Bad people

The man holding the girl's wrist looked back at Aiko, lips pursed. His eyes swept quickly from Aiko's unkempt hair, to her dirty tee-shirt, and finally down to her bare feet.

"What the hell? Who are you supposed to be?"

The other man laughed. They were both drunk. Aiko could smell it from here. The woman too. They'd all been drinking. She could more or less imagine the train of events that had brought them here. She'd seen things like this before too many times to count, and it almost always ended badly for the woman. It wasn't any of her business, and yet here she was, getting involved. Aiko wished she had gone some other way to the convenience store.

"H-Hey, this isn't anything, alright? These guys are just messing around, right?" The girl laughed nervously. "Let me go, Kou, yeah?"

"Shut up for a minute," the man called Kou snapped, and shook the girl by the wrist. He turned back to Aiko. "Get lost! Scram! What are you, homeless? Get the hell away from me! You stink!"

The other man laughed again. "Damn, man, you're right. You okay there, sweetheart? You smell like you're sleeping in a public toilet."

The first man continued. "Get out of here or I'll break your arm!"

They reminded Aiko of jacklites. The false bravado. The way they laughed so much. Was it worth using the sword on them? Probably not. Bringing it out of her dimensional pocket would be more hassle.

"Stop," Aiko said again. "Leave here."

"You nosy brat, are you stupid? Get out of here! Or what, you want me to take you home too?"

"W-What are you talking about? S-She's just a kid!" the girl said desperately. She looked pleadingly at Aiko. "Hey, get out of here-ah!"

The man, Kou, slapped her face.

"Shut up! You spend all night leading me on, and now you get cold feet? You just shut your mouth."

"Just looking at your face pisses me off," the second man said, and started toward Aiko, raising his fists.

He must have been at least two heads taller than Aiko. She watched him bearing down on her and thought about how to handle it. Aiko's body was small. Smaller than Mathilda's, and without a shred of the muscle tone. It was weak and malnourished and not used to moving. If these two men had been real jacklites, she might have been in trouble. But they were just two drunks.

The second man swung his fist lazily at Aiko. She stepped on the outside of his swing, grabbed his wrist to lock his arm in place then pushed the weight of her body into his arm. Aiko didn't weigh much, but it was enough. He yelped as the elbow came close to dislocating. Before it did, Aiko whipped back and punched him as hard as she could. Once in the solar plexus, then once more in the nose for good measure. He dropped to the ground, wheezing.

She leaped forward in little steps. Her bare feet slipped easily into the contours of the ground, and she pushed herself along with her toes.

The first man was still watching his friend, mouth open. Aiko closed it for him. She slid up right in front of him, then raised her palm rapidly into his open jaw, snapping it shut. She grabbed the man's little finger and pulled it around until there was a clear pop. She left it sitting at a ninety-degree angle away from his hand. Kou screamed and let go of the girl, who fell backward into the dirt. Aiko kicked the back of the man's leg to drop him on the floor, then kicked him once in the groin, and once more in the face for good measure.

Aiko looked dispassionately at the two men, rolling on the floor, immobilized. Nobody dead. She felt a distant melancholy. What weak foes. It wasn't even worth comparing them to the Demon Lord's army, where even the lowest ranking goblin would fight to the death after losing an arm. She was hungry. This all suddenly felt like too much work.

She turned to the girl. "It's safe now. Probably. You can go ho-" Aiko paused as she realized the girl was cowering in fear, looking at Aiko wide-eyed.

"P-Please don't hurt me," the girl stuttered.

"Oh," Aiko said.

She'd experienced this before too. Also too many times to count. Aiko kept forgetting that people, normal people, were all scared of violence. Even back in Impalia, where this sort of thing was far more common. They shied away from it. Did not want to see it.

"Okay." Aiko gave the girl a thumbs up. She'd learned the gesture from Nomura, and was happy to have a chance to use it in the outside world. Then she turned and started jogging toward her original goal: the convenience store.

Aiko was perfectly content to leave it at that. After all, it was none of her business. The two drunk men could probably find a healer even at this hour if they looked around, and the girl should be able to find her way to safety if she wanted. But before she'd gotten very far, she heard the girl's voice again from behind her.

"W-Wait!"

Aiko frowned, and turned back.

"You..." The girl looked at the two men, then got to her feet and hurried over to Aiko. She took Aiko's hand and pulled her away from the park until they were standing on the street, under a streetlamp. "You," she started again, out of breath. "I know you."

Aiko tilted her head. It went without saying she'd never met this girl before in her life. Or at least not in the last few weeks.

"No." Aiko shook her head.

"Ah ha ha, I guess maybe I look different? I died my hair blond, see?" The girl ran a hand through her hair. She reeked of alcohol. Aiko frowned.

"Sorry, no," Aiko said again, and started to turn away.

"No, wait! Really! I remember you! You're, uhm..." The girl scrunched her eyes shut and knocked the side of her head with her knuckles. "Shijima! Shijima, right? Shijima Ai?"

Aiko shook her head again. "Aiko," she said. "Not Ai."

"Aiko! Yeah! Aiko, that's it! You don't remember me? We went to the same middle school! I was..." The girl looked down all of a sudden and let go of Aiko's hand. "Ha ha, yeah, I guess we were all kind of terrible to you, weren't we."

Aiko had no idea what this woman was talking about.

"You really don't remember? It's me, Koharu." The woman pointed to herself.

"Koharu?" Aiko frowned.

"Yeah! Koharu! Uhh, you really don't remember? Those two guys were in the same school too. A bunch of us got together for a reunion. You, ah, didn't get the group chat? Ah ha ha, I guess you're not in the group chat, are you. But, they really aren't so bad..."

"Hit you." Aiko shook her head. "Not a good person."

"I... think you probably taught him a lesson. I don't think he'll do it again," Koharu laughed nervously.

Aiko shook her head. She remembered looking into the beautiful blue eyes of the Demon Lord as he finally died, still grabbing onto the blade of her sword with his bloodied fingers. How many times had she thought she'd finally killed him, only for him to show up again like nothing had happened? How much pain had she been responsible for because she had not been able to kill him properly? Bad people didn't learn their lesson and start acting differently. They didn't turn over a new leaf just because you hurt them a little. Bad people who did that were never really bad to begin with. But really bad people were just rotten. There was no fixing that.

She thought of how she might convey some of this to the woman standing in front of her, but the right words didn't seem to be there.

"No," Aiko said finally. "Bad people are just bad." Her stomach growled. "I have to go."

"O-Oh! Yeah, sure. Of course, you should probably get out of here. I'll... I'll call an ambulance for those two. They're assholes but... Anyway, thanks, Shijima. I... Thanks."

Aiko looked at this girl, Koharu, for a little longer, then turned and jogged off in search of the convenience store.