Nothing Good Ever Goes Down in an Alley

Hinako left the store with a bag in hand. She went over to the bookstore and took her phone out of her pocket. Hinako sighed after she looked at the new balance number that was displayed on her banking app and then opened LIME. She began typing a message, but then suddenly paused. Hinako heard clattering down the small alleyway to her left. She saw a cat jumping away from a knocked-over trashcan. Hinako spotted a group of people standing further down the alley. She looked closer and noticed that there were two women surrounded by eight guys. Hinako furrowed her brows, put her phone away and began to move closer. She just went into the alley as her bad gut feeling got affirmed. The women were grabbed and pulled around a corner.

“Shit!”, Hinako grunted and began to sprint. She hardly kept up with them and turned a few corners more, diving deeper into the back alleys of Akihabara. Hinako finally caught up to them in a barely lit backyard. The two women were unconscious and got carried by four of the men.

“H-Hey! That’s… not…!”, Hinako huffed, out of breath.

The men turned towards her in surprise.

“That’s not… what?”, asked one of them confused.

“Not the… right way to… pick up girls!”, Hina replied, still out of breath.

The men looked at each other and began to laugh. This gave Hinako time to catch her breath. She focused and began to gather magical energy in her free palm. One of them noticed it.

“Watch out! She’s a mage!”, he yelled.

The laughing stopped. It took Hinako way longer than usual to produce a flame in her hand, and it was more a little spark, then the typical fireball. All her strength seemed sapped, and she got painfully aware of how tired she felt all of a sudden. One of the men took his chance to rush in, before Hinako could finish her spell. She watched the oncoming hand with a rising feeling of panic. But something or rather someone shoved itself in front of the young woman in the last second.

“Friends of yours?”, Kuro asked in his typical casual tone.

Hinako shook her head slowly.

“Okay, then hold this, please.”, He continued and gave her a black plastic bag.

“What the… Who the fuck are you, old man?”, The man, whose wrist Kuro held the whole time, barked.

Kuro twisted his body around and delivered a fast and hard blow to the gut. The man went down with a groan.

“I’m only thirty-five!”, Kuro grumbled.

He stepped over the groaning man and waved his left hand very subtly. A green energy bolt hit Kuro in the chest. He looked at the caster and sighed.

“Oh, for fucks sake… now I have to report it…”, Kuro mumbled annoyed.

He held out his arm and small pebbles started levitating above it.

“But if you use magic against me… I am allowed to do so, as well… please don’t die…”, Kuro added and shot the first barrage against the two nearest.

They went down, hit in multiple places. The projectiles circled back to Kuro. The next two conjured up a barrier. The following shattering of it, due to his next barrage, gave Hinako a strange sense of satisfaction, as she watched the caster go down unconscious. The small pebbles bounced to the next target, leaving only two men standing moments later. Kuro slowly moved forward, the rocks circling over his hands. The man he had stepped over suddenly got up behind him and pulled out a dagger. Hinako reacted instinctively, took a step forward and swung the heavier of the two bags in her hands.

“Hey! Don’t swing that! I finally found the last one I was missing in the series!”, Kuro said.

He was suddenly in front of Hinako and had grabbed the bag mid swing.

“Stand back and watch over them.”, He added and pushed Hinako back a bit.

She nearly tripped over the two unconscious women behind her.

When did he…, Hinako thought confused.

“Nice dagger you have there. Why does such a bum like you have such an ornate thing?”, Kuro calmly asked the man, he was now behind of.

The weapon had blackish runes inlaid into the blade and the cross guard was fashioned like the upper half of a skull. The man turned around.

“That’s none of your business, old man!”, He barked angrily.

Kuro tilted his head.

“Call me old one more time and I’ll break your face.”, He said very calmly.

The man lunged forward.

“Shut up and die, old m-“, He shouted mid stab.

The end of his sentence got muffled from the sudden collision between his face and an equally big rock. The man got flung back a few meters, where he fell to the ground unmoving and bleeding profusely from the mushy area, that was once his face. The dagger landed right next to the growing puddle of blood. Kuro cursed and waved his arm, but it was too late. The tip of the blade touched the blood and the runes began to glow red. Kuro’s rock just bounced off it, without causing anything. The dagger suddenly began to float.

“This is gonna be bad… Fuck, now I really have to report it…”, Kuro cursed and turned around to Hinako.

He raised his hand and a purplish shimmering transparent barrier encased her and the two women next to her. A huge shockwave hit it, as soon as it finished forming. Part of the surrounding walls began to crack and crumble. The two remaining guys, that weren’t unconscious or dead yet got knocked to the floor. Where the dagger had been a moment ago, stood now a humanoid creature with red scaly skin, two horns peeking out of white hair and pointed teeth with a few big ones extra. It began laughing with a low and metallic voice. Hinako felt a sudden dread rising inside her and she could sense the tremendous magic power of the creature.

“It has been a while since I wa-“, It said with an unpleasant voice, but got interrupted by six earth spikes that extended themselves through his body from different angles.

Kuro appeared in front of the creature, waved his hand and a small boulder decapitated the pinned monster. Fleshy tendrils shot out from the remainder of the body and connected themselves to the seven men lying on the ground. The two that weren’t unconscious began to writhe and scream in pain. Their bodies, alongside the others, suddenly burst out in flames. The fire spread across the tendrils reaching the main body, where it regenerated in the blaze. Kuro’s earthen spikes crumbled as the creature moved.

“How dare you?!”, It growled with rage and extended his arm.

A greenish ball flew at Kuro and exploded around him in a swirl of magical energy. The green turned to purple and got sucked up into a small sphere in front of Kuro. Moments later a ray of energy formed towards the creature, splitting up countless times along the way. Thousands of them hit the monster across its body, vaporizing the flesh on every impact point. Hinako watched the creature vanish and was shocked. This very short magical exchange was leagues above any fight she had witnessed up to now.

“You okay?”, Kuro asked and dispelled the barrier around them a few moments later.

“Y-yeah… was that a … demon?”, Hinako asked a bit unsteady.

“A demonic fiend of some sorts, yes. A lesser demon, if you will.”

Kuro went to the still smoking remainders of the men and cursed.

“Well, now comes the scary part…”, Kuro mumbled and hesitantly pulled out his phone.

“What scary part?”, Hinako asked confused.

Kuro looked at her and started to smile weakly.

“You’ll see…”, he said, started to call someone and threw his phone to her.

“Tell her what happened.”, Kuro added.

Hinako caught the phone. The name that was displayed being called read Yamada.

“What the hell do you want, Otaku?!”, Yamada answered the phone.

“Uhm… Hello…”, Hinako hesitantly replied.

“A woman?! Who the fuck are you?! Where is Kuro?”

“Umm… this is Homura Hinako…”

“Homura?... Ah, the new mage adept girl… I see…”

Hinako heard her sigh through the phone.

“What did he do?”, Yamada asked with a tired voice.