Chapter 100 - As The Ninth Month Ends, And The Tenth Month Begins

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Merry Christmas y'all. 

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"AAAHHH!!!" Yoshiko is startled awake by a man's scream coming from outside.

"NooooO!!!" Another scream follows, from a woman this time whose voice she immediately recognizes; one of the babysitters.

She immediately storms out of her room, flies down the stairs, and flings her front door open.

She is immediately stunned by what she is seeing as she steps out to her doorstep.

The light from the outdoor lamps allows her to see a man laid out in her patio, which she immediately recognizes by his chef's clothes.

"I-Ichiki-san…" She then hurriedly approaches the fallen Ichiki, but as she gets closer, she realizes that Ichiki is lying on his own pool of blood.

Her stomach sinks and she step back in fear.

The next moment, the safety of the children comes to her mind. She then looks at the direction of the children's house across the road, and her heart drops seeing five more bodies leading to it, which she recognizes as the other servants.

She is about to sprint to the children's house when she sees a suit-wearing man step out of its front door, carrying the unconscious Osamu, and lays the child next to a pile she now recognizes as the other adopted children, all also unconscious and tied up.

She immediately runs to the man at an incredible speed and throws a punch his way.

The man easily dodges her punch however while sticking out his foot, making her trip and fall.

"Oh? You should have stayed in bed, missy." She hears the man say.

"W-who are you?" She immediately gets up and assumes a stance.

"Hey! Come here for a second! We missed one!" Instead of answering, the man instead calls out to someone from inside the children's house.

Yoshiko watches the children's house's front door, and sees a woman, wearing black pant suit, which she assumes is the man's partner, carrying an unconscious and tied-up Chihiro out of the house. 

"Huh. I thought we had them all." The woman casually says as she lies Chihiro together with the other children.

"WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!" Yoshiki asks in fear and anger.

"AND WHY DID YOU KILL THEM?!" She asks, seeing the fallen bodies of the servants.

"We are what you can call professional kidnappers. And as for why we killed the adults? They were in the way." The kidnapper simply shrugs at her.

"Y-yo…" Yoshiko takes a deep breath, to think quickly.

She knows that the kidnappers do not seem to want to hurt the children so she is assured of the children's safety for now. As a non-superioris, she also knows that she will not be able to run away even if she wants to. Not from people who killed the superiori servants.

So, she decides to fight and hopefully buy time for Fumio, Kotone, or Red's arrival, in case they were called by any one of the servants before the servants were taken down.

"H-h-h-h-haAAH!" She immediately throws a chain of karate punches to the male kidnapper, landing most of them squarely on the man's torso.

"Oooff!" The male kidnapper's knees buckle for a moment and he retreats a few steps back.

"Ohoh… Looks like she has some spunk in her." The female kidnapper claps for Yoshiko.

Yoshiki too is stunned by how fast she just moved, but she gets over it quickly as she sees the male kidnapper pats his torso, obviously brushing off her punches.

"Yes, she does. I guess I can have fun before I kill her." The male kidnapper says with a grin as he slowly approaches Yoshiko.

As soon as he gets in Yoshiko's range, Yoshiko throws more attacks, and with kicks this time.

The man meanwhile easily parries each and every fist and leg she throws.

Yoshiko, while starting to feel discouraged at the man's defense, proceeds to pull out everything she can use from the kata sets she has learned in the past six weeks. Karate chops, punches, knees, kicks, and every combination and order of those strikes she can think of, she throws them at the male kidnapper.

A minute later, her discouragement deepens as she disengages for a short breather.

Most of her attacks were either evaded or deflected. Even though she landed a few, they did not land squarely, only grazing her opponent.

"Is that all you can do?" The male kidnapper taunts her.

"…" Yoshiko responds by resuming her attacks.

"No, no. My turn this time." The male kidnapper dodges her kick before throwing a left jab.

Yoshiko is startled at the speed and she retreats her steps, luckily in a way that allows her to dodge the next few quick jabs that followed.

She quickly concentrates hard, and tries to take in every movement of the male kidnapper.

Then, she executes the footwork from her katas, allowing her to dodge more of the male kidnapper's punches.

Shortly after however, *ssss* she is grazed on the arm by one of the punches, and the pain slows her down.

This allows the male kidnapper to land a punch on her gut.

*oooff* Air is knocked out of her and she is immediately floored.

"Alright. Enough." The female kidnapper calls out.

"How much fun can you squeeze out from someone who doesn't know how to fight?" She asks.

"Hah. That's rich coming from you." The male kidnapper returns with a scoff.

"You-!" The female kidnapper gets offended.

Yoshiko is surprised by the sudden banter of the two.

"Okay. Fair enough. But I'm not the one looking for fun, am I?" The female kidnapper asks.

The male kidnapper has nothing to say.

"So, just kill her, please?" The female kidnapper asks dismissively.

"You heard my partner." The male kidnapper then pulls out a hunting knife from the inside pocket of his jacket.

A chill climb up Yoshiko's spine, seeing the glint from the knife's blade.

While thinking of what to do, the male kidnapper turns his head once again to his partner.

"Can I have more fun?" He asks.

"Tight schedule. We still have… 14? 15? More kids to round up tonight." The female kidnapper says.

"We-…" As the two kidnappers banter, anger is building up in Yoshiko's heart.

She figures that if she is going to die, she wants to do something that will matter, something that will make it hard for the kidnappers from abducting her students, and other children.

She pounces on the male kidnapper, who is not paying attention to her, grab his knifed hand, and proceeds to tackle the man to the ground.

The kidnapper's hold on his knife loosens, and this allows Yoshiko to yank it out of his hand.

With the knife on her hand, and a superioris under her, she suddenly feels a sense of power. A power over a superioris. 

The memories of the abuse, the harassment, and the transgressions she suffered under superiori's hands, flash in her mind. The anger she has been suppressing comes out and fuels her to drive the knife down to the male kidnapper.

Unfortunately for her, *thck* the male kidnapper easily catches her hand, stopping the knife point just a few inches away from his chest.

"sssss…" Yoshiko hisses as she uses her other hand to push down the knife.

No matter how hard he tries however, the knife will not move any lower.

"NN-noooO!!!!!" She howls in great frustration, as the feeling of powerlessness washes over her.

"Okay… I'll take the knife now." The man says as he yanks the knife out of Yoshiko's hands quite easily.

Earlier, Yoshiko felt that she had the chance of taking down the male kidnapper as long as she got a lucky strike in, or if she catches him off-guard, but now, with the strength that she is feeling from the man's body, she feels totally helpless and defeated.

No matter how hard she exerts her full strength on pushing the man down, she is still helplessly pushed aside, and quite gently at that.

"I think we should stop this." The male kidnapper says as he detaches himself from Yoshiko's hold.

After standing up, he tosses the knife away, surprising Yoshiko.

"Yeah. I think we should. I feel bad now." The female kidnapper says.

Yoshiko is even more confused seeing the apologetic expression on the woman's face.

"W-what are you two…" She cannot even form a question.

The kidnappers however, know what she is possibly thinking.

"It's me." The male kidnapper says as he touches his collar, making him transform into Fumio.

"*gasp" Yoshiko's eyes widen in disbelief.

It is not until Fumio offers his hand to her, that she snaps out of it. She takes Fumio's subconsciously, and pulls herself up to her feet with it.

The female kidnapper meanwhile joins Fumio and Yoshiko. She also touches her collar, and she transforms to Kotone.

Yoshiko is shocked again, seeing Kotone.

"Everything's okay…" Kotone assures Yoshiko.

"Yeah... B-but… B-ut…" Yoshiko frantically points at the fallen servants who she assumed dead, but the next moment, she sees them stand up one by one.

She is assured that they are all fine as they even wave their hands at her in greeting.

"T-the kids?" She then asks.

"They're fine. Just sleeping." Fumio assures her.

Yoshiko spaces out for a few moments, and after she processes the situation, her legs turn to jelly, making her fall to her knees, and "*sob*", she starts crying out of relief.

"It's okay… I'm sorry, Yoshiko." Kotone also drops to her knees to console Yoshiko.

"I knew it was a bad idea." She then glares at Fumio.

"Well…" Fumio is speechless.

He gave Kotone a choice whether to participate in the act or not, and Kotone chose to join in. He wants to argue, but he knows he also did wrong.

"Okay. I'm sorry." He can only apologize.

"*hic*B-but why? *hic* Why did you all do this?" Yoshiko asks in between sobs and hiccups.

"Okay. First of all. This was Boss's idea." Fumio wants to wash some blood from his hands with honesty.

<>

A few minutes later, in Yoshiko's house.

"So… You, Kotone, and Kichirou-san… and now, me… We're not really superiori?" Yoshiko has now calmed down, and her righteous indignation for all the people involved in making her have a break down, has passed. Her eyes are still red from crying earlier however.

"No, we are not. My former clan leader even tested my blood with a magic talisman, and it was negative." Fumio confirms.

"Wow… THIS FLIPS EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT PEOPLE ON ITS HEAD!" She exclaims.

"Okay… Okay." Fumio backs off.

"We know…" Kotone smirks, understanding what Yoshiko is going through.

"Okay… Wait a minute…" Yoshiko is reminded of something.

"But why did you have to use the children on the act?" She asks.

"Boss' idea. Everything was his idea. And if you acted along the way boss expected you to act, you have passed his test." Fumio explains.

"A test?" Yoshiko frowns.

"Yeah. I don't know why he had to do it this way, but it's best if you ask boss yourself." Fumio says.

Yoshiko notes the suggestion in her mind.

"How about you two transforming? Can I do that too?... How about … ? How about that?" She then  resumes her questions.

The three are in for a long conversation that will last until sunrise.