Kyū Madoka's Memories - Forty Years Ago
The narrow street, previously bathed in the warm, golden light of the late afternoon, suddenly felt claustrophobic and suffocatingly cold.
Kyū and the girl widened their eyes simultaneously, the sheer gravity of their predicament dawning upon them with uncomfortable clarity. It wasn't merely the presence of the weeping, vindictive brat that presented a problem; it was the fact that his older brother had not come alone. Flanking the broad-shouldered teenager were four other youths, all carrying the distinct, heavy-footed swagger of alleyway brawlers looking for an excuse to break something.
"I think there has been a profound misunderstanding," the girl began, stepping slightly backward. Her voice underwent a miraculous transformation, shedding its aggressive, feral edge to adopt a pitch of innocent, fragile confusion that completely belied the murderous glare she had leveled at Kyū seconds prior. "We are just simple travelers. We don't know who this sweet little boy is."
The older brother paused, resting the heavy wooden club against his shoulder. He looked down at the younger boy clinging to his pant leg.
"Is this her, Taka?" he asked, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.
"Yes! That's her!" the kid shrieked, pointing an accusatory, trembling finger directly at the girl's face. "She's the one who made us hold the heavy rocks until my arms felt like they were going to fall off!"
The older brother's gaze snapped back to the girl. A slow, cruel smile stretched across his face, exposing a chipped canine. He stepped forward, the heavy soles of his boots scraping menacingly against the cobblestones.
"You shouldn't lie, little girl," he crooned, his tone dripping with patronizing malice. "Good girls shouldn't lie. It makes it so much worse when they have to be punished for it."
The girl didn't flinch, though Kyū noticed the subtle, microscopic shift in her stance… her weight settling onto the balls of her feet, her center of gravity dropping.
Without turning her head, she leaned back just a fraction of an inch, her voice dropping to a barely audible whisper meant only for Kyū's ears.
"Listen to me, weirdo," she hissed, her tone laced with absolute, pragmatic urgency. "If you want to live to see tomorrow's sunrise, you run as fast as your skinny legs can carry you the absolute second I give you the signal."
Kyū's heart hammered a frantic, terrified rhythm against his ribs. Run? He swallowed hard, his eyes darting frantically past the blockade of teenagers. From what his sheltered, panicked mind could process, there was absolutely no exit. They were boxed in between the thugs and the towering brick walls of the adjacent tea houses.
Before Kyū could even formulate a whispered question, the older brother closed the distance, stepping aggressively into the girl's personal space.
Instantly, the girl's knees buckled.
She dropped to the dirt with shocking speed, pressing her hands and forehead flat against the grimy cobblestones in a perfect, textbook display of absolute submission.
"I am so sorry!" she cried out, her voice trembling with a masterful imitation of absolute terror. "Please, forgive me! I was wrong, I was just trying to protect my cousin, I didn't mean any true harm!"
Kyū stared down at her, utterly bewildered. 'She surrendered? Just like that?' But as he watched the rigid tension in her shoulders, a spark of realization ignited within his privileged mind.
'She is incredibly smart,' Kyū thought, awe temporarily overriding his fear. 'A true leader knows when the battle is lost before it begins. She knows when to fight, and more importantly, she knows when not to fight.'
The older brother stopped dead in his tracks, clearly disarmed by the sudden, dramatic capitulation. He let out a booming, arrogant laugh, his friends chuckling dutifully behind him.
He knelt down on one knee in front of her prostrate form, reaching out with his free hand as if to mockingly pat her head.
"Ohh... look at this," the older brother sneered, thoroughly enjoying his total dominance of the situation. "You're smart. You know your pla-"
He never finished the sentence.
The girl didn't just bow to submit. She had bowed to get closer to the earth.
In a blur of motion born from pure street survival, her hands shot out from beneath her forehead, seizing two massive handfuls of loose, gritty dirt from the cracks in the pavement. With a violent, upward thrust, she hurled the makeshift shrapnel directly into the older brother's wide, arrogant eyes.
"AHHHHHH!!!"
The teenager shrieked, dropping his wooden club as his hands flew to his face, clawing frantically at his blinded, burning eyes as he fell backward onto the cobblestones.
"Now!"
The girl vaulted to her feet, grabbing Kyū's wrist with a grip like iron.
She bolted to the side, dragging the stunned noble along with her. Kyū stumbled forward, his cheeks instantly flushing a deep, violent crimson at the sudden, firm touch of her skin against his. He was a prince; women did not simply grab him. But as the enraged shouts of the blinded thug echoed behind them, Kyū's survival instincts forcefully reminded him that this was emphatically not the time or place for romantic embarrassment.
They sprinted down the narrowest gap between the buildings, their sandals slapping wildly against the stone.
"Get them! Don't let that bitch get away!"
Seeing their leader writhing on the ground, the remaining four teenage boys widened their eyes in fury before launching themselves into a full sprint, tearing down the alleyway in hot pursuit.
Kyū and the girl rounded a sharp corner, hoping to find an outlet to the main market square, only to be met with the harsh, undeniable reality of architectural failure.
A towering, ten-foot-tall brick wall loomed before them, sealing the alleyway completely. It was a dead end.
The girl slid to a halt, cursing violently under her breath as she scanned the smooth brick for any viable handholds. There were none.
Footsteps echoed loudly behind them, slowing down as the four thugs rounded the corner, panting heavily but smiling with dark, vindictive triumph. They spread out, completely blocking the narrow exit, trapping their prey.
Seeing that they were cornered like rats in a barrel, a sudden, inexplicable surge of adrenaline and misplaced nobility hijacked Kyū's nervous system. He didn't think about his lack of training or his fragile, pampered upbringing.
Kyū stepped forward, placing himself squarely in front of the girl, throwing his arms out in a protective, dramatic stance. It was the absolute first time in his life he had ever attempted to be genuinely brave.
The four boys stopped, staring at the skinny, trembling youth in the plain tunic. Then, they burst into raucous, mocking laughter.
Even the girl blinked, utterly baffled by the sudden shift in dynamic.
"What in the world are you doing, weirdo!?" she demanded, grabbing the back of his shirt in a futile attempt to yank him back behind her.
Kyū didn't move. He turned his head slightly, looking at her over his shoulder with an expression he hoped conveyed profound, unshakeable courage.
"Do not worry," Kyū declared, his voice cracking only slightly. "I am simply doing my duty in protecting a fine maiden from ruffians."
The girl's jaw dropped. She stared at him as if he had just sprouted a second head. A furious, embarrassed blush exploded across her cheeks, competing directly with the deep furrow of her brows. "A fine maiden!? Are you out of your mind!? You look like a stiff breeze could snap you in half!"
Kyū faced forward again, ignoring the critique as he took a deep breath, trying to steady his knocking knees.
'Okay, Kyū,' he coached himself internally, channeling the absolute, unyielding arrogance of his royal bloodline. 'What is a couple of street urchins your age? That's nothing. You are the heir to the Fire Country. You can handle this.'
Seeing that the frail boy was actually trying to play the heroic martyr, the thugs lost their patience. Two of them dashed forward simultaneously, pulling their fists back, fully intending to cave Kyū's face in and drag the girl back to their leader.
As the fists rapidly closed the distance, Kyū raised his hand, his palm facing flat outward like a traffic conductor.
"Pause!" Kyū shouted, his voice ringing with absolute, commanding authority.
The command was so entirely absurd, so wildly out of context for a brutal street mugging, that human psychology simply failed to process it.
The two charging boys literally stumbled, their momentum faltering as their brains tried to comprehend the instruction. They froze mid-stride, their fists hovering awkwardly in the air, genuine, profound confusion washing over their faces.
Pause? Who calls "pause" in a fight to the death?
In that brief, glorious microsecond of complete cognitive distraction, Kyū acted.
His father's relentless lessons echoed in his mind: 'In politics, Kyū, you do not attack when the enemy is braced. You wait for the distraction. You wait for their mind to wander, and then you strike where it is most vulnerable.'
Kyū applied the political philosophy to the physical world.
He didn't throw a punch. He didn't attempt a sophisticated martial arts throw.
He simply planted his left foot, leaned back, and drove his right sandal upward with every ounce of strength he possessed, aiming directly between the legs of the boy standing right in front of him.
BAM.
The connection was sickeningly solid.
"AAAURHHGHHHHHH!"
The boy's eyes bulged so far they nearly rolled out of his skull. His pupils vanished upward into his head, leaving only the whites visible as the color drained entirely from his face. He didn't even try to catch himself; he simply dropped to the cobblestones like a marionette with severed strings, curling into a tight, agonizing fetal position as he dry-heaved from the sheer, overwhelming pain.
"..."
"..."
"..."
The alleyway descended into absolute, horrified silence.
The girl standing behind Kyū stared at the fallen thug, then at Kyū's still-raised leg, her mouth hanging slightly open.
'What the...' she thought, her previous assessment of his noble bravery crumbling into sheer disbelief. 'That is just... so shamelessly dirty.'
The shock among the remaining thugs evaporated, rapidly replaced by an incandescent, terrified rage.
"He fights dirty!" the second boy shouted, taking a cautious step back to protect his own lower half before pointing a trembling finger at Kyū. "There are no rules! Everyone, just get at him! Beat him to a pulp!"
The remaining three teenagers charged as one, a wall of flying fists and kicks.
Kyū hurriedly lowered his leg, raising his arms in a desperate, fragile guard. He had played his only trump card, and he knew it. As a heavily calloused fist rocketed toward his face, promising to shatter his nose and his royal dignity, Kyū could do nothing but squeeze his eyes tightly shut and brace for the inevitable impact.
However...
"Oi, oi..."
A voice drifted down from the sky, smooth, slightly amused, and carrying a lazy resonance that effortlessly cut through the chaotic shouting of the alley.
Everyone froze in their tracks. The fist hovering mere inches from Kyū's face halted.
'Who is it this time?' the girl thought, groaning internally as she looked around the cramped alleyway, entirely exhausted by the constant interruptions.
"Up here..."
Every head in the alley, from the groaning boy on the ground to the trembling Kyū, tilted upward.
Standing on the sloped, tiled roof of the adjacent tea house, perfectly silhouetted against the late afternoon sun, was a man. He was towering, possessing a broad-shouldered, powerful build, with bright, platinum-blonde hair that caught the light like spun gold. He wore a luxurious crimson coat that fluttered gently in the breeze, lending him the air of a foreign prince or a high-ranking mercenary.
The man took a slow, deliberate drag from a cigar clamped between his teeth, exhaling a thin cloud of smoke before looking down at the frozen tableau below.
"So many of you against just two people?" the blonde man asked, resting his hands casually on his hips, his piercing blue eyes locked onto the thugs with a gaze that felt heavier than the stone walls surrounding them. "Is that the norm in this capital nowadays?"
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