chapter playlist: i. so what - doberman infinity // ii. bombs away - one ok rock // iii. bot lobby - wstr // iv. ride or die - ma55ive the rampage // v. kali ma - neck deep 

chapter nineteen

so what

Toya Shiratori was a terrible driver.

The lorry was thundering down the main road out of Oya, Doberman Infinity blaring on the stereo as the boys behind me screamed along to the lyrics, bodies being jostled every time the driver went over a bump. I was standing, grabbing onto a strap dangling from the back of the truck's cab to try and stay steady. Fujio was on one side of me, waving the Oya flag like a madman, hanging half of his body over the side of the truck as he screamed into the wind.

I must have been crazy.

"You doing okay, Sakura?" Tsukasa asked with a laugh, shouting to be heard over the wind and the noise. He was standing on my other side, the wind ruffling his blond hair in a way that made him look like nothing short of an angel.

I nodded my head, scared to let go of the cab to brush some errant strands of hair out of my face. "I must be fucking crazy for doing this."

"Welcome to the club." Tsukasa laughed. "so much for keeping my head down and ejoying my senior year."

"You? The mighty Tsukasa Takajo keeping his head down?"

"I only stayed as long as I did for Fujio. Let's be honest, if anyone in that school has a shot at a future, it's probably me."

I smiled, holding my breath as my body got slammed against the side of the cab again, Toya taking a corner too sharply as we neared the Kendou border. "You're a good man, Takajo. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise, promise?"

"We're here!" Junji shouted as the lorry slowed to a stop, pulling onto a grassy area near the brick parapet adorned with the delicate kanji lettering declaring the end of one town and the start of another.

"Did somebody call the cavalry!?" Yasushi shouted, clambering over bodies and allowing Junji to hold the smaller boy on his shoulders to that he could peer out at the scene over the top of the cab.

"I should have know that you idiots wouldn't listen!" Midori Yamada shouted, voice torn between laughter and disbelief as Toya cut the engine and we all jumped out of the truck bed.

"Here, let me help you." Tsukasa offered, reaching for my arm as I surveyed the jump. With his hands resting softly on my waist, I rested my own hands on his shoulders and let the boy lift me out of the truck .

And I'd be lying if I said that my heart didn't skip three beats, and that my skin missed the touch of his warm hands when he let me go.

"I thought you knew us better than that!" Nakagoshi shouted as his comrade in arms ran around with the faction flag, spinning in circles and almost hitting three guys in white and red kimonos in the face.

"Are they from the Daruma?" I asked Tsukasa quietly, nodding at the group standing by the other lorry.

"According to Jamuo, those are the Daruma Babies. They are to Daruma Ikka what we are to Oya." Tsukasa nodded along. "Midori goes to college with one of them. He got out of that life, but it sucked him back in when he said he wanted to go after the Mighty Warriors."

"Speaking of Jamuo," I looked around me, trying to find the anxious boy. "Where is he?"

"Hiding, probably. He knows his strengths, and he'll play them, but he's not suited for a fight of this scale."

"Smart man."

Midori snickered to herself, looking around at the army of teenage boys that she didn't realize were at her beck and call. There was a glint of something in her eyes. Not nervousness, although that was evident in the rest of her body. No, it was a glint of something more like relief. "And I thought that you boys had some regard for your personal safety."

Shibaman snorted, performing some weird handshake with Tsuji. "Clearly you don't know us well enough."

With a smile, I cleared my throat, thinking back to the conversation we had when we were back at the school, hiding in the NakaNaka's home base. "I believe the boys have something they would like to say to you, Midori-san!"

"Oh, you are wicked." Tsukasa laughed.

"No, we don't!" Fujio shouted. "Nothing at all!"

"Fine," I laughed, looking at Midori's amused expression as she stood next to Murayama, the three older Nakas gathered behind them with amused grins on their faces. Frankly, they were crazy for thinking that they could take on the Mighty Warriors with numbers like these. They didn't have nearly enough people. "I will say it. To make a long story short, these guys are idiots. Over the course of my time at Oya, I've found a few more choice words: stubborn, pig-headed, reckless. Borderline sociopathic, brain cell deficient, shitheads."

"Okay, that's a little excessive." Fujio interrupted.

"Burnouts, douchebags." I continued with a smile, searching for more words. "Dipshits, himbos, tools."

"Now I think she's just insulting us." Nakagoshi said, Tsukasa practically collapsing with laughter next to me. I was laughing too, grateful that I could still find humor in the face of the grim fight ahead of us.

"My point is," I raised my voice over the other full timers and their complaints. "they care in their own warped way. They just don't know how to show it, and they're too stubborn to get along with each other in their stupid fight for superiority. But they know when enough is enough, and when somebody they care about needs help. So, you're not getting rid of us that easily, Midori-san."

Midori laughed loudly, stopping everybody in their tracks. The part-timers shot each other worried looks, trying to figure out what was going on with their den mother.

"Uh, Midori? You're making me nervous." Nakaoka said shakily, dropping his flag to the ground. "Should we not have come?"

Instead of shouting at them, going on about their lack of personal safety and common sense, Midori simply opened her arms for a hug. "I can't believe that you guys thought I'd be mad at you, Jesus Christ. Come here."

Nakaoka ran forward, wrapping his arms around Midori's middle while the rest of us breathed sighs of relief. After the scene earlier, nobody wanted to deal with an angry Midori Yamada ever again.

"By the way," I started, looking over at Seki, who was laughing to himself as yet another part-timer threw themselves into Midori's arms for a hug and some motherly affection that they weren't getting anywhere else. "My mother can never know I was here, Kotaro."

Seki grinned. "You and me both, kid. Both of our asses are on the line here."

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news," Tsuji began, hoisting himself up to stand on the bed of one of the lorrys. "Our numbers still suck. We'll get our asses beaten like this. I mean, its better than what it was, but it's still shit."

"Thanks for that vote of confidence." Nakabayashi rolled his eyes, clearly drunk as he stuck his middle finger up at the younger boy.

"Hold that thought!" A shout echoed across the clearing, all heads swiveling towards the main road.

"Motherfucker." Toya mumbled, eyes widening.

"Holy mother of god." Nakagoshi added, reaching for Nakaoka's arm. "Look at that!"

Making their way towards us in a sea of white and grey, Odajima Yuken lead Housen's four heavenly kings as his sides, the entire skinhead army behind him. I spied Sachio standing next to the blond, a disinterested look on his face as the teenage boys beside and behind me lost their shit at watching their greatest rivals roll up to fight alongside them once again.

"Get over here, Kenzo you prick." Yasushi grumbled, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "We settle this like adults, and we die like men."

"Cool it, 'Sushi." I chuckled, grabbing his wrist. "That's in the past, Housen are here to help us."

"Are you sure about that?" He asked, glaring at the boy who had ripped the stiches out of his scalp when they fought last year. A fight that Oyakou had lost miserably. "My scalp his deformed because of him."

"He obviously didn't mean it!"

"I told you I'd come through!" Odajima laughed, throwing his arms open and almost hitting Jinkawa in the face.

I'd met all of the heavenly kings at some point. They were always over at Sachio and Yui's, as they were typical college students incapable of fending for themselves and they needed Mrs. Ueda to make them three square meals a day.

I think Mrs. Ueda liked the attention. That house had felt too lonely since her husband died.

"I thought they were a myth!" One of the Daruma Babies shouted, pointing wildly.

"And I was beginning to think that you wouldn't show." Midori laughed as Fujio waved wildly, trying to get Sachio's attention. The young woman pulled Odajima in for a hug, jaws dropping around faction members as they took the scene in.

Except for Nakagoshi, Yasushi, Fujio and Tsukasa, who all gave each other knowing looks.

All around me, Oya's students seemed to take one large step backwards as Housen stood across from us. I had to bite my lip to stop from laughing. I knew that the four kings were all bark and no bite. They were harmless as long as you didn't piss them off, but it was quite the sight to watch the great Oyakou cower in the presence of Sachio Ueda and his comrades.

"Hey Sachio! Tell Yui she owes me big time for covering for her the other day!"

Sachio narrowed his eyes. "Where did she go? Why didn't I know about this?"

I chuckled, thinking about Yui and Sawamura (who was now trying to duck into the background while Odajima laughed at him), who had conveniently vanished after third period. Yui had reappeared at the end of the day with a barely hidden hickey on her neck.

"You know what, Satchi, I'll let you guys sort that out."

God, I loved messing with Sachio. At my use of the nickname, the faction leaders swiveled to face me, shocked that the Housen leader wasn't retaliating, as he would have if it had been someone like Fujio using the pet name. I flipped Sachio the bird, and he laughed before cracking a smile and turning back to Midori.

"You weren't thinking about starting without us, were you?"

The clearing filled with the sound of cars revving, the once clear ear growing hazy with signal flares being waved in the air. Something that couldn't be described as anything less than a motorcade of classic cars came careening down the main road, spearheaded by a man dressed in red and white, sprawled across the hood of an old Honda from the late 1980s. The cars broke formation, parking all along the grass.

Daruma Ikka were like nothing that I had ever seen before. It took my breath away as the boys around me began to shout.

"That's Hyuga Norihisa!" Yasushi shouted, jumping up and down as he grabbed for Kiyoshi's sleeve. "Are you guys seeing this."

Murayama crossed his arms over his chest, rolling his eyes as Kiyoshi shouted: "Of course I'm seeing this! The man, the myth and the legend himself!"

"He's not that special." Oya's leader whined, resting his head on Midori's shoulder as the young woman gave the top of his head a sympathetic pat.

"Now we know shit's getting real!" Tusji hollered, jumping down from the lorry and stealing Nakabayashi's flask.

"You have good friends, Midori Yamada." Hyuga spoke first, his voice sultry and scratchy with the tell-tale lilt of a habitual smoker as he rose from the hood of the car.

"Yamada?" A guy in a red baseball cap asked, a flash of recognition crossing his face before he pointed at me. "You're Marumo Yamada's niece! Man, that guy was a hoot! How's he doing?"

Midori rolled her eyes, waiting for the ground to swallow her whole. "Does every drunk in the S.W.O.R.D district know my uncle?"

Seki nodded "Yep."

I turned to look at the man who had been staying in my apartment for longer than I would have liked, the man who had somehow charmed my mother into a long-term relationship. "How the fuck would you know?"

"Guys!" Sachio shouted, searching for a redirect. "Does anybody have a plan?"

Murayama grinned, standing up straighter, hands jammed in his pockets. "We're just gonna wing it, apparently. You can't plan for anything against these guys."

"And that's why you never win." Hyuga hummed.

The air hummed with tension and nervousness. The last thing that we needed right now was Hyuga and Murayama kicking the lights out of each other before the main event had even begun.

"First off, ignore him." Midori raised her voice, trying to get us back on the right track. "There is some semblance of a plan."

"What the fuck is a semblance?" Fujio asked me quietly, earning himself a kick in the shin as I gestured for him to be quiet.

Looking around at our numbers, which had tripled since the full-timers arrived here, I felt a jolt of confidence run through my body. Not only had I been right, when I thought that even my own logic was shaky, we had the numbers now. We could actually win this fight, something that had seemed like a fever dream just hours earlier.

But it also scared me. The Daruma didn't mess around, and neither did Housen. My own skills weren't even close to on par with the skinhead army when it came to actual hand-to-hand combat in an uncontrolled environment.

I was going to get myself killed at this rate.

"We're just waiting on two more people." Midori frowned looking at her phone. "Come on Masaki, where are you?"

As the guys broke off into groups to psych each other up, I stayed rooted in place, the fears seeping into my bones.

You're out of your league, kid. You'll just be a burden to the men that actually know what they're doing. Go home.

Tsukasa doesn't even like you like that. Go before you embarrass yourself.

The hum and buzz of motorcycle engines cut through the noise, silencing the thoughts as the last of Midori Yamada's reinforcements arrived in the form of four men astride Harleys, wind whipping at the long hair sticking out underneath their helmets.

"It's Masaki and Hiroto! And they brought extra muscle!" Nakagoshi shouted, throwing a fist in the air. He was more than a little drunk, but a punch to the face would sober him up quickly. "We're unbeatable!"

"The Amamiya brothers?" One of the part-timers looked around, eyes wide. "I forgot you knew them."

"She fucked one of them too!"

"Shut up, Fujio!"

On the first two bikes were the Amamiya brothers, the strange men I had seen hanging around Oya during my first week here. If they'd been here that long, then Midori has clearly known for a while that this fight was coming, and that she was going to need some extra hands.

The other two men were a mystery to me, but the flash of recognition that crossed Odajima and Midori's faces told me that they must have been somebody familiar, somebody important.

"Tamao? What are doing here?" Midori's face paled, and I could see Murayama preparing to throw some punches.

"Tamao? Wait, does she mean-" Fujio started

Tsukasa nodded. "I think that's Tamao Serizawa, the Monster of Surzuran."

God save us all if Surzuran were involved now. Even Sachio had never beat Surzuran in a fight before. Their leaders had a long history of being unstoppable.

Part of me wondered how Midori knew one of them.

"Not you again." Odajima grumbled, looking at the other man.

"So if that's Tamao," Yasushi reasoned, crouched on the ground as he pointed at the new arrivals. "does that mean that the other fucker there is Tokio Tutsukawa?"

The man with the lighter hair and the floral shirt laughed, pointing at one of the Amamiya brothers. "Masaki called in a few favours. He and his older brother taught me everything that I know. They helped me conquer Surzuran way back when. It's time for me to repay the favour. Crows don't leave Crows behind."

At the mere mention of Surzuran the boys lost any remaining decorum that they had, geeking out like teenage girls waiting in line at a Ballistik Boyz concert.

"You aren't pulling anymore local celebrities out of a hat, right?" Nakagoshi asked. "Just making sure."

"Nope, we're all here. The rest of them are showing up later." Midori said, rubbing her palms together and beckoning for us all to gather closer. "So here's the plan."

"Hold on." Sawamura said "I thought you said that you didn't have a plan."

"Eh. It's like a half-formed plan." Midori shrugged. "But now that I know who's here and who isn't we can fill in the holes."

We all gathered together in a football like huddle as Midori began to dish out the intricacies of how we were going to beat seven grown men from a navy town with military training and their hired henchmen. Tsukasa had one arm looped around my shoulder, and one arm around Fujio's, my free arm around Yaushi's shoulders as we crouched, hanging on to every word Midori ahd to say, and the running commentary from Murayama.

It was a good plan.

A great plan, even.

Especially phase two, which was so out of left field that I think we were all impressed.

We had a fighting chance, and that was enough to get me to ignore the voices in my head, the ones telling me that flight was better than fight.

"Are we all clear?" Midori asked.

"Hai." The full-timers nodded, almost militaristic in their chant as they looked around the circle, putting faction wars and differences aside, even it was just for one night.

"Crystal." Serizawa grinned. "This is so much better than any of Genji's plans."

"Are you sure it's going to work?" A Daruma soldier with bright red hair and a man bun was the next to speak. "It's great in theory, but if we don't pull this off-"

"We don't have a choice if we want to keep Mighty out of SWORD." Murayama interrupted.

"I'm glad we're all on the same page," One of the Amamiya's said gravely. "Because we've got company."

Behind us, four brightly colored luxury cars cruised slowly, a sea of men dressed in black circling around. I could see worry crossing the eyes of the full-timers, none of us fully aware of what we were getting ourselves into when we had piled into that truck.

I felt sick to my stomach, anxiety bubbling in the back of my throat as I subtly reached for Tsukasa's hand. I needed a rock right now, and there was no better grounding wire at that school than the blond.

"Time to open the can of whoop ass." Yasushi quipped, his neck crackling and popping as he rotated his head, stretching out his limbs.

"Midori Yamada!" The leader of the Mighty Warriors shouted across the clearing. "I see you've brought an army of your own!"

We were out of time to think, out of time to come to our senses and run for the hills.

It was time to fight.