Hikaru sat in the backseat of the car, wearing his same old gray jumper track suit, an iconic costume for him at this point. So iconic that Harushi it pointed out.
"Your wardrobe is limited?" asked Harushi as he sat in the backseat from the other side.
"Uh, no? I just prefer wearing this," Hikaru responds a bit confused by Harushi's seemingly awkward comment.
Harushi nods, as he puts his hands in his hoodie pockets and the driver, whose name was not known drove the two away from the PPA Headquarters building.
Hikaru looked outside the window by leaning his head against it, being in awe of the seemingly endless amounts of skyscrapers and concrete here and there. Harushi had meanwhile dozed off, occasionally hitting his head against the car roof due to the jumps on the way.
Kawagoe is a town that is not ridiculously far from mainstream Tokyo, but it was a town within the entire metropolitan area. It is a beautiful town with Edo-era style buildings and a river that flows through the town itself.
Since it's the 10th of December, the trees on the way had shed of all of its life and were dull to even look at. Just brown branches with occasional yellow or green patches of leaves.
Anyhow, Harushi taps Hikaru's shoulder, catching him temporarily off guard, but Harushi smiles and begins talking.
"I suppose you are aware what how Senzai works?" Harushi asked as he also looks out his window. Hikaru responds but gets interrupted at the end,
"Uh huh. I guess I do know a bit-"
"Not every Senzai User can use Senzai Arts... Its genetic and inheritance. To even grasp this situation, a fraction of humanity can only access Senzai and only 10% of those can use Senzai Arts. Like you and me," Harushi says as he takes out his hand and shows Hikaru a small plant growing out of it.
"Oooh," Hikaru reacted as he saw the tiny plant. Harushi then continues:
"And the rest of them? They are what we call Physical Senzai Users. We are Art Users. Physical Users, like us can use Senzai to:
A) reinforce their body
B) increase damage output of punches and kicks
C) Increase their Speed immensely
and D) Air Stride in the air.
It's not like we can't do the same, it's just knowing their limits, theses guys are total pinnacle of human strength and have dedicated their entire lives into mastering these four basic cores of Senzai".
"I mean, I get it, but why are you telling me this?", Hikaru asks as he seems as if Harushi thinks of him as a dumb child.
"I'm just telling you that don't be superised when you meet majority of opponents or fellow agents that can only manipulate Senzai to that extent. Only a few of them can reach the top," Harushi comments as he smirks, probably in their pity.
Hikaru just gives a blank response and goes back to staring at the world outside his glass.
After around quarter of an hour, they had arrived to the not so remote town of Kawagoe.
Hikaru steps out the car, slamming the door and runs around feeling the fresh air of the town, which was much more fresher than the Tokyo air.
"This really reminds me of my clan base in Hokkaido... It's really peaceful here...", Hikaru comments as he raises his arms high to stretch himself.
"Yeah, whatever. We are here for more important work," Harushi slaps Hikaru's shoulder as he walks ahead of him.
"Jerk".
They both wander the streets of Kawagoe together. Kawagoe wasn't an old village of sort, it did contain Edo Era Architecture, but electricity, cars and the stuff. It's known for its old clay warehouses and merchant homes, called Kurazukuri. A budget Kyoto if put simply. Two rivers flowed in the city, Iruma and Arakawa.
Hikaru interacted and played the children as they pulled his face cheeks. Harushi was nearby talking to elderly locals regarding important matters. However, all of the sudden a group of thieves came running past them, pickpocketing, Harushi's wallet and the locals nearby and jumped up on the roof of a building.
Harushi looked at them, shocked for a second and then back to Hikaru, who was pinned down by the children playing with him.
"Hey, you fool! Get up! I just fucking lost my Agent ID to those runts!", Harushi yells as he in a swift motion jumps up on the same building and it's roof and begins running at their direction.
Hikaru puts the children aside and unsheaths his sword and also follows Harushi in suit.
The Thieves were far ahead and were dispersing, Harushi looked a bit angry. Hikaru noticed that Harushi was indeed faster than Hikaru in running. It seems like Harushi had trained his physical atrtribute of Senzai more than Hikaru, who was clearly right behind Harushi.
"Hikaru, go to the left and try without harming and using your Art to capture the thieves. I'll go to the right and get my wallet from that guy," Harushi says as Hikaru nods to his demand.
Harushi then speeds up, accelerating far ahead of Hikaru. Hikaru then focused his attention of the other group of thieves as he leaped from one block of buildings to another.
Suddenly the thieves ahead of him fell? They weren't running anymore and weren't visible so definitely they fell down, which Hikaru thought. Hikaru came near the edge of that building and jumped down to the alley and he held the sword in his hand firmly.
A voice yelled behind Hikaru, "Brat! Take this!".
Hikaru swiftly brought his sword infront of the punch one of the thieves threw to block it, keeping his grip on the ground firm.
The thief steps back and two others come out from the garbage containers in either side.
"It's a 3 v 1, kid. What do you think that samurai cosplay is going to do?", one of the thieves grunted as they cracked their knuckles.
Hikaru, seemingly a bit offended replied, "This is a longsword, it isn't a Katana...".
The major thief scoffs as he runs towards Hikaru, yelling,
"Whatever, at the end of the day you're still outnumber- ah!".
Hikaru uses the back of his sword, the base of the handle to strike a precise blow at the thief's neck, knocking him out.
"You sure, you can win?", Hikaru grins in a heroic stance.
"Ahh! Boss is down! Make a run for it!", one of the thief yells as both of them begin acrobatically climbing and jumping up to the rooftop to escape.
Hikaru smiles, knowing justice is served once again. He bends down to the knocked out theif's pocket to take back the stolen wallets. They contained alot of yen.
"Done," Harushi says as he walks past Hikaru.
"H-huh, done? What do you mean?", Hikaru says as he looks back at the street and in complete awe sees a pile of knocked out theives entrapped in a large fleshy stem like rope.
"Is this his (Harushi's) Art?", Hikaru wonders as he looks back at Harushi who was looking through his wallet.
"The police will be arriving soon. Get ready to be arrested," Harushi says that without any care in the world, still looking through his wallet.
Hikaru, astonished just replies, "What?".
Chapter 16, end