Misora perched at the bar counter of the café, her concentration consumed by the puzzle in front of her. With a cute cow design, it was meant to be a fun challenge, but its fragmented state was proving to be a stubborn obstacle. A missing piece of the cow's side was where the puzzle pieces were meant to be placed, numerous small pink fragments lay scattered on the bar counter, each one waiting to be carefully inserted into place to complete the design.
She sat happily, placing piece after piece into the small plastic cow. The fridge door that led down to the secret lab on the other side of the counter opened up, Ryuga crawled out with an angry look on his face.
"He's still not back!?"
Bang!
He slammed his open palm on the counter close to where Misora was solving her puzzle, causing most of the pieces she had placed into the cow to fall back out.
"Aggghh!" Misora jumped a bit in her seat, she hadn't expected the slap to the counter.
She stared at puzzle cow, now with next to no pieces inside of it and rolled her eyes.
"What are you so ticked off about?" She scooped up a can of cold coffee that was sitting next to her and tossed it to Ryuga, who was rounding the counter at this point passing by her with a scowl on his face.
"Don't interrupt when people are doing things!" Misora scolded Ryuga while starting over on the cow.
Ryuga caught the can with one hand and pulled its tab open with one finger while starting to complain to Misora, completely ignoring what she had said moments before.
"Sento's only thinking about himself, man..."
Ryuga sat down at one of the café tables and started complaining.
"...And here I am, screwed, 'cause Nabeshima can't testify."
He took a long drink from the can in his hand and then scrunched his nose and face up.
"Why can coffee? Isn't this place a café?"
Misora didn't even afford him a look, she had pink puzzle pieces in both hands, doubling down on her efforts to finish the puzzle. She did afford him an answer though.
"It's better than Dad's coffee, isn't it?"
Ryuga's expression softened a bit. "Good point."
The silence that followed in the café was brief, lasting only a handful of seconds, before the door swung wildly open and a trio of individuals - Sento, Sawa, and Tatsuya - strolled in. Misora's gaze remained fixed on her puzzle, but Ryuga's attention was swiftly drawn to the newcomers. With a fleeting glance, his eyes locked onto Sento, and before either of them had taken a step further into the café, he started giving Sento the business.
"Finally! What took you?"
Sento ignored him, walking right past where Ryuga was sitting to go sit down himself at the counter, a few spots away from where Misora diligently worked on her cow.
"Do you know how long I was wait-"
"So this is your crib, huh?"
Ryuga was cut off by Tatsuya, who was looking around at everything inside the café.
Ryuga snapped his head around to look at the afro headed Tatsuya, scanning him up and down for one second before yelling at him.
"SHUT UP!"
He started walking towards the punk rocker with a look of disdain plastered across his face. "Who is this freak?"
Tatsuya took offense at the stranger who had insulted him and squared up with Ryuga. "Who are you calling a freak...?!"
Ryuga scowled at Tatsuya and right when he got near his face he gave him a sharp headbutt.
Bong!
"Ow!"
Tatsuya fell to the floor, rolling around and holding his head in pain.
Sawa crouched down to see if he was alright. "Are you okay!?"
"Ow, ow, ow...not at all!"
Ryuga shook his head and walked back to where Sento was at the counter. Sento had placed his head down and was leaning on his arms, looking depressed.
"Are you even trying to help to clear my name?" Ryuga placed a hand on one of Sento's shoulders and shook him a few times.
Sento just swayed his body along with the shaking, seemingly undisturbed. "Shush you dope, I'm trying to process this whole Taro Satou thing."
Ryuga leaned over the counter beside Sento, a look of confusion spreading across his face. "Who the hell is Taro Satou?"
Misora suddenly lifted her right hand up in victory. "Done!" She had a huge, satisfied smile on her face. She picked up the completed cow puzzle and showed it off to Sento and Ryuga, who both stared blankly at her for several moments.
"Oh...by the way, there's a bottle finished downstairs, too."
Sento's eyes widened in surprise, his excitement visibly surging. In a flash, he propelled himself to his feet, his hair reacting in tandem by standing on end near the back of his head, a clear sign of his heightened emotions.
"No way! Now that is good news!"
He raced past Ryuga, Sawa and Tatsuya, who was still on the floor, reaching the fridge in no time at all.
"Bottle time! Wahoo!"
"Hey, you, hold up!" Ryuga shouted after him and was about to give chase. "You know I'm stuck in here, right!?"
Tatsuya rose to his feet and stepped into Ryuga path.
"Step outside!"
"Eh?" Ryuga looked at him with annoyance and surprise. Tatsuya tried to look tough and replicated Ryuga's threatening gaze until a look of recognition took its place.
"W-wait, you're that escaped murderer!" He pointed a trembling finger at Ryuga's face and took half a step backwards.
"Yeah, and?"
Ryuga's annoyance was rocketing, he took a step towards Tatsuya to bring them face to face again.
Bong!
Ryuga suddenly hit Tatsuya in the same spot as before with another big headbutt, sending him crashing to the floor once more.
"OW!"
Ryuga shook his head and walked to the table he had originally been sitting at to grab the half finished can of cold coffee. "I didn't kill anybody!"
Tatsuya glanced up at him from the floor, "Wait, what do you mean? Didn't you kill that Katsuragi guy?!"
Ryuga took a large drink from the coffee can before answering. "Nah, I only saw the body."
Sawa spoke up, glancing down at Tatsuya. "He says he was framed."
She started to lean over to help Tatsuya up, grabbing one of his arms and his shirt by the collar.
"What? Framed? No way!" Tatsuya pushed Sawa away, even though she was just trying to help him, sending the reporter crashing onto her backside.
He pointed at Ryuga, shaking his finger at him again. "If you didn't kill him, then..."
Tatsuya turned and started rushing towards the door. "I-I gotta go home!"
"Hey..." Ryuga started to give chase, reaching the door just a moment after Tatsuya had burst outside.
Ryuga stopped with the door held open in his hand, not wanting to venture too far outside.
"...You better not snitch on me!" He yelled at the fleeing kid, not noticing a couple approaching from the other direction.
The man walking towards the café door grabbed his girlfriend's arm and swung her around, they both hurried to walk back the way they had just come from, clearly unnerved from Ryuga's outburst.
"Ugh!" Ryuga went back inside, slamming the door behind himself.
Down in the lab, Sento was laying on the ground, surrounded by quite a few Build bottles. He was playing with the new bottle that Misora had refined for him, trying to find a good match for it.
"The comic bottle, huh?" He held the bright yellow bottle up and examined it before slotting it into the small board where he kept best match bottles.
"Hhhmmm, now what would go well with that?"
He reached over for a blue colored bottle and stared at it. "Pirate, probably?...No, maybe hawk?" He dropped the blue bottle and picked up the orange one that he usually paired with gatling.
He flopped onto his side and stretched his body until it made an arc, he looked like a child playing with their action figures at the moment. "Which one is it?!"
Ryuga had just made his way downstairs, he shook his head when he noticed Sento rolling around on the ground. "Hey!"
"Quit screwing around and help prove-"
"Oh, pipe down." Sento interrupted him, rolling back into a seated position. "This is going to help you too."
"Eh?"
"Faust used Nabeshima to frame you, remember? If we can find their base and expose them..." He fumbled around with another bottle, holding it up near the yellow comic bottle that was slotted. "...It'll lead to your name being cleared....and to do that..."
Ryuga bent down beside Sento and his bottles, he grabbed a purple bottle without a moments pause and slotted it beside the yellow one. The bottles reacted with each other, both giving off a small glint, indicating they were a best match.
Sento's face fell slightly. His hair also drooped back into its normal state.
"Awe man...No way...So it's the ninja bottle."
Ryuga tilted his head and reached over to start dragging Sento with him "All done now? Good, then let's deal with-"
"Agghh!"
Sento leaped up so quickly that Ryuga instinctively adopted a boxing stance. Sento, however, was now ignoring Ryuga, rushing over to one of his whiteboards.
"In that case, I'll make a weapon for the new match!"
He started scribbling on the board. "I'll make the best weapon suited to ninja comics!"
Ryuga couldn't believe Sento was just ignoring him again. "The hell?! Stop screwing around, man!" He kicked the wall as hard as he could and pursued Sento once again. "Hey!"
Sento had his hand on his chin, staring at the stick man he had drawn on the white board. "Ninja and manga, huh? So a sword, then! Right." He started doodling and scribbling at a fast speed, getting more and more excited.
"Maybe it can shoot fire, cause a tornado, or emit smoke..."
Ryuga stopped and just stood there, staring at Sento. He had given up at this point and started making his way to the bed in the other room of the lab.
With an scowl forming on his face again, he plopped down onto the bed, placed his hands behind his head to get comfortable and listened to Sento babble on about the new sword he was going to build.
...
Tatsuya was slowly walking home in the dark. He was currently following the route the train in town took, as he walked down a big set of concrete stairs he kept whining and moping, complaining about the situation he had found himself in out loud.
"It's all my fault...It's my fault that he..."
A pink colored figure dropped down behind him, having vaulted over the railing of the stairs fifty feet above. It was Blood Stalk.
The descent hadn't been perfectly silent and Tatsuya paused for a moment. With a look of fear in his eyes he slowly started turning around.
Blood Stalk closed the distance in under a second and grasped Tatsuya's throat right as the young man turned. He lifted him into the air with one arm effortlessly.
Tatsuya struggled and kicked but he couldn't move the armored man, or loosen the hold on his windpipe one little bit. Slowly, Tatsuya's eyes fluttered and rolled backwards. He was unconscious.
Blood Stalk chuckled and opened his hand, letting the limp body fall to the ground.