Thread 1: New Fate(cont.)
As I begin to fall, I start to recall me surroundings. I remember that on the side of the steps there was foliage that looked pretty thick but in order to ger to it, I was gonna have to take a few drops on the steps to get in position to get over there. I prepare myself and commence to fall. I hit the steps three times with a heavy "THUD". At this point, my head is parallel to the steps and I know I won't stay conscious if I take a hit now. So, I that now's my chance. I use all the strength I can muster and hit a step with my hand to throw my momentum to the direction of the foliage. I'm flung surprisingly fast as I redirect myself and try to gain control of my balance. I fall through the shrubs and begin to tumble, I bump into some other bushes that don't stop me, but does slow me down enough to be able to stop myself on a tree trunk.
"Whew. That was waaay too close.", I say as I'm finally able to get a moment to breath. "What the hell happened to me? My body reacted before I knew what I was doing. Usually I would take a less "dare devil" approach to a dangerous situation but...the hell was that?". As I try to calm my mind, I remember the ceremony is going to start soon. "Shit! I gotta go!", I say in an annoyed voice as I get up and book it towards the school. 'These uniforms are surprisingly durable. Barely a scratch.', I think to myself as I pick up some speed.
Meanwhile, the girl finally gets the nerve to look down the shrine steps, hoping that she won't see her savior too badly injured. And to her surprise, no one was there. "What the- Where'd he go?!" she say in shock and disbelief as she scans for any trace of her savior.
As she's looking, she notices a bag lying on the ground that nobody claimed. "What if...?", she says to herself as she grabs the bag. She looks inside to find an ID card to return it to who it belonged to but didn't see one. Just the typical school material. With a bit of deductive reasoning she figured the bag belonged to her rescuer and decides to look for him at the school, guessing thay he'll be the only one there with messed up clothes and bag-less. "For someone to do all of that without a second thought. Putting himself in danger to save a girl he doesn't know.", she says to herself as she licks her lips. She ties her shoelaces, trots down the steps carefully, and heads to the ceremony. "Men like that are hard to find. I think I just may be interested! And those eyes were...intense.", she says with a slightly mischievous smirk and a slight blush.
As I head to the school, I recall the island map that I studied ahead of time and think of a shortcut that I could take to save me plenty of time. The shortcut was to cut through about 10 alleyways which would lead me to the East side of the school that has another entrance gate that I could use with time to spare. "Works for me." I say as I make my first turn down an alley on my shortcut route.
I continued along the shortcut and was about halfway through when I heard a muffled voice and scuttling. I slid to a stop, breathing a bit heavy to catch my breath and began to listen and ask myself questions while analyzing everything. I thought to myself, 'What was that noise?' 'What that just my imagination?' 'Should I check?' 'It's none of my business, why should I?' 'I'm gonna be late.' 'But what if someone needs help?' 'Was that a voice?' 'How much time can I spare just to confirm what it was?' 'Why would anyone eles be here?'. As these thoghts are going through my mind, I feel another tug on my body and I knew what it meant. All of my thoughts were unified in one phrase, 'Ah! Fuck it!', as I ran to the direction of the sounds.
I run down the alleyway, getting closer to the suspicious sounds. I get to where the sound is coming from around the corner, pressed up to it, and peeked around to see what was the cause of the noise. From what I could see, there was a man, that looked like he benched a train and then ATE the train just because he can, standing over a long ponytail pink-haired girl, about half his size, who's wearing a school uniform and looks terrified shaking in a corner.
I assume it's a mugging because I heard the girl say," Please leave me alone." and "I don't have any money.", so I think of a way to help. I quickly but quietly close the distance, sneaking up on the big guy. I hear the mugger say "Well then you'll have to pay in a different way then!" as he reaches for her. Now pissed, I spring into action. I hop onto the wall then spring off as hard as I can towards the mugger, kneeing him in the side of his face.
The mugger stumbles then falls down another alleyway out of view of the girl and chase after him. The only thing she was able to catch from my appearance was my silver-ish dreaded hair. "That guy...was like a knight in shining silver armor. So cool!" , she says in admiration as her heart skips a beat and blush.
The mugger gets up rather quickly for someone of his size, which caught me by surprise, as he darted at me with a jab, that I barely dodged. I counter with an uppercut that he blocks and we both take a step back, measuring each other. From this one exchange I could tell that he was a trained boxer, but not a pro. Now, I'm no expert in fighting and mostly self taught, but I have been in my fair share of tussles to know how to defend myself so I'm no easy opponent. And I think he gets that because he keeps his guard up to whole time. This alley was really narrow so the only way to fight was for us to go head-on. The air around us became heavy as we both focused an intense glare at each other. And, after about another second the fight began with us charging at each other.
Meanwhile, the girl gets up and tries to come help me, but the atmosphere around the corner where I was fighting made her lose her nerve, so they just stood there, unable to move as their "Knight" fights alone. But she prayed that I'd be okay. As that is happening, I am locked in a rapid back-and-forth exchange that is getting more intense by the second and neither of us are letting up. In the back of my mind, I know I don't have time to waste on a problem like this, but I just couldn't leave it alone. Which I still can't make sense of, but I have to worry about that later. Because I need to end this fight soon or I'll be late.
The exchange goes as follows: *Right jab at me* *Blocked and couter with right hook at him* *Dodged and tries to grab me* *Deflect his hands and steps in with an uppercut* *It connects but he sweeps at my legs* *Failed to dodge and gets tripped but I roll backwards and get on my feet* *We each throw a punch and our fists clash with a 'KLACK' sound* *He steps in for a left haymaker* *It barely grazes my chest and I grab his shirt pulling him to me* *He loses balance* *Straight telephone punch to the jaw* *He falls down knocked out*. The fight only lasted a minute but it felt much longer than that.
I stand there, tired but victorious. A small sense of accomplishment comes over me as I let the feeling of beating an opponent fills me. It's a satisfying sensation that I've not really experienced before. But, I have to enjoy this later, because I need to get going so I can just make it to the school without being too late. I wanted to check and see if the girl was okay but, I didn't have anymore time to spare, so I just left to the school.
At the same time, the girl realises that there's no noise coming from around the corner and starts to peek around. The thought that her "Knight" might have lost makes her hesitate and take a step back but she shrugs the feeling off and steps around to see the outcome of the fight. To her relief and surprise, the mugger was knocked out on the ground, which meant the her savior was okay. She looked to her "Knight" to say "Thank you", but saw that I already started running. She began to chase, but felt that kicked something small and metallic, and stopped. She looked at what she kicked, and saw a gold, star-like object, which was a school uniform pin with a bent needle. "It must've been knocked off during the fight.", she thinks out loud. The girl picked the pin up and wiped the dirt off of it. She then remembers that all school pins have the initials of the student it belonged to and flips it over to see the letters [D.DARK] etched onto it. 'Silver hair with the name "Dark". Kind of a funny contradiction.', she thinks to herself with a snicker.
She collects herself and her school bag. Straightenes herself up and heads to school, knowing that her "Knight" is going to be there and the only one with silver hair and pin-less. "I can't believe that I found true love on my first day here! Mom was right! I did find my future here!", she says as she's practically beaming while trotting to school. Holding the pin to her heart.