear what sounded like creaking noises from the direction of Himiko’s room, followed by a few more noises that sounded like that of a person. “She’s doing something in her room.”

As they both got closer and walked up to the door, Ruka could more clearly hear what was happening in the room and began to realize exactly what it was. She blushed and told Shiho, “Uh, maybe we shouldn’t go inside.”

“Why not?”

They both then heard a male voice inside the room say, “Wait, what the fuck? Did you hear something, Himiko?”

Shiho, not knowing any better, opened the door anyway, recognizing the voice. With a smile on her face, she greeted the boy in the room with, “Yuta-san, hello agai-“

Shiho paused as Ruka looked away, realizing immediately what they had both walked in on. Just seconds before Shiho opened the door, Yuta had just finished having sex with Himiko. Both of them were completely naked beside Himiko’s left arm and hand cast, and Himiko had been on top of her boyfriend. She immediately turned to her sister, blushing intensely as she yelled, “Shiho, what the fuck?!”

“Oh no,” Ruka said to herself.

“I- I- I’m sorry!” Shiho then slammed the door shut, panicking at the fact she had seen her older sister in such a compromising position. She turned around to Ruka and began to profusely apologize to her, even getting down on her knees and bowing in an almost comical fashion. “Ruka-chan, I’m so sorry! I had no idea! Please forgive me!”

They both could hear Himiko talking to Yuta about what had just happened from beyond the bedroom door. “Oh my God, I am so sorry. I had no idea she was gonna barge in like that. For God’s sake, she should know we do this shit!”

Ruka told Shiho with an awkward tone of voice, “I, uh… I don’t think I’m the one that needs the apology, Kaya-san… You should talk to your sister.”

Shiho got up from the floor and admitted, “Yeah, you’re right, I guess…” She then shook her head. “I can’t believe I did that, Ruka-chan.”

Yuta then opened the door, having gotten dressed. “I’ll be downstairs for a bit so you can talk to them.”

“Okay,” Himiko replied to him, having put on underwear and a bra by now. “I’ll be down in a few minutes, Yuta.” She then turned to Shiho and shot her an annoyed glare. “Why did you barge into my room like that?!”

Shiho replied, “I… I didn’t know what you were doing…”

“You can’t just do that,” Himiko sternly told her. “What if that were Mom and Dad, huh? Would you want to walk in and see them doing that?”

“No… Ew…”

“Exactly. I had to when I was younger, and I wish I could unsee that.” She then sighed and looked at Ruka. As she did, she immediately noticed the transformation ring on her left hand. “Wait a minute…” She turned back to Shiho and told her, “Hey, uh… Can I speak to Ruka alone for a bit?”

“Alone? Why?”

“I need to talk to her about what happened a few days ago,” Himiko explained. “Can you go downstairs for a few minutes, please?”

Shiho asked Ruka, “Do you want to talk to my sister?”

Ruka nodded. “Actually, now that she mentions it, I do.”

“Alright. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

As Shiho walked away, Ruka walked into the room and closed the door. “I assume you noticed the ring on my left hand.”

“I did,” Himiko confirmed with a nod. “So, who recruited you? More importantly, though… Why?”

“Akamatsu Junpei recruited me,” she explained. “Or, well… I demanded he make me a magical huntress. As for why…” She sighed. “Well…”

“What’s going on?”

Ruka decided at that moment that to Himiko and Himiko alone, she would come clean about what had happened to her the week prior. “She’s a magical huntress like me,” she thought to herself. “She seems like she would sympathize with me.” She took a deep breath and told her, “What I say to you next cannot be repeated, and the reason I’m telling you this is because I need your help.”

“My help?” Himiko looked at her left arm and replied, “Well, uh, I don’t know how much help I can be given the situation with my arm, but… What is it?”

“About a week ago,” Ruka explained to her. “A man my grandfather knew brought me back to my home after a gala when my grandfather went out drinking. When I got home, he came in with me, and…” With each passing word, Ruka could feel her shoulders getting heavier as she got closer and closer to telling Himiko what had happened to her. “He… I…”

Himiko knew that this was serious. Based on Ruka’s tone of voice, she grew very concerned with what she was trying to tell her. “Ruka, what did this man do to you?”

“He… He… He put his ha- hands on me,” Ruka stammered out as she began to get emotional. “And then… He raped me.”

Himiko feared that those words would escape her lips based on what she had been building up to. “And is that why you became a magical huntress?”

“Not exactly,” Ruka shook her head before wiping away some tears from her eyes. “But… I want to use the powers I have to make sure he never does this again.”

“I see…” Himiko paused, pondering what actions she could take with Ruka. Based on her words, she knew that Ruka wanted to kill her rapist, and she certainly did not blame her at all. “I got just one more question… Or, well, a two-part question.”

“What is it?”

“Who did this to you, and where do they live?”

With those words, Himiko signaled her approval for Ruka’s desires and her decision to help her carry them out. She gave her a faint smile as she wiped her nose and eyes again and asked her, “You’re really gonna help me? You don’t think I’m lying?”

“Based on the few times I’ve seen you and how my sister talks about you,” Himiko pointed out. “I know you wouldn’t lie about something like this. Now, again, who is this man, and where does he live? I want to pay him a visit alongside you.”