The Duchess {OHSHC}

Chapter 5

The thumping of something falling to the floor woke me from my light slumber, thus waking my sleeping companion as well.

Ritsu groaned and sat up slowly while I, being the ever cautious and remarkable person that I am, sat straight up, all evidences of sleep gone form my features.

It was still dark inside and outside, and checking the clock on the wall informed me that there were still many hours to be had before Tetsuya would come to wake us.

"Wuzzat...?" Ritsu slurred, not yet fully removed from the clutches of slumber. "Wuzz goin on...?"

I shushed him, placing a perfectly manicured finger on both our lips and listening intently.

It was faint, but I could hear it.

The mechanical beeping of a time bomb.

My eyes widened.

"RITSU, DOWN!" I shouted in English, grabbing him and rolling us both off the side of the bed opposite from where the beeping was coming from.

We barely touched the floor when the bomb exploded, knocking us and the bed against the wall. The thick mattress was the only thing that saved us from being torn apart by shrapnel and other random objects that once decorated the room. It was miraculous that it happened to fall over us in the first place.

When everything finally stopped trying to impale us, I scurried out from under the mattress, pulling Ritsu along with me.

My childhood friend's room as a disaster. It looked like a war zone.

"Shit..." Ritsu growled. "I thought we settled things with Tetsuya's family!"

Speak of the devil and he will come. Tetsuya ran into the room, the door having been blown away, and gasped at what he saw. Like the good servant he was, he ran to check on his master first.

"Tetsuya, I thought this shit with your family was settled!" Ritsu shouted as the dirty blonde man checked him over.

"I-it is, young lord!" He stuttered. "Besides, my family would never resort to bombing sleeping people! They have sense enough to know not to!"

I raised an eyebrow. By the way they were talking, it sounded like Tetsuya was once the leader of a yakuza group, like Ritsu, but it was hard for me to understand at the moment. Why did I feel dizzy?

After confirming for himself that my red headed friend was unharmed, Tetsuya moved on to me. Why is it getting harder to stand, I wonder?

"Lady Duchess-tono, you're injured!" I heard the dirty blonde servant shout, but it seemed distorted.

I furrowed my brow in confusion as both males began to fuss over me and looked down at myself. Sure enough, blood was soaking my sleeping kimono from a wound in my side. There was a shard of metal protruding from the wound and I furrowed my brow further.

My ears were ringing and I felt no pain as I gripped the shard and pulled it out of my side, causing more blood to flow than before.

"Oh, would you look at that." I muttered as I held the shard to the moonlight, my head dizzying further and my vision blackening. The metal piece was like an iceberg, hiding most of its size in my body. What I had thought of as just a little shard turned out to be a scrap of metal a little more than half as long as my forearm.

"Lovely..." I muttered, my consciousness finally failing me as I fell forward.

-*-*-*-

The teen sighed as his phone went off, waking him.