Amaya had no idea if the guy called Isogai had even seen her and Reiko leave the Cafe, and right at that moment Amaya honestly couldn't care less. She walked silently with Reiko clinging desperately to her arm, leaving the pleasant silence of the cafe to the world outside with her insides boiling from the anger that had decided to bubble over.

Right now, it was all Amaya could do to keep her mouth shut, lest she upset Reiko any more than she already had been.

The group of five had evidently grabbed Yuta while he was on his way back from wherever it was he had needed to go.

This wasn't the first time someone had tried to take a swipe at the twins to draw her out, but it was the first time they had actually taunted her with the fact face-to-face like this. Normally, she'd receive a telephone call from one of their phones, and on the other end of the line was a smug, egotistical bastard giving her a time and location to come collect the children. Normally she was angry enough to put people in hospital when the twins were picked up by delinquents, but that was nothing in comparison to the fury she was feeling right now.

This might be the first time she'd beat someone to the point of breaking their spirit, too.

At Amaya and Reiko's exit of the Cafe, the group of high-schoolers grinned and began to lead the way wordlessly away from the vicinity. They began to walk towards an alleyway that lead south, veiled in darkness from late-afternoon shadows, leading the way to the blood-bath that they didn't know they were walking into.

Just like always, they wanted to bring this to a less-populated area.

It was an unfortunate fact that the twins were rather used to this - Used enough to it that they knew what course of action to take without Amaya having to tell them. It was safer that she didn't have to tell them what to do, and they just went on their own.

Because nobody would hear the plan before it was in place.

There was just one thing that Amaya had drilled into their heads as soon as they were old enough to understand. As soon as they were old enough to see that their big sister got into fights all the time, they were forced to learn how to run.

It was the one thing that Amaya wanted out of the both of them; They needed to be able to run fast, and far, as fast as they were possibly able to go.

The golden rule with these situations was simple in and of itself, and while they didn't like it, both Yuta and Reiko obeyed without question; Unless they were otherwise instructed, the one rule was to run to the nearest police station and have one of officers take them home. They weren't allowed to worry about Amaya, because while she would get bloodied up, she could take care of herself in a fight. She'd return home in mostly one piece, and life would continue.

She couldn't do that when delinquents with loose-morals had bargaining chips against her.

Their safety was her priority, and they understood that.

So, to avoid making things worse for Amaya, the twins obeyed without question.

Because while they were always terrified, they trusted in their sister to do what's best.

Amaya and Reiko followed the walking dead far enough into the alleyway where nobody would notice the commotion, where Amayas feet fell motionless, and Reiko hid herself behind Amaya's rigid form. Her bag was secured in place, ready for the desperate run for the police station.

Noticing Amaya's halt, the group of delinquents slowed to a halt. The one holding the strap of Yuta's backpack cast a mocking smile over at Amaya.

'Ooh, got cold feet, 'ave we?' He questioned, his deep voice inflicting uncomfortable shivers down Amaya's spine. 'Come on, Girlie, a bit further down we've got the whole gang waitin' for ya.'

Amaya stood her ground, despite the terrified whimper that escaped Reiko's trembling form.

'I will, on the provision that you release my brother and his belongings.' Amaya reasoned.

'Not yet.' He responded with a grin. 'Don't want ya runnin' off b'fore the fun's started, do we?'

Amaya inwardly swore, though she didn't let it show across her face - These idiots were new, or rather just new enough to not really know of her enough to take her words seriously.

If it was any of the more familiar assholes in their gang, they would have just dropped Yuta and threw the bag aside.

'Fine.' Amaya ground out, glancing at Yuta from the talkative corpse. 'Toss me his bag, then.'

There was a few seconds worth of silence before he decided to humor her - He threw Yuta's bag right at Amaya's head.

She let out a small huff as she managed to catch the bag, and held it out to Reiko.

'You know the drill.' Amaya said softly to the terrified girl, her stern gaze watching the way she struggled to nod as she took ahold of the bag.

All of this bullshit because these assholes knew that the Katsuragi siblings were on their own.

She wondered if the only way she'd stop them from picking on her family really was to commit murder.

If that really was the only way, then she really was considering it.

As she obeyed the incessant demands of the dead, Amaya began to calculate just how many skulls she was going to have to smash in to deal with this reoccuring problem.

Hayashi's gang was in total, around thirty strong. But they were usually pretty divided up, depending on what day it was.The members that were in their last year of middle school usually hung around with Hayashi and his two mooks on weekdays, while the rest roamed around doing their own thing. If the whole gang was here, that was thirty something people she had to incapacitate, but if Hayashi's lot were absent because of normal routeen, then Amaya was looking at about fifteen if she was lucky.

Normally she'd antagonise them with words to infuriate them, make them act on stupid anger so that their reactions were slower and they didn't think so clearly on their feet, but right now Amaya just wanted to murder people, and right now it looked like she might be able to vent that boiling anger at long last.

Words were lost on her right now.

As she followed the high-schoolers deeper into the alleyways, a sense of nervous tension began to fill the silence - the shorter two that hadn't spoken were growing rigid, and they seemed to glance back at her almost fearfully.

Maybe they were beginning to realise they'd picked a bad day to make her mad?

Once again, Amaya slowed to a halt, where Reiko hid behind her once again.

This time, the delinquents seemed to understand that they weren't going to get Amaya to come any deeper within the alleyway - The one that had hold of Yuta's bag at first actually turned to begin to approach her, while the other four watched.

'Close your eyes, Reiko.' Amaya whispered softly.

'Ya know, if ya don't comply, we're gonna harm ya lil brother.' He spoke scathingly, cracking his knuckles as he continued to walk right up to Amaya. 'Think've ya lil brother, why don't ya? Disobeyin' us like this is just gonna mean we rough him up a lil.'

Amaya remained silent with her gaze fixed upon his haughty face, her hands at her sides straining as she fought to remain motionless.

Reiko whimpered yet again from behind Amaya, though she didn't move.

The delinquent came to a stop right in front of Amaya, leaning down so that his face was just a few inches away from hers. He grinned toothily at her, his foul breath wafting over Amaya's face.

'Ya don't want that, do ya? Girlie?'

Before the delinquent even knew what had happened, Amaya's hands lunged up to wrap suffocatingly tight around his throat, her right knee lifting to slam with all her strength right into his groin.

A choking scream escaped the delinquent as her knee contacted, and her hands tightened hard enough where she was cutting off his air-supply. His hands clawed at her arms to try and pry her hands from his throat, however she had gotten the jump on him - His eyes grew distant after several seconds, and his struggling began to die down as his breathing slowed.

His gang-members watched in horror as his arms fell limp at his sides and he crumbled to his knees, almost at a loss of what had just happened.

They were unfamiliar with her, which meant they were unfamiliar with the concept of a middle-school girl being fully capable of incapacitating a high schooler almost twice her own size.

'Damn it, you bitch!' One of the others shouted as Amaya released her hold of the unconscious delinquent's throat.

She lifted her gaze in response to approaching running as the fallen delinquent slumped to his side at her feet.

Two of the smaller high-schoolers had thrown themselves into a dash towards her, the closest - a blonde - high schooler pulling his right arm back to take a swing at her, while the other - a red-head - tried to circle around.

'Wall! Now!' Amaya shouted over her shoulder as she threw herself forward in a sprint, startling the blonde in front of her as Reiko did as she was told.

Amaya threw herself into a lunging jump, her hands slamming hard against his temples as the bottom of her feet slammed into the front of his shoulders. As the blonde became disorientated and lost balance, he began to fall backwards. Amaya threw all of her strength into kicking off of the front of his shoulders on the way down, slamming his head into the concrete with a blood-curdling thwock, knocking him out cold.

The red-head had tried to circle around her again as she landed with her feet on the fallen blonde's chest, however Amaya had noticed him just as he grabbed ahold of her right wrist.

Feeling her anger beginning to take control of her reactions, Amaya stomped her right foot right on top of the delinquent's own, before her other hand slammed hard against his solarplex.

He stumbled backwards as a choking gasp escaped him, his grip of her wrist loosening just enough for Amaya to rip her arm free, and with as much strength as she could muster, she threw a roundhouse kick right into the guy's face.

His nose broke on impact, and with the continued motion, Amaya spun into a backwards elbow thrust directly into his solarplex.

She felt bones bend from the force, and before she could look back at him, he fell to the ground in a gasping heap. She threw the heel of her right boot into his forehead, knocking him unconscious.

Shouts began to echo from further down the alleyway, and as Amaya snapped her gaze up to the tall brunette that still had his hold of Yuta, she noticed that the last of the group of five had run off to get help - She could see his silhouette stumbling down the alleyway, and hear his desperate screams for help.

'Now, you have three options.' Amaya spoke as she straightened up, cracking her knuckles as she began to casually walk towards the nervous high-schooler. 'First, you release my brother right now, and I let you run off to save your own skin.'

'No way.' He seethed, despite the nerves she could see ricocheting off of him.

'Second, you don't let my brother go, and I'll rip your hands right off him, breaking your fingers and ripping the flesh from your hands in order to do so.'

Amaya didn't fail to notice the volatile flinch that shot through the brunette in reaction to her words.

'Or third, you let go of him and face me like you actually have a pair of balls.'

'How about you just give up right now?!' The delinquent responded defiantly.

'Too bad! You just chose option two!' Amaya spat, throwing herself into a power slide behind the frightened delinquent.

She threw a backwards foot sweep as soon as she had slammed her hands to the concrete, knocking his balance off centre.

However that was as far as she got - all of a sudden bricks came hurdling towards Amaya, crashing to the ground in front of her. Amaya managed to throw herself back towards Reiko's trembling form in time to avoid a brick to the back of the head.

'Well, that was close!' Echoed a familiar voice all of a sudden, causing Amaya to lift her gaze to glare at the intruding presence.

She found herself staring at Hayashi, a pained grin across his face as the brunette still holding Yuta backed up to find safety in numbers.

'Oh? Discharged from Hospital, already?' Amaya questioned, keeping her gaze upon the delinquents as she edged back towards Reiko.

'Yeah, this mornin' actually.' Hayashi responded with that same, pained grin. 'Gotta admit, I've been itchin' for another go at you for all the trouble you put me through.'

Amaya guessed he was feeling a lot of pain from the ribs she rebroken.

'Reiko - You need to go.' Amaya spoke to the girl over her shoulder.

'What?! But what about Yuta?!' Reiko cried out in disbelief.

Amaya spared the tiniest glance back at her before she spoke. The girl was wide-eyed with fearful alarm, her hands clutching at Yuta's backpack as she tried to stop herself from trembling.

'I'll get him out of this just fine - You need to go while you still can.' Amaya spoke, her glare returning upon Hayashi's grinning face.

She could see that some of the other delinquents were watching suspiciously, as if they were expecting the two of them to suddenly run away.

If that was the case, then they were only half right.

'O-okay!' Reiko squeaked out, throwing herself into a run before Amaya could have even responded.

'Damnit - She's getting away!' One of the suspicious delinquents shouted as he threw himself forward to give pursuit.

'Ignore her- We've got the brother, remember?' Hayashi ordered, causing the group to look at him in confusion.

'But the kid could be calling for help!'

'Y'see, we don't function that way.' Amaya spoke up, rolling her shoulders to work out the kinks as she began to approach the group of nine delinquents standing ahead of her. 'Normally, I'm just fine with slugging the tar out of some deserving shit-heads, but right now I'm breaking that in preference for something worse.'

'Oh?' Hayashi seemed to chuckle at Amaya's words. 'And why's that?'

Amaya sucked in a deep breath as she let her body hunch forward slightly, her eyes narrowing upon Hayashi as her hands clenched at her sides.

'Yuta, close your eyes!' Amaya called out, taking note of the sudden flinch that overcame Hayashi. 'Keep 'em shut, no matter what!'

'Oh fuck...' The delinquent let out as he edged away from her. 'You're already at your limit, aren't you?'

Amaya grit her teeth as she saw Yuta listen to her, and close his eyes.

Amaya threw herself forward into a dash towards Hayashi, her right arm pulling back in preparation of a right-hook straight to the blonde's jaw.

However a wailing shriek of a voice caused Amaya's body to lock up and slide to a halt right in front of Hayashi.

'S-stop right now, o-or I'll slit his throat right now!' The tall brunette holding Yuta shrieked out in terror.

'What the hell are you doing!?' Hayashi yelled frantically. 'Drop it! Don't you dare-'

Amaya's eyes widened as she slowly turned her head towards the terrified delinquent.

He was trembling from head to toe, one arm wrapped around Yuta's chest below the shoulders, while his other hand held an opened pocket-knife with the blade pressed against Yuta's throat. Much like the good boy he was, Yuta still kept his eyes closed and remained limp in the delinquents grip, however the knife to his throat caused Amaya great distress.

Her eyes zeroed in on the beads of red that were beginning to trail slowly down the blade, and every ounce of control she had crumbled within her.

Amaya felt the world around her begin to break down around her.

'God damn it Ryoji! Let the kid go right now!' Hayashi yelled desperately as Amaya slowly straightened up from her frozen position. 'You don't understand what you're actually doing!'

Her heart began to pound in her ears as it picked up, her mouth going dry at the sight that was before her.

'Back off! I'm warning you!' The delinquent evidently called Ryoji threatened as he tried to stumble away from Amaya.

'You're going to die if you don't let him go! RYOJI!!' Hayashi roared, throwing himself forward to grab ahold of Amaya. 'I TOLD YOU TO LET GO OF THE BOY! RIGHT NOW!'

It was as Yuta let out the faintest of whimpers that Amaya consciously realized that the boy was in pain.

It was the very second that she recognised the blood to be Yutas that she finally snapped.

A deafening yell of anger echoed as Amaya threw her head backwards into Hayashi's jaw, his arms falling from Amaya's thrashing form as Ryoji stumbled away as quickly as he could.

Amaya's body tore straight towards Ryoji in the moment she had regained her footing, her left hand closing tightly around the blade of the pocket-knife as her other closed around the front of his throat, her fingers digging into the skin viciously enough to draw blood.

She had lucid recollection of the delinquent at her mercy releasing both Yuta and the pocket knife in preference of prying her from his throat.

The last she recalled to hear was Yuta's dispersing running steps before her brain stopped functioning altogether, and her pent up anger had something crunch against her hands.

Her conscious world went black, yet she could still hear everything.

She was engulfed by the water inside her world boiling inside her, her insides screaming for relief that her body was eager to obtain.

Again, she felt an impact and felt something crush against her hands.

And then again.

There were jostling movements here and there, sudden impacts that should have hurt her, but in reality, she barely even felt the movement.

Another crunch echoed through the darkness, followed by a far, distant sound that didn't make sense to her.

The one thing she did recognise in the darkness that had engulfed her consciousness was that of approaching footsteps - Running footsteps.

'Amay! Stop!' Yuta's voice yelled out through the dark, but she couldn't stop herself - She didn't know what she was doing, but even though it was clearly causing him distress, she didn't want to stop. 'Stop it Amaya! Please!'

But then all of a sudden she was grabbed from behind, one arm wrapping tightly around her chest while the other pressed firmly over her eyes and pulled her backwards, away from whatever she was in front of. It was a restraining grip, with more force than she appreciated, but at the same time it was familiar too.

It wasn't immediately intended on stopping her from harming anyone.

It was intended to stop her from stepping over that line she came so close to crossing, yet again.

To stop her from doing something she'd regret later.

'That's enough, Mama-Bear.' Came the familiar voice that could always calm her down, echoing softly against her ear. Karma's voice reached her through the darkness, bridging the gap between her consciousness and her body so she could bring herself back in control. 'You're really going to kill them at this rate.'

'I want them dead!' Amaya heard herself seeth, her body still straining against his hold of her.

However she heard Karma chuckle, and his grip of her tightened just a little more.

'But are you fine to do that with Nagisa-kun watching?' He asked her. 'I won't stop you if that's what you really want - But both Reiko-chan and Yuta-kun are still here, you know?'

Amaya sucked in a deep, trembling breath, screwing her eyes shut as she tried to calm herself down. Her body wanted nothing more than to actually kill these idiots that continued to try and use her siblings against her like they were objects. She wanted to make sure that these creatures never came near her kids ever again.

Even if it meant making sure they never saw the light of day, again.

However if she did kill them right now, Yuta and Reiko would be left without anyone to look after them.

She'd be harming them instead of saving them.

Amaya gave in and the anger began to evaporate from her, her body slumping within Karma's restraining hold as she finally regained control.

She felt his hand lift from over her eyes after a couple of seconds.

'I-is she alright? Karma-kun?' A meek voice spoke up from somewhere behind Amaya, however she found herself too exhausted to really care who it was at that moment.

She finally opened her eyes again, to see what had really happened around her.

There were many of the delinquents lying unconscious on the concrete around her, many of them with broken bones, some with split skulls. Some were even lying in a small mess of blood on the concrete.

But the one thing they had in common with each other was the fact that they were breathing. Even the unconscious slab of meat belonging to Ryoji lying in front of her had a pulse and breath. Not a single one of them were dead.

There was no sign of Hayashi, however.

Amaya eventually looked down at herself, taking note of the blood that was slowly trickling down her arms and face.

It was much darker than the last she remembered - The sun was still out, but just barely.

Twilight was going to start, soon.

Amaya felt numb - so much so that she felt like there was something seriously wrong with her.

Well, she knew there had to of been something seriously wrong with her to have a slip of anger like that.

There had to be something wrong with her to feel nothing, and yet there was blood trailing down her body.

The only explanation Amaya could come up with was the possibility that expelling so much anger in such a short time had addled her, numbing her body down from all the rest of her sensations and emotions.

Eventually, Amaya realized that she was still slumped against Karma, and he hadn't let go of her - In fact, if he let go of her now, she would crumble to the concrete immediately.

She tried to move, to regain her footing and support her own weight, but her body felt strangely lame despite regaining control of herself.

However she couldn't find any ability in herself to dislike her current situation.

A faint, almost exasperated chuckle echoed in the last of her hearing as her world blacked out completely this time.

'You've seriously got to stop falling for me, Amay.' The taunt was missed on Amaya as she passed out within his grip. 'You idiot, girl.'

---=[Authors Note]=---

And here's Chapter Nine submitted in the same night :) I'm on a roll! A bit shorter than my other chapters, but I think it's okay (I hope it's okay, anyways :) ) I really like writing conflict, lol!

Anyways, lemme know what you think, and I'll see about getting another chapter done in the next few days or so.

And just one translation word this Chapter.

Kowasu - Translates as Break Down, which is really appropriate for this chapter, I think ;) Written as 壊す in Japanese