As his sword dug into his opponent's arm, Kiyoshi quickly looked back to ensure his actions had had the desired consequence. To his relief, he saw that the pellets had indeed missed, and were now embedded in the wall and floor behind them. He prepared to swing the other sword whilst his opponent was unprepared but, before he could, all hell broke lose.
First, a strange, black, tattoed woman that felt strangely familiar appeared out of nowhere and, summoning several wolves, ordered them to surround their attacker. On seeing the wolves, created from magic much like his mother's, he had a brainwave.
Oh, what about Kuro?
Halting his attack, Kiyoshi commandeed the little shadow monster to hop out of his pocket and onto his arm. Whilst Kuro was usually very small in order to not drain Kiyoshi, if enough prana was added he could grow larger. And, whilst Kiyoshi did not have anything like his mother's prana supply, he had enough to sustain a moderately-sized shadow for long enough to block any further attacks.
Before he could add extra prana, though, the door flew open once more, and the blonde woman who Kiyoshi has been told was called Forest landed in the centre of the room, obviously very unhappy at what had occured. Angrily, she rose up in an intimidating manner.
"Everyone had better stop this right now or I'm going to be pissed", she shouted.
Then, turning to Kiyoshi and Taiga, she said, "Are you two okay?", before pointing at the others.
"Now, the three of you had better tell me who the sodding hell you are", she said. "You, I figure you're with Sakura and the kids. I can smell you on them. These two wankers had better start explaining before I completely lose my patience."
Before Kiyoshi could reply, though, Taiga spoke up.
"That man tried to kill Sakura and Connor", she said, truthfully.
Then, the other two introduced theirselves, before the idiot who had attacked them spoke up.
"Well, first off he's not what he seems. And second off, fuck you you dark skinned bitch. Bring it, I'll fucking eat your dogs alive!" he said.
Kiyoshi wondered what he meant by "he's not what he seems". Connor did give off a slightly odd sensation, but he seemed perfectly nice to Kiyoshi.
"Well, I'm your new tenant I guess. Just cleaning up the neighborhood, keeping the streets safe, and oh yeah, getting shot at by the Crimson haired cunt for no damn reason", he added.
Kiyoshi scowled at that. How the guy could claim she had no reason to shoot when he had shown up with a gun and threatened them was beyond him. And he was clearly not someone who cared that there were children present, either, judging by the language he was using.
"Oh, and someone take the swords away from the little kid, he could poke his eye out with them", he said, finally.
At that, Kiyoshi couldn't contain himself any longer.
"What do you mean by that?", he shouted angrily. "What did you expect me to do, stand there and watch you murder my sister's friend?"
They continued speaking, discussing the situation amongst theirselves. Finally, Forest turned and addressed him.
"Nice job, but next time use the blunt of your blade to deflect a blow. Using the edge could have killed him, and no good superhero kills people. Well, Batman doesn't kill people."
Kiyoshi frowned slightly. He would never kill a good person, but as far as he was concerned killing bad guys was perfectly acceptable to defend yourself or others, or if they were simply not saveable.
"But he attacked my family without provocation, so he's a bad guy. Sometimes you have to kill bad guys", Kiyoshi said in a matter-of-fact way.
"Plus, I didn't try to kill him, I just cut his arm. That's not fatal. If he didn't want me to do that he shouldn't have attacked us."
They continued to talk, Connor explaining why their attacker had seen fit to do so. Finally, their opponent lowered his weapon. Apparently it was a misunderstanding after all, he seemed to have assumed Connor to be some kind of monster. Kiyoshi sighed with relief. Apparently this guy wasn't quite so much of a bad guy as he appeared.
Thank God I didn't kill him, Kiyoshi thought.
Maybe Forest did have a bit of a point after all. Working out who was a "bad guy" wasn't always quite so simple....
Suddenly, there was a clanging sound. Forest moved towards the door, letting go of their former opponent. Turning to the rest, Kiyoshi spoke.
"I'm sorry for calling you a 'bad guy', whoever you are. I didn't realise this was a misunderstanding, and you did attack my family.
Anyway, now that's settled, should we get inside? I'm hungry and I want to get to bed", Kiyoshi said, yawning.
