Tsuruko Arc: Chapter 8

"How long has it been? Feels like years to me." Keitaro said. "But really its barely even been a year. It's eerily quiet. Like I'm waiting for something bad to happen."

Haruka could only nod at that.

After all, what had Keitaro been? Just a punching bag for the girls to use as a stress reliever.

"And something bad is happening right now, isn't it?" He sighed. "I'm sorry for dragging you into this, Haruka. You have any extra guns in the tea shop?"

Haruka raised her eyebrow. "Don't tell me you can't sense all those people outside?. Because I'm pretty sure you aren't that old, yet."

She let out a noise of disgust and put out her cigarette. Haruka moved behind the register and Keitaro followed behind her. She pressed a hidden button and two handguns sprang out from it. Haruka grabbed both. Keitaro put out his hand raised her eyebrow again.

"These are for me." "Oh come on. I know you have some on your person. Do I have to strip search you?"

"Since you're young, why don't you do some of your own heavy lifting." Four men in suits and sunglasses entered the tea shop. They had very big guns.

"Keitaro Urashima?" One of them asked. "We'll need you to come with us." He said in an accent he's become very familiar with. It was similar in the way his Duchess spoke.

"Give me a damn gun, Haruka." Keitaro said in an angry whisper. Haruka wrapped her arms around his waste and moved him so that his back was to the suited men.

"What're you-"

"Do you still trust me, cousin?" she interrupted.

"Is this really the best time-"

"Do you?" she said in a hard voice.

"Give me a reason to trust you." he gritted through his teeth.

She kissed him. An abrupt kiss. One that held all the meaning of the world in it. Love, hate, hunger, rage, and desire. It wasn't romantic. Just raw human contact that said, I need you.

Haruka fired her guns. One bullet from each chamber. It hit two of the men in suits. One in the head. The other through the heart.

Keitaro's ears rang and pain shot through his back. Haruka had pushed him to the ground.

Machine gun fire hailed into the counter and the wall behind it. Unknown to the men firing, that was six feet of titanium steel they were trying to penetrate through.

Haruka heard the loud clinks that meant the semi automatic guns were empty. She pushed herself off of Keitaro and rolled to the right of the steel counter. The men were in the middle of reloading. She shot one the leg and the other in the stomach. Both had no way of retaliating as they were clutching at there wounds.

Keitaro scrambled to his feet and saw the carnage. He's seen his share of guts and blood. He had no remorse for the dead or they dying. Especially when they were after him and the people he loved.

Haruka lit a cigarette and took a hit. "Trust me now?"

"You just redefined what it means to have someone's back. By having me expose mine to danger. I don't know how I should take that."

"I kissed you too, you idiot."

"There is that." Keitaro walked over to the men who were bleeding out. "I'm sure you won't say anything so I'll just talk. You guys are after her Duchess, Kateriina Ilves, am I right?"

The man with the wounded leg spit it response. Keitaro smiled as he stomped on the man's wound. A scream of agony.

"Remember this as you pass into the afterlife, you chose wrong." The man's vision blurred and then passed away.

"If I asked you to run away with me, would you?" Haruka asked.

"Maybe if things were different. If some moments in our pasts actually happened instead of being what if's. If I actually had the courage to take you on that bed all those years ago... But as it stands now, I have someone I will follow for the rest of my life and it is my wish that I reunite with her, for good this time."

"Too little, too late." Haruka thought to herself. "You are really devoted to her... But I wonder if you can avoid the call in your blood. You already came into contact with one Aoyama, but you had brought another one along... I know that you won't be mine, but it would bring me no small amount of joy if someone took you away from her."

"Haruka?" Keitaro called. "I would appreciate it if you just took Kanako with you to Granny and stay away from the Hinata Apartments until I fix this situation."

"We're Urashima's, we don't run away." she retorted.

"So I guess I'm not an Urashima then."

"You came back didn't you?"

Before he could answer Tsuruko and Motoko appeared in the front of the shop.

"We are going to my family's compound." said Tsuruko.

"Oni-chan!" Kanako came running with tears in her eyes. She embraced her brother. "Take me with you."

"I'm afraid I can't." He gave a look and Tsuruko knocked her out.

"I got her." Haruka said as she stepped out of the tea house.

"I don't know if I'll ever come back." said Keitaro. "But know that I'll never forget where I came from."

And so Keitaro and the Aoyama's left to journey to the Aoyama household. Unbeknownst to them, the Hinata Annex began to stir...