Reflection

The sun started to crest by the time Wolf Knight and Raven Scout arrived. They had tried to investigate a burned down pawn shop that had all the signs of a Sweet Bear battle, but the police – and the Human Defense Agency – both waved them off.

It was only a few minutes ago that they’d gotten a call from Fuku telling them where to go. Neither of the men cared how many traffic laws they broke. The adrenaline was what kept them awake.

The men stopped at an apartment complex nestled in the heart of downtown Tokyo. Hideo and Hanzo disengaged their armor as they ran inside and into a waiting elevator car. Neither man had enough feeling in their legs to race up ten flights of stairs.

They had just enough to stumble to apartment 1003 and knock hard on the door. The door peeked open after the second knock to reveal a woman with black hair, eyes lighting up at the sight of the men. “Yasuda-san, I presume.”

“Where. Is. My wife,” grunted Hideo.

“Inside.” She pulled open the door for them to come in, fox ears lifting out of her hair. “Sleeping.”

Hideo and Hanzo walked down the hall and hung a left into a living room-slash-kitchen combo, where an exhausted Sayuri’s head poked up from the couch. She gestured to the door on the right across the room.

With a quiet nod, Hanzo went towards Sayuri while Hideo hobbled towards that door. But when he got in arm’s reach of the door knob, he heard someone speaking.

“…thought those times would never end,” said the voice. “That’s the damndest thing. You don’t know you’re in the glory days until they’re done.”

Hideo inched the bedroom door open to see Miho tucked under the covers of a stranger’s bed. And kneeled at the side of that bed was Fuku, arms folded on it and head planted on his hands.

“I do wonder, sometimes. If it would’ve worked. You and me.” Fuku chuckled. “I wonder if you knew. You were always clued in on how people felt. Especially me. Even when I didn’t show it. Maybe you were waiting for me to be ready to say something. I guess it doesn’t matter now. That door’s closed to me. And I’m the one who has to live with that.”

Hideo continued to watch as Fuku finally rose from Miho’s side and turned to face him. He only let his surprise appear for a moment before staring Hideo down.

Fuku poked Hideo in the chest. “You keep her happy, wolf boy. Because if the day ever comes where you make her cry, I will kill you.”

Hideo leaned into that finger. The corner of his mouth twitched.

Fuku slid his way past Hideo, leaving him alone with his sleeping wife. With no small labor, Hideo stripped down to a pair of black boxers and slid in under the covers to join Miho.

As Hideo settled into this strange bed, he felt a familiar pair of arms pull him in. Miho was still fast asleep, but had already nuzzled her head into him. She had the goofiest smile when she did.

It may not be his bed, his house, and his daughter might still be missing. But in the arms of his wife, Hideo fell asleep in the blink of an eye.

----

Two Jade Chrysanthemum goons stared at the chair in disbelief.

It wasn’t like they’d never seen a chair lying on the ground before. They’d seen it a lot of times. Usually in the form of one getting broken over one of their colleagues for failing to accomplish a task.

The real problem was that they were supposed to be feeding someone that was sitting in that chair.

The taller goon put down a box of donuts on the desk, looking under it for its supposed occupant. “The hell’d the kid go?”

The shorter goon put down a bottle of off-brand diet cola next to it. “You think she got moved?”

“Then why would they send us up here to feed her?” He looked up at the ceiling, wondering if she’d wormed her way into the vents. “I didn’t join to babysit a kid. I joined to help build a new Japan.”

“Yeah.” The taller goon looked over the tops of the cubicle walls. No sign of the hostage. “Don’t they have interns for this?”

He turned to look at the shorter goon, only to see them doubled over in pain. There was a ten-year-old girl with them, who was already turning to look at him.

A lot of thoughts should have occurred to him. Such as ‘is that the hostage’ and ‘I should grab her’. Instead, the only thing he could think of were primal screams of pain as the girl half his size put all her strength into a single punch to his dick.

He went straight to the ground and rolled about in pain. The goon could see the girl grab the box of donuts and diet cola and run as fast as she could out of sight.

The goons looked at each other, then at where the girl had been moments before. They both quietly agreed not to mention the part about getting dick-punched by a girl when they reported the hostage was escaping.

----

Kumiko hid under the table in one of the building’s many, many meeting rooms. Offices would’ve been more out of the way but if someone came in, she’d have been trapped. And after that stunt she’d pulled, she couldn’t count on that surprise strike to work again.

She chowed down on one of the donuts and poured some of the cola into her mouth straight from the bottle. From what she’d seen running around, this place might be behind a bunch of the shows her friends liked.

No wonder she never liked any of them, she realized. They were all plots by Jade Chrysanthemum! She pat herself on the back for being smart enough to see through their ploy.

It did little for her current dilemma, though. Evil organizations didn’t get where they were by giving up easy. They got there with persistence and some level of being good at what they did... which didn’t include beating the good guys. The moment they knew she was gone, they’d guard every exit to the building.

Plan B, then. She wasn’t big enough to be like that police man in the movie her dad liked, the one where he ran around with bare feet and said words that her mom claimed were ‘ok to hear, but not to say’. But she was smart enough to be like that American kid she saw with her mom last Christmas.

One kid, left alone to defend themselves with nothing but their wits and whatever they could find? Yeah. She’d seen that movie before.