Shortly after the explosions that began around the time when Hana and Botan found Yanagi, reinforcements from the Association arrived in droves, so the situation seemed to be coming under control.
Aoi and Arashi being sent on shade-extermination duty certainly helped; especially Arashi, who was apparently accomplishing more than Hana had expected. The shades Kazura had gathered were all strong ones; even the practitioners assigned to security struggled to fend them off. Arashi, however, swept the campus clean of their presence. The practitioners lauded his efforts, happy to have an inugami’s strength on their side.
But then, when they handed Kazura off to the Association Headquarters staff, it happened. As though he were waiting for this moment, Kazura broke free of Yukizasa’s binds and made a break for it. He extended an arm to Hana and grabbed her from behind. Hana had let her guard down and failed to resist, allowing Kazura to capture her.
“Hana!”
Saku let his panic show.
“Leeet meee gooo!”
Hana tried to break free, but she couldn’t match this man’s strength. As she flailed around, a small spider appeared before her eyes.
“A spider?”
The spider attached itself to the back of Hana’s hand and bit.
“Ouch!”
The pain was sharp, but it was followed by something far more unnerving rushing through her veins.
“Ah… Guh, agh…” Her hand was shaking, and not by her own control. “What did you…?”
Hana turned her pained expression toward Kazura; she was met with a dark, twisted gaze.
“Kazura! What did you do to Hana?!”
“Saku, you recall what it is that I specialize in, do you not?”
“Curses…”
“Why, yes, and this is the kind that can only be dispelled by the victim or the practitioner who cast it…not that a student like Hana could ever hope to do so.”
An angelic warmth emanated from the devilish smile on Kazura’s face. Saku aimed a level of fury at him that Hana had never seen before.
“Kazuraaa!!!”
But it didn’t change Kazura’s happy-go-lucky mood.
“Ooh, how scary. Anyway, if you allow me to leave, I’ll be so kind as to dispel the curse. Though I’ll need to keep Hana with me until I feel I’ve made it to safety. If Hana can survive that long, that is.”
“You bastard!”
“Saku, calm down!”
Yukizasa stepped in, but he barely kept Saku from lunging at this monster. Hana couldn’t see much of it; the awful feeling infesting her was stifling her breath and blurring her vision.
“Cur…se…”
Yes, that was the word she’d heard. And there was some familiarity to the sensation of this power. Hana racked her brain, desperate to remember where.
It was that time when Arashi returned home after a brief absence. When he’d tried to save those animals who were being used for a curse and wound up receiving the curse itself; yes, this was the same dangerous feeling as when she’d saved him back then.
Hana recalled that pressure, that disgust, as she steadied her breath and concentrated. It was nothing complicated; she’d gone through this before. She only had to deal with it the same way she’d done with Arashi.
Slowly, slowly, Hana began to peel off the curse from within her. She was overcome with agony as she proceeded, enough to nearly make her faint, but she clenched her hands hard enough that her nails dug into her skin, and she hung on.
And then, once she had torn it all off, she forced it outside of her. The instantaneous rush of fresh air filling her lungs made Hana cough.
Kazura watched with great amazement and interest as Hana wheezed.
“Impossible… You dispelled it by yourself…?”
“Don’t you…try that crap on me…”
Even while gasping for air, Hana still glared daggers right through her captor.
“Ha-ha… Ah-ha-ha-ha!”
Kazura placed a palm to his forehead and laughed. Nobody could tell what he was thinking; even with his curse dispelled, he appeared positively ecstatic. And then he looked at Hana with a sickly sweet gaze of adoration.
“Oh, you’re good. I want you.” He ran a finger across Hana’s chin. “You’re sick of this practitioner world, aren’t you? You must know the indignity of being used by the incompetent. With you by my side, I feel like I could have the world in the palm of my hands. So won’t you be mine?”
“With all due disrespect, I decline.”
“Hana’s mine!”
Saku shouted this as though to drown out Hana’s low-volume refusal.
“Saku, let me have this sweetheart. I’ll take good care of her.”
“Don’t go smooth-talking Hana. I’m not giving her to you!”
Saku felt like he wanted to go for this guy’s throat for a whole different reason now.
“Lemme go already!”
The way Hana’s glare showed no fear or hesitation, the way she refused to back down even while captured, it all stirred Kazura’s fascination to greater heights.
“Doesn’t that resistance make you want her all the more?”
“I can agree with that, but I already told you, Hana’s my wife!”
“Don’t agree with him!”
Saku shouted valiantly, and Hana took issue with how valiant he thought he was.
It was hard to tell if the tension in the air was thick or thin, but it was easy to see that Yukizasa was fed up with it.
“Hey, Saku. You’ve got better things to do than argue, don’t you?”
Saku finally came to his senses and launched a mass of concentrated power at Kazura an instant later. However, Hana quickly sensed that Kazura would set up a barrier to block it with ease, so she pulled out a party popper from her pocket, aimed it at Kazura, and tugged the string.
With the roar of a thunder crack, the popper blasted Kazura with a power many times stronger than what Saku had sent his way.
“Guh!”
Kazura reflexively covered his face with his hands, letting Hana go for just a moment. Saku didn’t miss that chance to take Hana back into his arms.
“Hana, are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine. Glad this came in handy.”
“What the heck is that?”
“It’s something Kikyou gave me, saying to use it whenever you try assaulting me. I think she made it while practicing for the Campus Cup.”
“You were gonna point that sorta lethal weapon at me…?”
The corner of Saku’s lip twitched after he saw its power firsthand, but Hana laughed it off.
“But hey, it worked out pretty well for self-defense, so all’s well that ends well.”
“You only had one of those, right?”
Hana averted her gaze.
“Don’t ever use them on me.”
“Sure…probably.”
She had no intention of using them as long as Saku kept his hands to himself.
Hana looked toward Kazura. After getting a face full of Kikyou’s specially made talisman, he was quickly bound up again. And not just by Yukizasa’s power, but by that of the multiple practitioners on the scene. He wasn’t getting out this time.
Lastly, they wrapped some sort of paper slips around Kazura’s neck and wrists.
“Saku, what are those?”
“They’re talismans that nullify a practitioner’s power. They’re used for practitioners who commit some sort of crime. You can’t call your shikigami with those on, either.”
“Didn’t know they had those…”
It looked like there were still plenty of talismans Hana didn’t know about.
While they were fairly certain Kazura wasn’t getting away at this point, everyone still kept their guard up as they carried Kazura away. But at the end…
“Let us meet again, sweetheart.”
Kazura looked back at Hana with the flame of obsession in his eyes and left them with an ominous good-bye as he was carried off.
Once he had vanished completely in the distance, Hana finally let out a sigh of relief, and Saku hugged her close.
“You’re sure there’s nothing wrong?”
“I said, I’m fine.”
“Well, I was worried sick. No normal person could dispel one of Kazura’s curses. But somehow, you…”
Saku stopped himself and turned his gaze toward Hana.
“You’ve dispelled a curse before, haven’t you?”
“Wh-wh-what are you talking about? Of course I’ve never done that. I’m just a student and all.”
“Then why did you just stutter?”
“You imagined it. Ah, I’ve gotta get back to my classmates. There might still be shades around, so we gotta take out any we find, yeah.”
Hana changed the subject and headed toward the arena to escape Saku’s questioning.
“Hey, Hana!”
She covered her ears, refusing to listen to any more lectures.
It was hard to call everyone safe, but even with this case solved and put behind them, the commotion it caused didn’t leave anyone in the mood to continue a school festival, so the remainder of the event was canceled.
Campus One was supposed to finally have that Campus Cup victory that they’d worked so hard for, so a lot of students were disappointed to hear it wouldn’t be recorded. Nozomu and Kikyou in particular were on another level of devastated. However, while the incident didn’t incur any casualties, it certainly did cause a lot of damage, so nobody felt compelled to complain.