Hakuouki: Hitsuzen (SSL)

How They Met

"You really don't remember him?" Chizuru asked Sumiko, looking concerned. "He seemed to really like you..."

"I have absolutely no idea why that would be..." Sumiko said, sweat-dropping. In her experience, guys tended to avoid her like the plague once they knew she was a yankee. And if that didn't do it, they would be scared off by how strong of a fighter she was because it made them feel inferior. "He can't know me that well if he's still that 'interested'..."

"He told me what happened when I asked him why he would offer to pay your hospital bills," Koudou said, looking serious. "Chizuru, will you go buy Sumiko some coffee?" he asked, pulling out his wallet and handing Chizuru the right amount for the drink.

"Huh? But..." Chizuru said. She wanted to hear what happened, too.

"Please," Koudou said, pressing the money into her hand.

Chizuru frowned but nodded obediently. She accepted the money and left to carry out the task.

"It happened like this..." Koudou said, launching into the story once she was gone.

««« Flashback «««

Kazama was walking with Shiranui and Amagiri late one night when he was sixteen because he had a craving for a certain novelty ice cream bar and felt like getting it himself. They were walking on a sidewalk between the road and a high wall of cement blocks, when a group of three girls about Kazama's age stepped out from around the corner. One was armed with a lead pipe, another had a wooden sword, and the third had a baseball bat that had nails sticking out of it. They all wore yellow ribbons tied around their arms.

"Drop everything you have of value, and we'll let you go with a light beating," the girl with the wooden sword, who seemed to be the leader, said with a nasty smile.

"Hmph. You don't know who you're dealing with," Kazama said, unfazed. "I'll give you to the count of three to make yourselves scarce." He, Shiranui, and Amagiri could defeat them easily, but he wasn't into beating up women and would prefer not to do it when it wasn't absolutely necessary.

"Hah! Who do you think you're talking to? This is Yuki-onna of the Yellow Cards!" the girl with the lead pipe said proudly.

"She doesn't look like a 'snow woman' to me," Shiranui said. "Besides, if you're the 'Yellow Cards', why are you wearing yellow ribbons? Shouldn't you be carrying cards instead?"

"Sh-Shut up!" the girl with the bat snapped as their faces flushed with anger.

"YAHHHH!" the girl with the lead pipe shouted as she charged at Kazama, who was closest.

It all happened in a matter of seconds, but to Kazama, what came next seemed to happen in slow motion. At the same time the girl with the lead pipe took her first step forward, a girl came over the top of the wall and jumped down. He watched with slightly wide eyes as the skirt of her sailor-style uniform floated up around her, revealing that she had shorts with a tiger stripe pattern on underneath it. He hadn't sensed her presence at all. The newcomer landed lightly on the sidewalk between him and the girl with the lead pipe. Her shoulder-length brown hair whipped out behind her as her dark eyes narrowed, and she spun around to deliver a roundhouse kick to the lead pipe girl's diaphragm. It was an instant K.O. The lead pipe fell from the unconscious girl's hands as her body was sent flying past her fellow yankees.

A fifteen-year-old Sumiko straightened up and looked straight at the remaining two girls.

"Oh? I see the Yellow Cards have stooped to mugging. Your community is going to hate you if you keep this up," she said calmly.