Departure and Reunion

“So, where are you guys actually taking me? Nobody’s said why we’re in Tokyo.” A boy asked as he walked down the street, adjusting the baseball bat that he had slung over his shoulder.

“We found her.” a girl responded, while wrapping her hands up in sports bandages.

The boy smiled, speeding up as he followed behind her. “We’re talking about who I think we’re talking about, right?”

Suddenly, rushing over from the other side of the street was another boy, this one sliding two rolls of coins against each other in his clenched fist. He said, “Somebody just told me that she’s been training recently. Took it really seriously too. Went up to the mountain and everything. They don’t know where she is now though.”

“That can’t be true, I’ve heard she’s been up in Hokkaido, tracking that bear that’s been on the loose.” Bandage Girl corrects.

“Where is she now?” The baseball batter asked.

Suddenly another character nearly bumped into this group as they passed a crossroad. This time it's another girl, carrying a bundle of pizzas from a local pizza chain that you could only find about 200 miles away and wearing a sweater that was about a size and half too big for her frame.

She stammered as she joined the caravan, “I almost couldn’t find you. I’m glad I did. She’s right here.” She huffed, “Sorry, these are heavy.”

Someone would have told her that she didn’t have to apologize, or offer to carry one or two of the pizzas, but they were suddenly stopped by the realization that they had found the idol that they’ve been looking for.

All of them muttered something questioning the reality of the situation. Kaneko was right in front of them. Kaneko, queen of all combat! Right in front of them!

Sitting on a curb, right in the middle of a small parking lot in front of some convenience store, was the person they all wanted to see. A legend of strength and battle, and she was sitting over there on a curb drinking a can of iced coffee, red hair streaks and all.

The batter turned to his gang and it almost seemed like he’s going to give a rousing speech. Instead he said, “We’ve all been waiting for this. Let’s see what we’re made of.”

The one with the pizzas spoke up, “That would be a lot more uplifting if I didn’t do all the work.”

The batter didn’t respond and the girl with the bandage wrapped hands headed in, in front of him. Everyone was clenched up and ready to unveil their weapons.

They all filled in and Bandages took the lead in front of Kaneko and began to introduce the group. “Excuse me, we’re the Jailhouse Jet Gang. We’ve come all the way from Nagoya to challenge you…”

She didn’t continue, hoping that the girl in front of her would fill the dead air. Unfortunately for them, Kaneko didn’t respond other than a blank look and a sip of her coffee.

“I can tell it’s you, you don’t have to pull that ‘wise old master wearing the facade of a fool’ routine with me. By the way, I expected you to be older. You wouldn’t happen to be Kaneko’s younger sister, would you?” She asked, incredulously.

This caused Kaneko to click her tongue. “No. You’ve found what you were looking for. But I'm not gonna fight.”

“Really?!?!” The whole crew exclaimed.

“Yeah. Look. I’m done fighting. I have been for a while. I know you came a long way, but I just can’t do it any more. Go home.” Kaneko said.

Bandages asks, “But why? You’re a legendary fighter! You even took down the Dragonfish Gang from Yokohama. You just quit?”

“Yeah. It makes me a little queasy. Wait no, that’s gross. Fighting doesn’t sit right with me anymore. It’s as simple as that.” Kaneko explains patiently.

Bat guy clenched his bat. He couldn’t believe that this girl was trying to blow them off like that. There was something about her that made him wanna fight even more.

Kaneko took a sip from her can of coffee and then said, “I like your guys’ gimmicks though. The pizza especially. It’s creative. I wouldn’t mind seeing how you fight with them.”

“How did you know they’re weapons?” The one with the pizza exclaimed.

“Well, everyone else seems to be carrying one. It’s not that hard to intuit. I’ve seen stuff that’s a lot weirder.” Kaneko said.

The batter swings out his weapon from the sling on his back. “Okay. I’m not gonna leave unless you fight us. It’s pretty obvious that you just aren’t taking us seriously. We’re gonna have to change that.”

Kaneko rolls her eyes. “Look, I don’t mean it as a slight against you guys. You look plenty powerful. I just can’t. Not right now”

The batter glared at her, which was clearly making her uncomfortable. She tried to shoot back a similarly dirty look, but hesitated and the batter didn’t break his stare.

“Uh! Fine. I’ll do it. Just leave me alone after, okay? If you wanna get some pointers after or something, you could buy me another coffee, but that’s it.

Bandages looked back at the batter and gave him a look that said ‘Dude, stop being rude!’ before she turned to Kaneko and told her, “Look, we’re sorry. Some of us could come back tomorrow or something. Buy you that coffee and you could see if we’re actually any good.”

Kaneko was already standing up though, stretching briefly. “No, I’m sorry. We already decided on a fight. You can’t just back down now.” She bent down, stretching her hands down to her feet.

“Alright!” the batter shouted. “This is gonna be epic!”

The pizza girl sighed. “Why’d we even bring you? I guess there’s no turning back now. Get ready, everyone.

The boy with the rolls of coins started to dance around on his feet like a boxer, clearly getting pumped up.

“Come at me whenever you’re ready.” Kaneko said, finishing up her stretches.

It only took a second or two for the batter to charge at her and swing at her head. Kaneko managed to duck out of the way, only for the coin guy to throw one of his rolls in the air and then punch it, shooting it towards Kaneko’s head.

Kaneko caught it, before ducking underneath another one of the batter’s swings. Then she rolled to the side of the batter, throwing the coin roll at the back of his head, probably enough to knock him down. In another second, she was in front of Bandages, throwing out punches that Bandages was barely able to block. It didn’t look like she was prepared for Kaneko to be so up close and personal, so Kaneko backed off slightly, allowing the person in front of her to regain her footing.

Bandages started to throw punches of her own and Kaneko kept in front of them, parrying a lot of the punches and blocking the others with her arms. Kaneko started to move around, making it harder to hit, practically spinning around Bandages before taking a few steps back and letting her take a massive swing. Kaneko ducked out of the way, leaving the person behind her to be hit instead. The coin guy then got knocked out like a light, not knowing what Kaneko was doing, backing into him.

“You- You tricked me!” Bandages exclaimed.

She wasn’t able to say any more before Kaneko hit her with an uppercut to the chin, knocking her back.

“Ahhhhhh!!!!”

“Ahhhhhh!!!”

Kaneko heard screams coming from two different directions, one the pizza girl and the other being more masculine. She jumped, spinning in the air, only barely managing to fly between the batter’s bat and a pizza, which had been thrown at high speed.

As Kaneko landed, barely catching herself on the floor, she rolled away quickly and jumped back to her feet.

“Woah, you throw the pizzas like freakin’ sawblades? And you’re more durable than you look!” Kaneko exclaimed.

“How- How did you dodge the both of us?” The pizza girl asked. “And weren’t you annoyed at us?”

“Don’t pay attention to it. I can’t help but give 100 in a fight. As for that dodge… Well, that was all instinct. I’ve been in a lot of tight spots before.”

The batter was all red in the face now, like he had transformed into an ogre or something. He started to rush down Kaneko again, swinging his bat wildly.

“Your friend’s like a raging bull. That roll of coins I hit him with should have knocked him out cold.” Kaneko said, easily dodging his attacks at this point.

Bandages finally gets back to her feet and says, out of breath, “He’s a beast, but a bit of a loose cannon. By the way, I’m out.”

Kaneko dodges out of the way of yet another swing, before starting to hit the batter in the stomach rapidly. She’d get in 2 or 3 punches before he could get another swing in, which she’d inevitably dodge and then repeat. It only took a few of these cycles for the batter to start to stop looking so red. Her punches were practically draining the energy from his face and attacks.

“Hey! Just give up already! We’re not gonna beat her.” The pizza girl says, helping the coin roll boy back up to his feet.

Another 3 or 4 punches to the batters stomach passed before he took a step back and let out a big huff of a breath.

“I lost.” he said, falling backwards onto his butt.

“Yeah, sorry. You guys weren’t working to well as a team.” Kaneko says. “I mean. It’s tough, but that’s your biggest weakness.”

Kaneko was smiling at this point, way beyond any of the feelings that kept her from just accepting with the Jailhouse Jets asked to fight. And then she heard a police siren blaring in the distance and her stomach sunk.

“Oh no. What are they gonna do this time?” She sighed to herself. “Look, I’d get out of here, if I were you guys. The beat cop who usually comes around here really has it in for me. If he sees how roughed up you guys are, he’s not gonna be nice to any of us.”

The pizza girl cocked her head. “How do you already know its for you? It’s so far away?”

“Like I said, I’ve been in a lot of tight spots before.” Kaneko says, her smile all but melted away.

Bandages was the next to speak. “I don’t think any of us look too bad. I’m sure if we just explain to the cop that we were chatting or hanging out here, you could get him off your back.”

The sirens were getting closer and closer.

“Trust me. Could you just get out of here for right now? If you come back in like, an hour, I’ll probably be back.”

Closer, the sirens blared.

Bandages argues.“No, you’re overreacting. It’s not like he can just arrest you or anything. You’ve been here for what?-”

“About 3 hours.” Pizza girl answered.

“Yeah, 3 hours. We’re the only witnesses, so we can just pretend we’ve been with you this whole time.”

The sirens were getting even louder.

Kaneko started,“No. I get that you wanna help, but you’ll just be-”

Suddenly, the sirens hit a fever pitch, before cutting out entirely. Kaneko turned around and found the cop car that had been making the noise stopped right outside the entrance to the parking lot.

“Oh geez. Okay. Do what feels natural, but don’t try to save me or anything. Trust me, you don’t wanna get targeted by this guy.” Kaneko warns.

Nobody was able to verbally respond before the door to the car slammed shut and a scrawny guy in a police uniform had stepped out, and he had just a wicked smile on his face. It seemed like he wasn’t moving at all, just staring at Kaneko, until he started to speak.

“Looks like you’ve been fighting again. You know you really shouldn’t keep doing that. Aw, well it’s not like you’re going to stop.” He gave what sounded like a sigh, although his face was still smiling. “I’m terribly sorry Kaneko, but you’re going to have to come with me. Something's come up.”

“Woah! What?” Bandages asked.

The cop’s face doesn’t waver. “I don’t want to betray Kaneko’s trust here. Let’s leave it at that, shall we? Otherwise I might have to see if 5 kids could fit in the back of my car.”

Kaneko mumbled, “Just back off.” Before she stepped forward, approaching the cop.

The Jailhouse Jets don’t move. They’re completely frozen by the sudden mood change. It's worse than getting the wind knocked out of them.

As Kaneko got into the back of the car, she shot a dirty look at the cop that somehow reassured the gang. The cop didn’t address them again as he got into his own seat, although they could all see that unrelenting smile spread across his face.

They watched as Kaneko rode away. They wouldn’t get the chance to say goodbye.

Hours later, once the sun had long gone down, that cop finally came to the small interrogation room where he had handcuffed Kaneko. They hadn’t spoken on the drive over and that’s the way she wanted it. This wasn’t the first time she’d had a run in with this guy, and although he certainly gave off an unsettling aura, she knew she could psyche him out just like anyone else.
“I suppose you’re wondering why we’ve taken you in. We have an eye witness that tells us he saw someone matching your description vandalizing the school. Now, I didn’t get to see the mess myself, but just looking at this list…” The cop flipped through a few sheets of paper clipped to a clipboard, before he looked at Kaneko and sat down opposite her. “I’ll just say it's a lot.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kaneko said, her flat expression unwavering.

“That’s okay. I won’t press you today.” The cop smiled. “But, I’m sure you’re going to want to hear more about this case. You see, after this witness called the cops and gave them a description of you, I was sent out to find you. And obviously, I’m pretty good at that.”

Kaneko had to keep herself from grimacing at his smug face. He was so proud of himself.

“And after I had you set up in here, I went and talked to your mother. This is pretty standard procedure. Oh, you know already. She even offered me a cup of tea this time. I’m pretty sure it had been sitting out for a while, but it’s not like I was expecting anything at all.” He seemed to be proud of himself.

“Are you gonna get to a point? Do I get a lawyer?” Kaneko cut in.

“We’ll get to that. Although, you are right. I’m off the point. So anyways, I get to explaining to your mother what the fines for all the damages would be.” The cop made another play at flipping through those sheets of paper, still not showing them to Kaneko. He was taunting her. “You know as well as I that she wouldn’t be able to pay for that-”

“I don’t even know what you’re referring to.” Kaneko interjects again. It’s getting harder to keep herself monotone, but somehow she’s managing.

The cop doesn’t react to that comment though and continues. “So I gave her an offer. I would talk to the school and have any charges dropped. Especially the ones to your back account. In return, all I asked of her was that you would be sent away. Out of my city.”

Suddenly, Kaneko couldn’t keep it up. The idea that she would be sent away from Tokyo frightened her severely. And she already knew it would be worse than that.

“I- I didn’t do anythin-'' Kaneko started to limply protest.

“And you know what? Your mother did me one better. She explained that you would be sent all the way out of Tokyo, out of Kanto, and even…

Out of Japan. All the way to Los Angeles.”

Kaneko’s head started to spin. She had never been outside of Tokyo. She never really thought she would ever leave. She never wanted to, not really. And suddenly, in the breath of an instant, her home was gone.

Kaneko didn’t even bother listening to him anymore. He went on and on, telling about all the different things that he knew about Los Angeles, but none of it mattered. He had won. He was just doing donuts on her grave.

It was only when he left and Kaneko was finally able to sit with her thoughts that she was even able to understand the last things he said.

“She tells me you’ll be staying with your Aunt. Your flight leaves early tomorrow. I’ll send someone in soon to drive you back home so you can pack and pick up your ticket. Then you’ll be heading straight for the airport.”

Her Aunt? Kaneko barely knew any of her family. She remembered barely that Aunt Airi had a daughter that was the same age as her. But, California? How could she possibly go so far? She wouldn’t be given a chance to think about it. Soon, she was escorted out of the police station. Kaneko wondered if she would come to miss the oppressive structure.

Kaneko slept intermittently on the plane. She didn’t feel like she could stay awake, but every time she did manage to fall asleep, it wasn’t any good. The flight from Tokyo International to LAX was long and Kaneko didn’t want to think.

Once they finally landed, she took her bag and backpack and started the slow walk up the plane to get off. Everyone in front or behind her seemed to be so excited to leave, but not her. Kaneko felt like the second she stepped off, it would all suddenly be real. She would be gone from home. But when she finally stepped off and onto the jet bridge, she realized that she already was.

She didn’t have any checked luggage, so she hurried toward the pick up zone, already torrented by the metropolitan deluge. More cars than she usually saw in a day were slowly criss-crossing between each other, trying to find their passengers and then escape. The fact that it was almost midnight didn’t seem to play any factor in the sense that this place was overflowing. Kaneko was getting nauseous.

Kaneko checked her phone, turning off airplane mode, and was suddenly hit by about 10 email notifications in a row. Checking through them quickly, Kaneko found that her uncle, who was apparently tasked with picking her up, was giving her step by step updates of his journey to the pick up area. The most recent one was from about a minute ago, he was just getting in.

“This guy is confusing me…” Kaneko murmured. She barely remembered her uncle. Kaneko’s mother let her know while she was packing, that apparently her sister had already been informed about the situation and that apparently they had all lived together when Kaneko was still really little.

Scrolling all the way down her Uncle’s email chain, she found a picture of his car, hastily taken before he left home. It was already dark when he had taken the picture, so the quality was pretty crumby and the background was pitch black. It did allow her to see what kind of car it actually was though, a red sedan. She couldn’t quite tell anything about it other than the general color scheme though.

She started to study all the cars as they went past. Somehow, seeing how stressed out the drivers of these cars seemed to be, helped calm Kaneko down. It wasn’t long until that car from the photo revealed itself and quickly managed to butt it’s way in between two SUVs that were parked by the curb.

“Hey!” A voice came from the window of the car. “Kaneko, right? Oh wow, you look exactly the same. Do you wanna put your bag in the back?” It was her Uncle. He was a large man with a half-untucked button up and a pair of thin-rimmed glasses. His hair was a medium-brown color, and short and thick.

Kaneko looked around at all the other drivers who were hurriedly packing their trunks with their passengers’ bags and then sighed. “Yeah. Do you want me to sit in the front?”

“Of course! Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

Kaneko let out another sigh before she hurried and threw her luggage in the back seat. Taking the front, Kaneko said “Uh, hi. Um, you must be my uncle Geoff?”

“Uh huh. Last time I checked at least. Okay, let's get you home so you can lay down, huh?” Geoff said, cheerily.

Kaneko was already a little overwhelmed by his presence. Over the car’s speakers, a jazz standard was playing, and that at least helped her try to relax.

“Don’t worry.” He said. “The traffic doesn’t look too bad.”

“That’s good.” Kaneko admitted. “Uh, is that how you got here so fast?”

“Well, yeah, partially. But I’ve been tracking your flight for a while before I left. You know that you can see where all the planes in the sky are at any given time? There’s this website I know…” Geoff started explaining.

Kaneko had made an attempt to tune him out though. She wanted to listen to the music, so she just let her uncle talk, which he seemed prepared to do for the whole trip. From the snippets that Kaneko was able to process, it seemed like he was talking about interesting stuff: weird little website tools, a podcast he had listened to on the history of in-home showers, some foreign movie that his daughter got him to watch. Kaneko just couldn’t find the energy to actually listen.

The whole ride home took a little over half an hour, the midnight traffic light. Most of the trip was on the freeway, with the city being just a skyline already. Quickly, they had left the city and entered its outskirts. The suburbs. They started to travel along the path of a riverbed, past several small parks and a high school or two. Everything was totally different from Tokyo. Not exactly what was around. Tokyo had parks and schools, just like any city did. But it was as though a filter was placed on her eyes that made everything look uninviting. Like even the city didn’t want her there.

Once they finally got off the freeway, she got to have a closer look at the environment. Everything was dim and lifeless. They had made it out of the city and into the suburbs, but all that meant for Kaneko was that she was no longer free. This town that she found herself in was a prison in all but appearance. She forced herself to stop thinking about that though. She didn’t want to be a pessimist.

“Here’s our neighborhood. Almost to your new home. Oh, shoot! I was supposed to tell you.” Geoff said, stopping himself from continuing.

That perked Kaneko’s ears and she asked, “What?”

“Well, your Aunt got a call from the local school. It looks like, since it’s still the start of the year, you’ll be slotted in. They have your transcripts and everything from your old school. It all sounds pretty strange to me, but honestly, and I don’t mean this to be mean, everything about your situation has been pretty weird.”

Kaneko didn’t respond to that. She didn’t feel like explaining her whole situation to her Uncle. It does go to show how far that cop went to force her out though. He probably got the school to agree to this whole situation weeks ago. Or some quirk of fate brought her here. Kaneko knew how unlikely that notion was though.

“So, I guess you’ll be going to school tomorrow. I don’t think anybody will mind if you at least go in late though. You must be super jet lagged. I don’t think it's fair to even make you go.” Geoff said.

“No, but I think I’ll try anyway.” Kaneko decided. “I can’t hold this off for too long.”

“Okay. Okay. Ms. Academia just arrived, I see.” Geoff jested, clearly impressed by Kaneko’s quick resolution.

Right after he said that, they pulled into a driveway. Kaneko got her first real look at the house she’d be staying in. It was 1 story and detached from the buildings around it. The lawn was a little shabby, but not too unkempt. It looked like the kind of place that characters from Hollywood movies or sitcoms would live, except smaller. Kaneko wasn’t really sure if that meant that Hollywood had a lot of money or if it meant that her family didn’t.

Geoff grabbed Kaneko’s luggage out of the back and handed it to her, before saying, “Welcome home. Now, let's get inside. I’m sure that Airi wants to see you. She just got off work, which is why I had to pick you up instead.”

Kaneko was so tired that she just nodded and followed her uncle inside.

“Airi? Airi?” Geoff called.

Kaneko’s Aunt Airi quickly ran out of a hallway and then stopped, locking eyes with Kaneko. She approached steadily, until she reached Kaneko and grabbed her two shoulders. Finally, she stopped staring into Kaneko’s eyes and started to look her up and down, Kaneko was too tired to care at this point though. Kaneko thought she must just be another Californian eccentric, just like her husband.

“You’re so big.” Airi finally says. Then she hugs Kaneko, holding her tightly. Kaneko hadn’t been hugged that tightly since middle school at least. “Oh, it is so good to see you. It’s been so long.”

“Yeah.” Kaneko said, feeling the hug was a little bit much, even though she could admit it was nice.

Airi pulled back and looked straight into Kaneko’s eyes again. “Kaneko, you’re family. If you need anything, to talk, or advice or clothes or anything, I need you to ask us. Nothing that happened was your fault, okay?”

That last line slashed Kaneko straight through her heart, bypassing every defense mechanism she had. Nobody had ever told her that. Years of being on that cop’s hitlist and nobody ever told her something like that.

“Can I just get ready in the bathroom and head to bed?” Kaneko asked, trying not to show how much she had just been seen.

“Of course.” Airi said, although her eyes and arms hadn’t moved. She didn’t really move them until she seemed satisfied with something.

Airi led Kaneko back, through the hallway that she came out of. Geoff said a quick “Goodnight!” before presumably heading to bed himself. The bathroom was at the end of the hall.

“This room is Minny’s. She’s a pretty heavy sleeper, so don’t worry about waking her up. And she always takes the top bunk as well, so no worries there. I’m sure Geoff told you, but you are set up to go to school tomorrow, but neither of us are going to force you. You must be completely exhausted.”

“No, I’m going.” Kaneko managed to say.

Airi gave another inquisitive look, however briefly, before saying, “Okay, just don’t overwork yourself. We can maybe go shopping after school, if you don’t end up hanging out with Minny and her friends. They tend to hang out till fairly late. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Kaneko said. “Uh, I’m gonna get ready now.”

“Okay. I’m going to head to bed too. I’ll see you in the morning, unless you decide to sleep in.” Airi said, finally walking off towards her bedroom.

Kaneko shut the bathroom door and locked it, setting her backpack and duffle bag down on the counter. She hadn’t brought much, her phone, wallet and cosmetics set that she bought in Shibuya, her laptop, a couple books and notebooks, a hairdryer, a spare set of sneakers, a few sets of clothes, including sleepwear and the jacket on her back.

Kaneko didn’t really like to think about her outfits too often, so they were all pretty much the same. A long black pleated skirt, a black bomber jacket and a trusty pair of sneakers were the go-to’s. Obviously it changed slightly from day to day, but she looked like a variation on the same theme every time.

But looking at her meager belongings gave her pause. Was this really all she had? Was this everything she could have taken with her? Had everything else been taken from her? For a moment, these thoughts nearly overwhelmed her. Kaneko could feel that she was about to cry, so she looked at herself in the mirror and forced herself to take a deep breath.

After changing into her pajamas, Kaneko sat on the toilet cover and took another deep breath. Even beyond everything that had happened to her in Japan, Kaneko was overwhelmed. Both Airi and Geoff seemed to have personalities that completely overtook hers. Granted, part of that was just how tired Kaneko was, but she still wondered what their child would end up like.

Minny.

Kaneko somehow remembered more about her than her Aunt and Uncle. They had lived together, years ago. There’s an image in Kaneko’s mind of Minny when she was about 3 years old, finding a bottle of pink glitter glue and using it to just completely coat the walls of whatever house they lived in.

It really was just a flash in her mind though. She really couldn’t imagine how she grew up or what she was interested in. She was too tired to guess.

Kaneko stood, yawned and picked up her stuff, before heading over to Minny’s room. Despite her Aunt Airi telling her that Minny was a heavy sleeper, Kaneko still made sure to try and keep quiet. The room was basically pitch black though, so she used her phone flashlight, just to find a place to leave her stuff and check that the path to the bed was clear.

As she laid down, Kaneko was suddenly struck by how strange it was that Minny had bunk beds at all. It’s not bad but she is a single child. It stood out to Kaneko in a strange way.

She moved to lie on her back, staring up at the bunk overhead. Minny was right there. Only a few feet away and still entirely obscured. Something about that made Kaneko’s stomach churn. She was afraid. Afraid that everything would be the same as it always had been.

She turned over and watched the room as moonlight began to stream in from a window at the back. Suddenly, staring at the silver-tinged furniture in the room, Kaneko could see her life as a single point, either at the end or the beginning of an expanding continuity.

In either case, she felt incredibly small at that moment.

Kaneko sat there, staring at that room for so long the image seemed to print itself to her eyeballs. Nothing changed here. For the first time in what felt like days, Kaneko could feel the stillness, which made her half dreaming mind light awake when a flash of shadow overtook the moonlight.

In another moment, there was the sound of a crash. Someone rustling through bushes maybe. An angry hiss.

Kaneko got up quickly, all other thoughts shooting to the back of her mind. She grabbed her jacket from on top of her bags and threw it on before going to the window. She opened it and climbed outside, only to find a large rabbit cast in silhouette on the backyard’s cinder block wall. She couldn’t see any other part of the backyard in the darkness and she looked for whatever caused that crashing sound, until a figure began to climb up the wall.

Cast in inky black against the full light of the moon behind her, a girl stood on the wall, holding in front of her a small wand or baton of some sort. From what Kaneko could tell, she was wearing wavy shorts and puffs of fabric on her shoulders.

In a flash of motion, the big rabbit jumped at the girl and she whacked it with her staff, sending it flying into the backyard with Kaneko. It almost hit her even, so she yelped and jumped back before looking back up at the girl in silhouette who was now clearly looking directly at her.

The girl jumped down from the wall and approached Kaneko. Kaneko’s eyes were starting to readjust to all this moonlight, revealing that the girl’s clothes were all various shades of pink.

“Hey! Uh, look…” Kaneko started, trying to keep her volume low. “I don’t think you should be in this backyard. I mean, you might cause some trouble, so I’d really appreciate it if you could take that rabbit you tossed down here and left.”

The girl looked at her inquisitively. Even with the low light, Kaneko could tell she didn’t mean any harm. “Did I get the wrong house? I thought I was in the right place…” She looked around. “Wait, no! I am in the right place… Oh! You must be Kaneko. Nice to meet you again.”

The girl held out her hand, offering it to Kaneko.

“Minny?” Kaneko asked, the girl’s face suddenly clear to see, even in the night.

“Oh. Yeah. I guess I haven’t transformed back…” She looked down at herself before taking a look at her wand and shrugging. “Shoot. Well, just don’t tell my parents.”

Back up on the wall, another silhouette appeared. This time it was a cat. It stared at Kaneko for a second before she saw the cat’s eyes start to glow in the moonlight.

Kaneko collapsed onto the grass. She didn’t hear Minny’s reaction to that. When she finally woke up, the whole thing almost seemed like a dream. Almost.