2.18: An Ass-isted DefeatRui watched wide-eyed, as traumatized as I was after our harrowing Halloween night. Ume bent and lifted Rui’s pillow and held onto it tightly like a spectator at a sporting event, and Natalia-sama murmured comforting words to Rui.

  “Would you mind finishing this soon, Sumire-chan? I don’t think RuiRui can handle too much more,” Natalia asked.

  Akuchi peeked out from under the kotatsu, trembling, her furry tail puffed, her round ears quivering.

  “Mistress Sumire… PLEASE DESTROY HER…!”

  “I wouldn't be in such a hurry.” Ume giggled. “This fight is so gripping!”

  It amazed me that Rui didn’t react.

  Aika’s elbow came fast, racing at my face.

  I parried quickly.

  Her knee rose with my arms engaged.

  I blocked by raising one of mine with a half turn, nudging her knee off target.

  Aika’s eyes narrowed and she abruptly disengaged, flipping off to stand on the edge of Rui’s desk... The one with the mystical symbols. She sent her copy of Yōkai for Dummies and an assortment of other books flying off.

  Rui screamed in anguish—

  “Don’t SCRATCH DAD’S DESK IDIOT!”She leapt off it as though it was the corner of a wrestling ring and came down gracefully with a heel drop.

  My eyes widened and I spun away, barely evading. Her foot crashed into the tatami, breaking it.

  SNAP

  Her kick left a crater in the tatami.

  “MY FLOOR!!” Rui howled.

  She’s back… kind of…

  I got up, my chest heaving, sweat dripping.

  Aika pushed her hair back, breathing only slightly hard for now.

  “You’re not as pathetic as I thought,” she admitted.

  “... Thanks… but please stop breaking Rui’s stuff. This is between you and me, not her!” I frowned, catching my breath.

  “But as good as you are, I think you’re still not good enough to carry the weight of Dad’s legacy.”

  She rushed me again…

  And that was when Akuchi decided she’d had enough cowering under the kotatsu.

  Her eyes narrowed and her tail twitched.

  She whispered dark and vengeful curses that made the ambient temperature drop two degrees.

  Is she so traumatized that she’s turning into an evil spirit right now?

  In mid-motion, Akuchi froze as Aika furiously swept my legs.

  I leapt back, narrowly avoiding it.

  She smoothly rose and lunged.

  I spun away, my ghost-instincts guiding my movements, barely keeping ahead of her merciless precision as we raced around the room.

  She shed out as we ran together, our legs and arms meeting. She suprised me with her flexibility.

  Her strikes were brutal but somehow each strike was elegant.

  Compared with hers, mine were still fluid but a bit shaky around the edges…

  … and every impact between us sent a tiny shockwave through Rui’s suffering office.

  Rui pushed herself up from Natalia-sama's p in the corner with her hands on her head, screaming…

  “YOU JERK! STOP FIGHTING! ENOUGH! DON’T DESTROY MY MANGA! DON’T DESTROY MY ANIME COLLECTION! DON”T SCRATCH UP DAD’S DESK! LEAVE MY CHAIRS ALONE! THAT WAS MY PRECIOUS LIMITED-EDITION DOKI LIVE FIGURINE—THAT WAS MY CHERISHED YURI MUG—I HATE YOU BAKA!

  She gathered herself, glowering with her full oni aura turned back on.

  “AIKA!!! IF YOU BREAK A SINGLE ADDITIONAL THING, I WILL MURDER YOU—!!”

  Her eyes promised Chops of the North Sun levels of bodily destruction with sprays of blood exploding.

  Despite how intense Rui’s killing intent was, Aika ignored her completely.

  …

  She flipped over the kotatsu into the air and used it as a springboard, vaulting over me with impossible grace. And as she revolved through the air, sunlight from the window acted as a perfect spotlight, bouncing off her perfect rear. She had somehow gotten a perfect wedgie in all action. And her skirt was up—

  Ume watched, gasping. My reaction made her swoon, clutching at her chest.

  I was blushing furiously, absolutely frozen.

  She has way too much sex appeal… I just can’t properly channel Reiko’s fighting skills like this…

  Natalia-sama looked away politely, even her fox ears turning pink.

  Akuchi whispered, “Lewd lewd lewd lewd—” Still like she was cursing the office for eternity.

  Aika nded behind me and kicked the table toward my back like a missile.

  The kotatsu smashed into me, sending me into the kitchenette with a sound that made Rui wail in agony. All of her dishes went flying, nding everywhere around and on me.

  SHATTER SHATTER SHATTER CRASH

  Blood leaked from my nose. Not just from her hit. I was just too excited in too many ways.

  “MY KOTATSU—MY GIRLFRIEND!! AIKA!!! YOU HEARTLESS BITCH!!!”

  Rui ran forward, both arms windmilling. Aika nded and with a little sigh and a rolling of her eyes, put her hand firmly on her pint-sized chibi sister’s head and held her easily at arm’s length.

  “UWAAAAA! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!” Rui screamed.

  “I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!” Akuchi joined the cursing chorus.

  Aika pnted her heel, focused, and thrust her sister away as I rose in the wreckage of Rui’s kitchen dishes. Shattered ptes y on the hard floor there. She came at me with a quick three-hit combo.

  A Jab—A Cross—A blinkingly quick hook—

  I blocked the first, dodged the second, but the third—

  WHAM

  Aiyaiyaiyaiyaiyaiyai!

  Her hook hit me right in the guts. Saliva leaked from the corner of my lips as her hook unched me across the room.

  I smmed into Rui’s rumpled up futon in the corner, bounced, and hit the corner, flopping onto the floor.

  Ume covered her mouth. “Oh nooooo—my poor Susu!” She ran to me, putting her hands on me, as though she might break out some kind of healing magic to help me recover.

  Natalia-sama nodded solemnly. “That one sounded very painful. At least it’s finished.”

  Rui stomped her foot, her eyes bzing.“It’s NOT OVER! I’m going to destroy you, AIKA!”

  She ran back and scooped up her Excalibur and charged with it drawn over her shoulder—

  Aika blinked and her eyes widened for a moment.

  She swiftly sidestepped and grabbed Rui by the colr mid-swing, lifted her slightly off the ground, and held her away like an angry toddler oni waving her club.

  Rui’s expression was exactly like a Yakuza’s. Her face could have rivaled my old face right then.

  “STAY OUT OF THIS, TWERP,” Aika snapped.

  “My office… my RULES!” Rui choked. “I WILL BEAT YOUR ASS!”

  She thrashed around and kicked and swung her bat. Aika evaded it all.

  Aika casually tossed her at me. I caught her in a hurry, hurting all over, especially in my guts where she’d hit me so hard. Rui, nded upside-down in my arms and wheezed.

  I staggered up, panting.

  “You shouldn’t treat your cherished sister like this.” I clenched my fist, gently setting Rui aside. On impulse I leaned over to offer her the only kind of comfort that seemed to work on her. I pnted a gently kiss on her forehead and looked at Aika with a fierce expression.

  Rui froze on the spot, her cheeks flushing way more than that little kiss should have warranted. It wasn’t even on her lips.

  I didn’t have any time to appreciate how cute her reaction was. My eyes locked onto Aika.

  “You don’t— huff —get to act like this in her home, Aika… Even if it’s yours too, you weren’t living here. You weren’t here for her. You should have shared your grief. Are you too dense to realize what you’ve done?!”

  Aika shrugged and merely cracked her knuckles. “I do recognize what you’re saying. But we never saw eye to eye. We can’t stand each other, if you hadn’t noticed, BAKA. You don’t understand the Shinohara family. This is how we do things.” She gritted her teeth at me. “Even if you have our st name, that doesn’t mean that you’re a part of this family!”

  “EXCUSE ME—?!”

  “You heard me, Sumire.”

  She charged.

  I swung at her, capitalizing. I saw a weak spot open up as she rushed at me.

  I thrust out with my punch and… she somehow slipped past it.

  She pressed both hands against my arms, gring at me and lowering one of her arms before punching at my guts—I barely deflected with a lifted leg but lost my bance and stumbled away.

  She kicked and I blocked it but the force rattled my bones.

  Rui yelled, “Susu, STOP LETTING HER WIN!”

  “Ugh—?!” I muttered as Aika’s heel grazed my cheek.

  Ghost Muscle Memory Reengaged

  For a few glorious seconds, we were equals…

  …Trading blows, countering, weaving between furniture that exploded under the pressure of our movements.

  The scene was pure chaos.

  As we fought, the truth was unavoidable…

  Without Ghost Muscle Memory I wasn’t anything special. I considered porizing the jade bracelet and using my Maneki-Neko Fist punches on her to end this quickly, but I remembered how hard I’d hit Ushi. The shockwaves would demolish Rui’s office. I couldn’t do that to her.

  The only way forward was to lose.“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.” - Sun Tzu

  Aika wasn’t just skilled.She was seriously trained.I was not. I was relying on a ghost’s memories of her training.She was disciplined.

  And very scary.

  I was struggling just to breathe right.

  Finally, she caught me with a perfect leg sweep. I colpsed to the cluttered tatami. Her followup strike was a controlled downward strike and a knee pinned my shoulder.

  I was ft on my back, panting, stunned and completely defeated.

  Aika leaned down, her hair falling over her shoulder, her eyes sharp as bdes.

  “Do you see?” she murmured. “This is what real training is like. This is what Father’s successor must be like.” She looked up and away. “I’m not impressed by you, Shinohara Sumire.”

  I gred up. There wasn’t much else I could do.

  She smirked as she rose and walked away.

  “You’re unworthy—”

  There was a weird clicking noise in the air.

  Aika’s eyes widened.

  A keening sound filled the air.

  Aika turned her head—

  —just in time to see the entire ceiling AC unit above her bulging with heavy condensation.

  Akuchi stood by the wall, having quietly loosened the screws with tiny, magical tanuki cws that could take any shape she wanted. She blew on her fingers as though they were gun barrels.

  Akuchi whispered with malicious sweetness and every bit of the cursing edge.

  “Oops.”

  SPLASH—CRASH—!!

  The AC unit broke loose and dumped a waterfall of ice-cold water and dusty ceiling debris. It all fell right onto Aika’s head.

  Aika shrieked and lost her bance. She slipped in the puddle of water and her legs shot forward, her face pnting in the tatami.Her skirt flew up.Her arms windmilled wildly.

  She tried to keep her bance, spinning like an off-balnce ballerina—

  Rui, Ume, Natalia-sama, Akuchi, AND I… all of us stared in expectation—

  Then Aika fell…… ft on her face in the puddle.… with a sound that shook the room.

  THUD

  …

  …

  “……………..OW.” Aika muttered.

  The fight was truly over.

  Aika had clearly dominated in our fight…… but the final fall…… her final humility…Thanks to some environmental sabotage…

  It left the outcome as a bizarre, cursed tie.

  Rui exhaled shakily.Ume fanned at her chest. She was too appreciative of the curvature of Aika’s butt. That perfect wedgie was still in effect.

  Natalia-sama whispered, “Such a wardrobe malfunction… Truly… an honorable mess…”

  Akuchi, smug as hell, transformed back into a civet and licked her paw triumphantly and tried to perch on Aika’s backside, but fell straight through.

  Aika slowly sat up, drenched and dusty, her skirt crooked, her pride completely shattered.

  She pointed at me with trembling indignation.

  “That—”She coughed.“That didn’t happen. That was cheating.”

  I rubbed my bruised shoulder. “A tie is still a tie, poor sport.” I giggled, despite the pain in my torso. It was centered below my ribs.

  “IT WAS NOT A TIE! I CLEARLY BEAT YOU!” Aika shrieked.

  Rui grinned wickedly. “It was. Accept your defeat with some grace. We all saw your ass in all its shining ‘glory’.”

  Aika sputtered, furious, humiliated, and dripping.

  “…I hate this office.” She gritted her teeth and pointed directly at me.

  “I will see you at the exam. I will destroy you there. We all know what will happen if we end up fighting against each other. Enjoy pretending to be my equal. You are NOT. I will destroy all your delusions. I swear it.” She clenched her fist and ran out.

  Everyone stared as she charged out the door. Her hips were swaying side to side. She still had that glorious wedgie…

  …And her skirt was stuck in its waistband.

  Rui fell quiet with a satisfied noise. “Everyone’s going to notice that in the street.”

  My nose started bleeding again. I couldn’t help it. I kind of wanted to follow her. My heart was going DOKI-DOKI madly. Ume rushed to me and snuggled up against me and climbed up me to gently p at the blood leaking down from my nose.

  My guts were on fire.