Surprisingly unlike most days, Akane never came to do her usual hidden camera sweep in the girls' restroom. Throughout the rest of the school day, I tried to find her everywhere, but even then she was nowhere to be seen and didn't pick up the phone either. After an agonizing gym class, however, when I was getting ready to leave school I noticed Akane running on the track with the rest of the girls. Watching her from a distance for a while, I was reminded of how she told me about being kicked out of the team altogether after confronting the principal.
'Did something happen?' Curious about the situation, I made my way to the track field. On my way there while climbing down I ran into Kenta as he charged up the stairs from around the corner.
"Ahh! Shit…" Falling on my butt, I glanced up at the giant bastard who seemed excessively pissed for what must've felt like a light bump to him. "Where the hell were you going in such a rush?"
"Matsuri," grabbing me by the collar, Kenta yanked me closer to his face. Shocked by his aggression, I could only stare back at him in confusion. "What the fuck are you doing with her? Where the hell is she?"
"What?" Having no clue what he was talking about, I pushed him off and climbed a few steps backward.
Appearing behind Kenta, Hero too seemed just as pissed. But at least for him, I could imagine why he might be in a bad mood today.
'Yuuko's video, he obviously heard the rumors too if not seen the video himself before it got deleted off the school's social groups.' Inconspicuously reaching for my ribs, I let my fingers drag across the mark of clarity to get my head cleared up.
"Hakumi told us that bitch Matsuri is sleeping with another guy," Kenta growled, his hands curled up in giant fists.
"And remember gym class, the locker room?" Blocking the path even more, Hero moved up front, his eyes locked on my face. "I saw a tattoo on your side, care to show it to us?"
"Wh-" In a moment of realization, I stopped myself from uttering another word.
'The tattoo…Fuck! I must've forgotten to blur the tattoo in the video!' Given the flow of the conversation, Hero must surely suspect it was me in the video, but whether he knew about Yuuko's identity remains to be seen.
"What tattoo?" The moment I said that both of them frowned their brows in anger.
'Duck.' Warned Mizuki, even though I wasn't even aware that she was with me right now. However, that didn't matter in the least as I saw them slightly jerking their hands backward to give them enough momentum for a concussion-worthy punch.
Doing as she said, I managed to evade their punches by ducking down. But now that I was on their hip level, I had to take the chance to restrain them before they tried to attack me again. Spanning my hands as wide as I could, I grabbed them both and just jumped down the stairs. Crashing down the stairs, the two hit their spines so hard I could practically feel it rippling into my body as well.
Thankfully, as I fell on the two, my injuries were only a light headache and numbness in my right shoulder. Listening to them grunt in agony as they squirmed around on the floor, I quickly got off them both.
"N-now, tell me, the fuck is this about?" Leaning on my knees, I glanced between the two waiting for at least one of them to speak up. "I have real short patience so you better speak up."
Watching the two agonizing over the pain made me wanna kick the two in the face. After all, the bastards haven't changed their ways even after people died because of their actions. If anything they deserved what happened and more.
"What in the world…" Coming out of nowhere, Hakumi slowly approached the scene from the even lower flight of stairs. "I knew these idiots would do something dumb, I shouldn't have told him!"
"Ey it's not my fault that I wanted to bust this bastard's mouth open!" Finally regaining some sense, Kenta slowly brought himself to his feet. Turning back in my direction, he seemed just as pissed as before, yet somewhat more dubious about assaulting me. "Trying to take my girl away, you think this is funny you punk?!"
"Enough!" Right as the bastard was about to grab my collar again, Hakumi grabbed Kenta's arm and jerked it away from me. "It's your fucking boss she's screwing you, idiot, not him!"
"What about the fucking video then?!" Getting up as well, Hero tried to shove Hakumi to the side, but I instinctively reached out and pulled her to safety. "That goddamn tattoo he has, it's the same one from that video everyone's been taunting me with! He has to be that fucker who put that video up with that woman who likes like-Aghhh!"
Gritting his teeth shut, Hero growled in rage instead of finishing up what he had to say. Even so, it wasn't that hard to deduce what he gathered from this whole situation. To a degree, I felt a budding warmth bloom up in my heart, the warmth sprouted from nothing but the desire to see the bastard suffer. But then there was another half that was pissed off about this encounter.
"Just show him," Hakumi's words pulled me out of the jumble of emotions. "Show him if you have the tattoo, I doubt these idiots will believe me otherwise."
'What do I do now?' I wondered. With a humming sound, Mizuki told me to just do it and that everything will work out. 'How exactly?'
"Just trust me," she said and then yawned.
'Fuck me…' Reaching for my buttons, I began undoing them just as the demoness had instructed. Had it not been for her heads up, I might've caught one of those punches from before so I was somewhat more willing to trust her than usual.
As I undid the shirt's button, the look on all three in front of me began to loosen up. It was almost as if we'd never gotten into a fight just moments ago. Instead, gritting his teeth still, Hero's eyebrows loosened up and revealed a regretful look on his face.
"I swear, I thought I saw a tattoo right there," pointing towards my ribs, he cringed with embarrassment.
Looking down at myself, I was surprised that the tattoo was gone.
"See? I told you it's not him you morons!" Hakumi complained to the other two.
'Shapeshifting, did you forget you have that skill now too?' Chuckling to herself in my brain, Mizuki seemed to be enjoying the situation a little too much.