Fighting Boy Meets Girl

"Worse!" insisted Kaname. "He talked incessantly without ever actually saying anything. I did him the favor of going out with him and everything, so you'd think he could find at least one interesting thing to talk about."

Like you? thought Kyouko. His father's a designer, he's got a friend in the J-league—seems interesting to me. To avoid trouble, though, she just said "Uh-huh."

"I mean, there's the life of Zhuge Liang, the pollution in the Pacific, religious strife in the Middle East—"

"Uh-huh."

"Are you even listening to me, Kyouko? Or are you just saying 'uh-huh'?"

"Uh-huh."

"Stop that, Kyouko! The least you can do is listen to my postdate recap. After all, you're the one who introduced him to me."

"He asked me to."

"If someone asked you to sell me off to Macao, would you do that, too?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Ha ha! You brat," Kaname said fondly.

As the school came into view, they could see a line of students extending from the front door.

"Oh man, security searches," groaned Kaname, the victim of many random bag and pocket searches.

"Yeah, it sure is. You don't have anything illegal, do you, Kana?"

"Not unless they outlawed books over the weekend." Indeed, Kana had several books she'd borrowed from friends: Living Like Zhuge Liang!; Warning of the Dolphins—So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish; and Marvels of Archeology: Did Moai Write the Dead Sea Scrolls?

"As long as you're not smuggling a bomb or guns," quipped Kyouko.

"Give me some credit. What kind of idiot brings weapons to school?"

There was a great commotion from the front of the line, where the teacher, Miss Eri Kagurazaka, grilled one of the students.

"Do you really think you can get away with something like this on your first day here?"

"No, ma'am. I don't mean to cause trouble."

"Until you show me the contents of your bag, you may not enter the building."

"But…"

Although the boy seemed unnaturally calm, he also emitted an air of immense confusion and a desire not to be the center of attention.

"Who's that? I've never seen him around before."

Although he had the same stand-up collar as everyone else, he maintained a real sense of mystery about him.

It was safe to call the boy handsome, but his tight-lipped mouth and alert eyes indicated an extreme sternness slightly undermined by his messy black hair. Although he was thin, he looked pretty athletic, as if he participated in an active sport, like judo.

"Just open the bag, bub!"

Fed up, Ms. Kagurazaka slapped the bag out of his hands.

"Wait…"

"What do you have in here, anyway? I'll bet there's cigarettes!" She thrust open the bag, pushing aside notebooks, textbooks, and a smattering of writing utensils—and uncovering an Austrian-made automatic handgun with three ammo magazines. There also was a tube of explosives, several detonators, some stun grenades, a tiny camera, and a length of piano wire.

"Young man!"

"Yes ma'am."

"I don't know what school you came from; but around here, we confiscate toys like these."

"Excuse me?"

"Please wait in the staff room. It's almost time for class!"

All the onlookers laughed and moved on their way.

"Gross—he's a military nut," opined Kaname. "That gives me geek chills."

"He looks like he might be interesting," declared Kyouko smartly.

Poor Sousuke Sagara. Though he was at home on any battlefield and had been raised in international conflict zones, on a high school campus, he was a clueless moron.

Perhaps the security is tighter here than I had guessed, thought Sousuke as he and Miss Kagurazaka walked through an empty corridor.

At first, when she asked to search his bag, Sousuke thought he might have failed the mission already. After his weapons were confiscated, he resigned himself to following the teacher to the basement, where he assumed they would interrogate and beat him.

But then, as all the students submitted to the search, he realized that it was routine.

Wait a minute. Does that mean that a lot of students bring small arms and explosives to class?

Sousuke quickly looked around, but he didn't see anything to support or negate the idea.

If all the students were armed, it would make the bodyguard mission a bit more complicated. That meant it was conceivable that anyone, even the volleyball team walking down the hall, could be carrying submachine guns.

Sousuke was not overly concerned, however, because Kurz Weber was in an M9 Gernsback, camouflaged in a grove of trees behind the school. If Sousuke called him on his miniature wristwatch radio, the M9 could be there in about ten seconds.

"Urzu Six, what's your status?" whispered Sousuke into his watch.

"Tired and hungry," Kurz replied into Sousuke's hidden earpiece. "Need beer."