Four days later…
'What are all these for?' asked Heihachi, as we came out of the supermarket with bags full of groceries.
We were in the late afternoon; the day was about to come to an end.
'It is to thank Tsunan for having taken such good care of me,' I replied, cheerfully. I had removed my bandage in the morning. 'I'm going to cook him a special dinner. It's a recipe that my mom used to prepare for special occasions!'
'Oh, I see.'
'Thank you for helping me carry the bags,' I told him, with a grateful smile.
'It's nothing.'
'Hello, Heihachi!' called a masculine voice, out of the blue, and a young man with unruly blond hair jumped out of the trees from over the wall on our right, landing on his two feet in front of us, cutting our way.
We jerked to a stop.
'So, we meet again!' he said, with non-nonchalance, standing there in profile, with his face turned towards us, and hands dug in his pockets.
I glanced at the two other males, who accompanied the latter, and who were poised there on the wall.
The first guy, who was crouched down, had mid-back level black hair, tied in a low pony-tail with a white ribbon, while the other, who was in a standing position, with his head slightly inclined, had dark-brown hair that touched his shoulders.
The blond and the brown-haired guy seemed to be of the same age as Heihachi and I, while the one with the long black hair was around twenty-five.
They were tall and rather muscular, being of fair complexion.
'Suguru! Shūsaku! Kotetsu!' gasped Heihachi and I inquired, 'Do you know them?'
He seemed extremely shocked to see the three young men.
'Won't you answer her?' sneered the guy with the pony-tail, and straightening up, the latter told me, 'We are his cousins!'
Thus, they are of Heihachi's family?!
'So, it's with this girl that you spend most of your time!' said the brown-haired young man with a smirk and he jumped off the wall to land right in front of me. He tipped my chin up to stare into my eyes.
I pulled away instantly, dazed by this unexpected action on his part. I noticed that he had heterochromia in the irises just like me though; one of his eyes was brown, the other a pale gray.
'You like to play the nice little pet of his mistress, Heihachi?' he scoffed. 'Decidedly, you've hit rock bottom! Whilst the Myōjin clan has an almost divine status!'
The Myōjin clan?!
'My poor guy! You're truly ridiculous!' muttered the one with the long black hair. 'When I think that the animal form that you've chosen is already a disgrace! Especially for the heir to the head of the clan! An animal with claws and fangs is the ideal. Or a cat; cats are venerated by some people. Or even an animal of the Chinese zodiac would have done the thing. But a flying rat!? You're a shame to our family!'
I realized that something was terribly wrong by the way they were speaking to Heihachi.
'Uh,' I murmured, nervously and timidly, 'It was nice to meet you, but we need to hurry up and go! Please, excuse us!'
On these words, I grabbed Heihachi by the sleeve of his T-shirt and began to pull him away.
'Oh, how cute she is!' giggled his brown-haired cousin, who cut our way, preventing us from leaving.
My heart accelerated in my chest.
'Why are you here?' Heihachi demanded at them.
Their expressions became upset.
'Don't you guess?' said the blond while the one in the mid-twenty gritted out, 'We didn't hold on to it, believe us! It is your dad who wanted this. And he, he is a true leader; he's got nothing to do with you!'
Heihachi stated, bluntly, 'I have no wish to return. Go away!'
'Did you hear this?' said the blond one with a cynical laugh, exchanging looks with the two others.
The latter snorted, shaking their heads.
'You were sixteen when you fugued and we haven't seen you again ever since that day. You've run away from the clan and fled your responsibilities as future heir! I believe that you owe some apologies to your parents and the whole clan!'
'And what if you present your apologies to us to begin with?' declared the brown-haired male, and the older cousin snapped at Heihachi, 'Come on, get down your knees!'
I stared at the latter, then back at his three cousins, alarmed.
'I see! You refuse to obey!' muttered the brown-haired one, and to my stupefaction, he transformed himself into a long greenish-brown snake.
Horrified at the sight of the reptile, I started to back away, until my legs gave up under me, and I fell down on my behind.
It slithered its way up to me, coiling around my arm in a painful grip.
I yelped.
'On your knees! Otherwise, Kotetsu will break her arm!' the blond snarled at Heihachi, and the latter yelled, 'Stop it! What are you doing?! Leave her alone!'
He tried to intervene but he found himself restrained by the blond and older cousin, while the snake- Kotetsu- coiled around my arm tighter.
'On your knees!' ordered the pony-tailed male.
'Alright, stop!' exclaimed Heihachi, and they released him.
Watching me desperately, he sank down on his knees. My eyes went wide at the boy. For a minute, I forgot my terror and everything else; my heart clenching.
Oh, Heihachi!
'I'm sorry,' he apologized to them, bowing his head.
'It's not like this that we seek forgiveness! But face to the ground!'
I stared with shock as the older male shoved Heihachi's face down on the ground with his foot, wickedly.
'I- I beg of you to accept my most sincere apologies!' murmured Heihachi, with his cheek pressed against the asphalt, his cousin's foot resting over the side of his head.
'Heihachi, stop! Go away! Run!' I exclaimed, tearfully, having a feeling that they weren't going to stop there; that they were going to hurt him very badly.
And indeed, they began to beat him mercilessly.
'Heihachi!' I cried out, making a move to interpose myself when, abruptly, I felt sharp fangs dig into my flesh at my upper-arm, right into my brachial artery.
A scream escaped my mouth; the pain of the bite knocking me down completely to the ground.
'Shun!' shouted Heihachi as he tried to rush to my side, but his cousins didn't allow him to, continuing to bash him up.
I felt my consciousness begin to slip away and the snake- Kotetsu- retrieved his fangs from my flesh, shape-shifting himself to join the other two at trashing Heihachi.
They sniggered, 'You knew that, even if you had accepted to follow us kindly, we would still have taken keen pleasure giving you a good correction for your desertion, didn't you, Heihachi?'
These were the last words that I heard.
***
Recovering consciousness, I pulled myself up in a sitting position, wincing at the throbbing pain in my right upper arm.
I had been out for not more than a few minutes.
Heihachi!
Instantaneously, I looked around of myself on the street, searching for the latter, my emotions in turmoil, but he was nowhere to be seen anymore and neither were his cousins.
They have taken him away!
I remained motionless where I was for a whole minute, paralyzed with shock, before I realized that my kimono sleeve was getting soaked with blood and I remembered that I had been bitten by a snake.
Oh my god! Tsunan!
I took out my cellphone on the spot to call him, but only to find that my phone didn't have any battery anymore. I had forgotten to charge it!
Picking myself up and clutching my upper arm, I began to make for his clinic- which was several streets away- as fast as I could, in hysterical panic.
I thought that I'd never be able to make it there but at last, I reached the clinic. I almost collapsed in the corridor, but I managed to catch myself in the doorway of the consultation room, my eyes falling onto Tsunan's back, where he was bent over one of his desks, looking at some files.
He looked around instantly, when he heard somebody arrive, and his eyes went wide at me.
'Tsunan...' I breathed, taking a step forward, teetering.
'Shun!' he exclaimed, his voice frantic, and he rushed up to me, catching me as I was about to fall. He glanced down at my bloodied kimono sleeve and the red liquid trickling down my fingers, and landing on the floor in small droplets. 'You're bleeding! What happened to you?'
'I have been bitten by a snake,' I whispered, staring into his eyes, in distress. 'Heihachi… They took him away...'
***
'Fortunately, he didn't inject you with venom!' said Tsunan.
'I was so scared!' I murmured, my eyes lowered on the floor; still a bit shaken. 'I thought that I was going to die bitten by a snake too...'
Like my parents…
'It'll be fine,' he told me, putting a hand down onto my shoulder, comfortingly.
'Yo! Tsunan!' called Hatsu, who walked in the door, suddenly and I looked past the doctor at the blond male.
'Shun! You're here!' the latter said, when his eyes fell upon me, where I was sitting on the examination bed. He came to a stop when he noticed my bandaged upper-arm. 'What happened to you?' he inquired, before his eyes went wide in panic and he demanded, 'And Heihachi?! He was with you! Is he alright?'
'Hatsu...' I moaned out.
'What is it?' he asked, holding his breath, and I began to tell him about what happened earlier.
'Why didn't he tell me anything?' he gritted out after I was don. He was staring at the ground, his hands balled up at his sides into fists. 'And to you, neither...'
Are these people really of Heihachi's family? I wondered, thinking about the way they had treated him.
"You're truly ridiculous!"
"When I think that the animal form that you've chosen is already a disgrace!"
"You're a shame to our family!"
"On your knees!"
Heihachi Myōjin was his full name. He was a member of the Myōjin clan, more precisely, the future head of the clan.
I didn't know much about the Myōjin clan, except that its members could take the form of an animal of their choice at their will. This ability was limited to their bloodline; being passed down genetically.
The first time that I had seen Heihachi transform, I should have made the link between the Myōjin clan and him.
"You were sixteen when you fugued and we haven't seen you again ever since that day. You've run away from the clan and fled your responsibilities as future heir!"
As an adolescent, Heihachi had ran away from home and today his cousins had come to take him back.
I need to see him.
'Well, well,' declared Hatsu, 'I'm telling you, that cagey devil is going to hear from me when we'll see each other!'
'Are you going to see him?' I asked, getting down from the examination bed. 'I'm coming with you!'
'You're not in the state to travel, Shun!' Tsunan told me. 'I'll go with Hatsu.'
'I need to go too. Please! I beg of you!' I pleaded, looking at the doctor in the eyes.
He stared at me for a minute, deliberating, before he exhaled, giving his consent, 'Alright, fine! But I'm not leaving you of the eyes even for a second, is it clear?'
'Yes. Yes, thank you,' I told him, with a grateful smile.
***
A short while later…
'The Myōjin are an illustrious family. This clan is probably the most distinguished of all. It's members have an almost divine status. They can shape-shift into an animal of their choice; the animal chosen, becomes their definitive animal form,' said Master Kagami.
We were at his house and it was dark outside by now.
'Their residence is found in Kaneshiro Village. It's a day of traveling away from here by car. If Tsunan has decided to accompany you, I'm coming too.'
'Are you serious, Master?' asked Hatsu, who was as astonished as I was. 'I mean, you don't know Heihachi very well. We didn't expect so much from you, but only that you give Shun your authorization to leave town.'
'If he's important to you, he's important to me too,' he told us.
'Thank you,' I whispered, utterly moved.
For the very first time, I began to see Kagami Gushiken, as a father-figure.
'Thank you to you also, Tsunan,' I said to the latter and he gave me a gentle smile.
'We're taking my car and it's me who's driving!' stated Master Kagami and getting up from the sofa, he started for the front door. Yama-san handed him his coat and he told her, 'Keep all the doors and windows well closed at night and don't open to anyone, okay?'
She nodded and he gave her a kiss on her forehead, before he patted Gakkuri's head affectionately, telling her, 'I'll be back very soon. And I'll bring you a little something at my return.'
Turning back to us, he declared, 'Come on! Let's go!'
'Take care of yourselves!' I said to Yama-san and Gakkuri with a bow, before I came out of the house with the master, Tsunan and Hatsu to head for Kaneshiro Village.
We're coming, Heihachi!
Thank you for reading!