Nyamo and the Fight
by Miss Prince
"Hey, Sakaki-san?"
Sakaki looked up from the pad on which she was diligently--and quite unsuccessfully--attempting to draw Necoconeco. It was early afternoon, and the group was in Chiyo-chan's summer house, resting after a good lunch. The girls sprawled lazily on the floor while Yukari sprawled even more lazily on the sofa.
"What?"
Osaka continued, "How come ya always have them bandages on yer hands?"
Sakaki glanced down at the appendages in question. As soon as the bites healed, she always managed to get hurt again. A little embarrassed, she replied, "I--"
"I'll bet she gets 'em from street fights!" Tomo interjected enthusiastically.
"Wow," Osaka said.
Chiyo-chan turned watery eyes on Sakaki. "Is that true, Sakaki-san?"
Sakaki blanched. "Ah! No, I--"
"Yeah, she cuts her fingers on their teeth when she punches 'em in the face!" Tomo interrupted again, jumping up and jabbing at the air to demonstrate.
Yomi swept her leg into Tomo's shins, causing the faux-boxer to fall flat on her face. "Don't be such an idiot," she sighed.
Suddenly, a distinctly evil chuckle emanated from the sofa. The girls all looked over to see Yukari grinning devilishly. "I happen to know another girl who was a hell raiser back in high school."
Chiyo-chan immediately realized who the teacher was referring to. "Kurosawa-sensei got into fights?"
"No way!" Kagura exclaimed from her place at Sakaki's side, her fingers absently grasping Sakaki's forgotten sketchpad.
"Tell us about it, Yukari-chan!" Tomo yelled.
Yukari's grin got slightly wider and several shades more evil. "If you insist..."
Nyamo was a terror. The particular rumours varied from day to day, but they were always enough to ensure everyone gave her a wide berth. Even the teachers were afraid of her. Yukari--her smart, talented, and extremely good-looking best friend--was the only one who dared cross her, and even she knew she was dealing with a loose cannon.
Nyamo walked down the hallway, smirking as she watched kids scramble to get out of her way, averting their eyes and scuttling into classrooms to avoid provoking her wrath.
She spotted a kid sneaking past her out of the corner of her eye. Without even turning her head, she grabbed the front of his shirt and slammed him into a wall so hard his glasses tumbled to the ground.
The kid trembled in her grasp. "Wh-what do you w-want?" he asked timidly. He flinched as Nyamo stepped close to him, her face hovering menacingly mere inches from his own.
"You owe me money," she growled.
Bewildered, he replied, "For wh-what?"
"Protection."
Luckily, the kid was quick on the uptake. Not so luckily...
"Uh, I don't have--that is, er, I d-didn't bring any m-money today," the kid said clumsily, shrinking back and wishing the wall would open up and swallow him.
Nyamo shook her head and looked at him with mock-pity. "Well, that's just too bad," she drawled. Then she cocked back her fist and...
"Yukari! What the hell are you telling them!" The group turned toward the stairs to find an irate Minamo in mid-descent.
Tomo bounded over to her, obviously excited. "Whoa, Nyamo, that's awesome, keepin' 'em under your thumb like that!" She pumped a fist in the air. "Yeah! Don't take nothin' from nobody!"
"Didja really scare teachers and beat up kids fer no reason?" Osaka asked, also seeming disturbingly enthused by the idea.
"What? No!" Minamo maneuvered around Tomo and descended the rest of the stairs.
"Come on, Nyamo," Yukari said, "you used to get in fights all the time! You were a menace!"
"I was not!" Minamo fumed. "I got in one fight, and it was your fault!"
Yukari waved her off, ignoring the accusation. "Fine, fine. One fight. But nobody messed with you after that! Here's what happened..."
Yukari and Nyamo were eating lunch outside, as they frequently did on nice days (and one time in a thunderstorm, an occurrence for which Yukari had a perfectly logical explanation). Nyamo was laughing at a exceptionally witty remark of Yukari's when Kenji burst through the school doors.
Kenji was a third-year student--a year ahead of Yukari and Nyamo--and arguably the toughest guy in the entire school. He was tall and broad-shouldered with greasy, dark hair and a perpetual scowl. Anyone with half a brain steered clear of him; he'd sent kids to the hospital for looking at him cross-eyed.
Yukari was getting ready to high-tail it out of there like everyone else when she heard her best friend's voice ringing out across the yard.
"Hey Kenji!" Nyamo yelled. The brute turned and looked at her menacingly. Yukari turned and looked at her with alarm. Nyamo seemed unperterbed. "You and me, right here, right now," she challenged, her eyes glinting madly. "I'll take you down!"
"Hey!" Minamo exploded. "How can you lie that blatantly while I'm standing here? I'd never do something like that!"
"Yeah," Yomi muttered under her breath, "it sounds more like something Yukari-sensei would do."
"What are you talking about?" Yukari scoffed. "I never lie!"
Minamo stood speechless for a moment. But, recognizing the futility of arguing with that particular statement, she chose to ignore it. "I didn't just go around randomly picking fights!"
"Kurosawa-sensei, what did happen?" asked Chiyo-chan, who had become interested in spite of the fact that violence made her rather ill.
Minamo looked around at the group, who had all gathered in front of the sofa and were staring at her expectantly. Somewhat uncomfortable, she began...
Coming to the door, Nyamo could hear the loud and distinctive voice of her best friend yelling insults. She rushed outside to see what the commotion was about (although Yukari didn't really require a reason to yell insults).
She was quite startled by what she saw. Kenji, the biggest brute in school, had backed Yukari into a tree and was looking angrier and angrier with each passing second. Yukari, apparently oblivious to the danger, continued to taunt him.
Before Nyamo could move a muscle, Kenji lunged at Yukari--but, in his anger, misstepped and tripped over a tree root. He flailed and twisted in an attempt to regain his balance, but only succeeded in knocking the back of his head into the tree trunk--hard. He slumped to the ground, out cold.
Worried, Nyamo jogged over and knelt beside the fallen Kenji, carefully feeling the back of his head. There was a minor cut--which was bleeding, but not heavily--and a sizeable lump beginning to form.
As Nyamo stood, prepared to run for the nurse, the door opened. Out came a first-year--she couldn't remember his name--who froze in his tracks. He looked at Nyamo, then Kenji, then Nyamo again--or more specifically her hand, which, after touching the wound, had Kenji's blood on it.
Realizing what he was thinking, Nyamo opened her mouth to explain, but the kid cut her off. "Ah!" he squeaked. "Sorry, Kurosawa-sempai, I'll just--I'll go get the nurse!" Then he turned and scurried back the way he had come before Nyamo could say anything.
Word apparently got around fast, so by the time lunch break ended, people were starting to avoid her...
"That's a load of crap!" interjected Yukari. "You think these girls are going to believe a story that stupid?"
"It's the truth!" Minamo said defensively. "And the stories you were telling were absolutely ridiculous!"
Yukari pointed an accusatory finger at Minamo. "You already admitted you got into a fight," she crowed, "so everyone knows you're lying!"
She'd forgotten about that. She fumbled for a response. "Well, it was a lot more accurate than your version," she repeated lamely.
"Would someone hurry up and tell us what happened!" Tomo wailed.
"I'm trying!" Yukari and Minamo snapped simultaneously, then turned to glare at each other.
"Why don't you tell it together?" Yomi suggested reasonably.
There was a pause as the two teachers eyed each other suspiciously. "Fine," Yukari relented, and Minamo nodded.
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"Not at the same time!" Yomi yelled.
After shooting another glance at Minamo, Yukari took the initiative and tried again.
Yukari knew she was in trouble.
She'd made an offhand remark to no one in particular which had apparently offended Kenji. He'd dared her to say it again, and (naturally) she had, although she'd made it a bit more insulting the second time around.
Things had escalated from there. The other students nearby had quickly fled the scene, and Yukari was left to fend for herself. Kenji had backed her into a tree, and she was pretty sure she needed to stop in order to avoid severe bodily injury. However, despite her brain's recognition of the danger, her mouth wouldn't shut itself off. So the unchecked stream of words grew increasingly vulgar and personal until Kenji had just about reached the boiling point.
It was at this time that Nyamo (who had walked at a normal pace instead of sprinting through the halls like a maniac) arrived on the scene. One look told her that there was trouble. She hurried forward to diffuse the situation, but before she could get close, Yukari made a crack about precisely how Kenji's mother had conceived him, and that pushed him over the edge.
Kenji's fist whipped forward, delivering a lightning-fast jab to Yukari's stomach. She felt the wind forced out of her lungs and dropped to her knees, feeling nauseous.
Nyamo froze, horrified. Kenji, still enraged, raised his fist to hit Yukari again. Time slowed for Nyamo as she watched the blow begin to fall, and something inside her snapped.
She reacted without thinking. Nyamo leapt forward, hitting Kenji with a flying tackle and knocking him to the ground. She began to punch at him fiercely, and, taken by surprise, Kenji was unable to defend himself from the attack.
Kenji's reputation did have quite a bit of truth to it, however, so despite his initial surprise, he quickly threw Nyamo off him. Both hurried to their feet, Kenji watching Nyamo incredulously. Nyamo's common sense still hadn't kicked in, and she launched herself at him again.
Kenji dodged her wild blows fairly easily, then delivered a hard jab to her left eye. Nyamo staggered backwards, but she quickly found her balance well enough to kick Kenji firmly in the stomach.
Kenji barely felt the strike, and he grabbed her still-outstretched leg and pulled, regaining his balance and sending Nyamo tumbling to the ground. Her ankle twisted sharply as she fell, but she ignored it and rolled out of the way just in time to avoid the shoe aimed at her face. Then she scrambled to her feet again, almost collapsing as pain shot upwards from her left ankle.
By this point Nyamo's higher brain functions had started to return, and subsequently, she began to panic. She'd injured her ankle, her eye was starting to swell, and Kenji was a lot bigger than she was. She was going to get herself killed!
Kenji had a right cross aimed at her jaw. On a shot of pure adrenaline, she ducked under it and punched at his most vulnerable spot.
Kenji folded up, clutching at his groin, and Nyamo's other fist came up to smash into his nose, breaking it and releasing a torrent of blood. Kenji went down like a sack of bricks.
Nyamo stared at him in disbelief. Had she really just done that? The mighty Kenji lay sprawled inelegantly on the ground, blood still pouring from his nose. Despite the surreality of the situation, the throbbing of her various injuries assured Nyamo that she had not,in fact, dreamed the whole thing.
Suddenly, she remembered Yukari. Turning, Nyamo started to ask if she was okay. And then...
Both teachers were suddenly very quiet. All the girls looked at them expectantly, although Sakaki seemed rather pale and Osaka had her hands over Chiyo-chan's ears. The silence stretched.
"Well?" Tomo demanded. "What happened? Did Kenji get back up for round two?"
"Did his friends arrive and swear revenge?" Yomi asked.
"Didja get recruited into an all-girls athletic school in Anarctica to prepare for an inter-planetary sports competition?"
Everyone stared at Osaka, who stared into space. "Osaka, it was just a fist fight," Kagura explained as though she were talking to a small child.
"Yeah," Tomo piped up, "they aren't gonna let a delinquent compete for Cosmo Beauty!"
Her only response was Yomi's nonchalant but nonetheless painful thwack.
"Uh, no, we..." Minamo floundered. Yukari saved her.
"Nothing really," she said calmly. "We went to the nurse. Somebody found Kenji and hauled him in, too; everybody put two and two together, and most of them stayed out of Nyamo's way."
Minamo nodded a little too vigorously. "Exactly!" she agreed. "And they suspended me for a week; you girls should stay out of trouble like that." It was a pathetic attempt to inject some morality into the tale, but Minamo figured it was her obligation to try.
Chiyo-chan and Sakaki looked relieved. The rest showed varying degrees of disappointment.
"Aw, that's dumb!" Tomo complained. Then in a brilliant demonstration of her notoriously short attention span, she added, "Let's go swimming!" And within seconds she was racing down the beach, discarded clothing littering the ground behind her.
"Tomo!" Yomi called in exasperation, hurrying to catch up. The rest of the group followed at a more leisurely pace. Sakaki stopped for a moment to pick up her sketchpad, only to find that Necoconeco had been thoroughly pulverized by a stick-figure Nyamo, drawn in Kagura's distinctive style. She chose to leave the pad where it was. Yukari and Minamo were left alone in the living room.
After a moment of silence, Minamo spoke. "I can't believe we almost told them about our first kiss."
"I can't believe that was the story of our first kiss," Yukari said.
"Hey, I think it's pretty good," Minamo defended. "The forces of evil are defeated, and the hero gets the girl."
"Oh please," Yukari snorted. Reluctantly, she continued, "But you were pretty heroic - for a stupid future P.E. teacher."
Minamo let the half-hearted insult slide and leaned over to press her lips to Yukari's. It was a tender, familiar kiss; Yukari hummed deep in her throat and felt Nyamo's lips curve upwards.
Yukari pulled back with a happy sigh. "We'd better get out there before one of them gets killed. I don't want to be sued." Minamo chuckled and followed her out onto the beach.
Nyamo turned. "Are you-mmph!" Yukari kissed her fiercely, prying her surprised friend's lips apart with her tongue to explore her mouth more thoroughly. The gesture, though unexpected, was not unwelcome, and when Nyamo put her hands on Yukari's hips to support herself, she found herself pulling her friend closer.
After a long moment, they parted, gasping for breath. Nyamo looked at Yukari expectantly, waiting for an explanation.
And waiting.
And waiting.
"Your eye looks terrible," Yukari said finally. "You ought to get to the nurse."
Nyamo supposed explanations could wait for another time. She glanced back at the fallen Kenji. "What about..."
Yukari shrugged. "Eh, someone'll get him. Come on." She pulled Nyamo's arm over her shoulder, and the pair started slowly toward the building.
"Nyamo," Yukari said suddenly. The other girl looked at her. "That was...pretty cool."
Nyamo grinned, and together they entered the school.