13. Circus Charlie (22)
13. Circus Charlie (22)
It hadn't taken Mickey long to admit Karen outclassed him. This underground space was his own prearranged battlefield, and yet she was trading techniques with him as an equal.
With the sand pit as their arena, the two ground acrobats grappled and strained to throw each other down, their contest evoking the feel of a wrestling match. In truth, the core skills of Ground Acrobatics—rooting oneself to the earth, redirecting force—overlapped considerably with wrestling's principles.
He let out an involuntary sound of admiration when Karen bent backward 120 degrees at the waist and, without so much as touching the ground with her hands, snapped her upper body upright like a whip. He'd spent minutes on psychological feints, all to destroy her balance by exploiting a weight shift—he hadn't imagined she could recover her stance from that position. In pure Ground Acrobatics, her skill was on par with Charlie's or Ella's.
When no opening presented itself after a long back-and-forth, Mickey reached for a cheap trick he used to pull on the girls when he was little—thrusting his hands toward an opponent's chest or between their legs. His older sisters and their friends always went red-faced or froze up and lost their composure. The moment that crack appeared, he'd have them slammed onto the ground.
He let a greasy smirk spread across his face, wiggled his fingers pointedly, and shot both hands toward Karen's chest and inner thighs.
She'd flinch. She had to flinch.
But Karen didn't give him a twitch. She watched him close in with utterly placid eyes. He realized his mistake and tried to pull back, but by then it was too late. Calmly, she caught both his outstretched arms, wrenched them behind his back, climbed on top of him, and dropped her full weight to finish it.
The sand jumped with a heavy slam.
It was a hollow ending to what had been a high-level exchange of skill. Karen didn't stop at his arms—she folded his legs backward too, locking him down so thoroughly he had no chance of rising again.
"What, that's it? You were so obvious I thought it was a trap."
Mickey felt her pin his hands and feet under her hips and let out a yelp.
"What the—hell, you're pushing down there? Have you got no shame? Are you even a woman?"
Seeing the flush spread across his face, Karen finally caught on to what he'd been aiming for and let out a snort.
"Wait, that was your play? Aw, you little punk, that's adorable. I am a woman. Look—nothing attached, see?"
"Gah!"
She smacked her own crotch through her palm a couple of times and Mickey shrieked. Karen burst out laughing at his reaction.
"Pff-haha, you were aiming for that and you're the one making a scene? You thought that would rattle people? Kid, I take baths stark naked with the guys from our troupe to this day. This is nothing. I've spent a decade rolling around on mats with old-timers in tights, huffing ball sweat."
Karen rattled off a stream of colorful crudeness she'd never have let slip in front of Maya, cackling all the while.
"Jesus. What kind of woman... urk!"
She pulled a handful of ribbons from her coat, bound his arms and legs, and slung him over her shoulder before heading back toward the spot where they'd split off from the others.
Just as she reached the catacombs' entrance, someone emerged from the opposite passage. She dumped Mickey unceremoniously on the floor and ran toward the figure.
"Maya! Are you all right? Oh my god—what happened to your hair!"
Mickey stared at Karen in disbelief. The way she simpered and cooed around Maya was the polar opposite of the gruff, blunt-as-a-hammer persona she'd displayed down below.
Maya touched a few of the severed strands and answered in a flat voice.
"A stray knife, looks like."
"Ooh! What bitch dared throw a knife at my Maya? I'll go back and—"
"Don't bother. I won. Why'd you bring him?"
Maya's gaze shifted to Mickey. He'd been staring mesmerized at the skin and hair that glowed with a mysterious white light even in the darkness, but the moment their eyes met, his face went red and he snapped his head away.
"Ahaha, the place I fought him had sand flowing downward, you know. I figured if I left him there, he might get sucked under."
"He's one of the people who kidnapped the Troupe Leader. Let him die."
Karen's voice went a shade softer at her cold reply.
"Uh, w-wait, you didn't kill your opponent, did you?"
"I didn't."
"Oh, good. For a second I... did you get anything out of them? Their objective, anything like that?"
"No."
Karen studied her friend's unchanging expression, made a pouty face, then suddenly grinned like she'd hatched a mischievous idea and leaned in to whisper.
"I picked up a few things while fighting this guy. He said the Troupe Leader kept asking about you during the kidnapping. Only you."
Color shifted across Maya's face for the first time. Her lashes fluttered, she glanced sidelong at her friend, swallowed dryly, and drew out her words.
"...Really?"
"Pfft, pff-haha! Memory Disk! Does anyone have a Memory Disk? I want to preserve that expression forever... pff-hahaha!"
Karen doubled over and rolled on the floor. Maya, realizing she'd been played, leveled a frigid glare at her.
"You... it was a lie."
"Eeek—Maya, I'm sorry! Put me down! I can't stand being off the ground like this—I get anxious!"
It wasn't until Reina returned a few minutes later that Karen, dangling upside down bound in telekinetic chains, was lowered back to the floor. Maya dropped her and turned.
"What happened with your opponent?"
"She fell into the reservoir below. It was a long drop, but... the bottom was water, so she's probably alive."
"Did you learn anything about the Troupe Leader..."
Karen sprang upright, rubbing her rear from where she'd hit the floor, and wedged herself between them.
"R-right! Reina, when I was fighting, this guy told me something—the Troupe Leader kept asking about you during the kidnapping. Only you."
Maya started to scold her for trying the same dumb prank again, then reconsidered and shut her mouth. How would Reina react?
"That's a lie."
Reina saw right through it. Karen let out an embarrassed laugh, flicked out her tongue to signal defeat.
"Ahaha, y-you got me. How'd you know?"
"The woman I fought told me. The Troupe Leader came along because they'd told him they'd kidnapped Ella. He had no choice."
Reina shared what she'd learned. When Karen heard they'd dared to abduct not just her benefactor but her friend as well, she boiled over with curses and bounced on her heels demanding they go after them immediately, but Maya coolly assessed the situation.
"High probability it's someone connected to the school."
"Basis?"
"They mobilized instantly after the incident, and used hidden locations beneath the school. That's not possible without an insider who knows the grounds well."
"But why would someone from the school..."
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the passage, from a direction they hadn't come from. The three exchanged glances, and realized simultaneously that one person was not among them.
"Ruelo."
"Oh, right! Our youngest!"
"I-I told her to wait right here..."
Reina couldn't hide her agitation as she looked around.
"Who took which of the four kidnappers?"
"I took the little one."
"I took the woman in clown makeup."
"Mine was a woman too..."
Karen counted off the kidnappers in her head and did the subtraction.
"Wait. Then the big guy got Ruelo?"
Reina's face drained to match the white of the mask she wore.
"Sh-she didn't get—she's not hurt, is she?"
The footsteps were right on them.
The three stopped talking and stared into the dark. A figure resolved itself, and they exhaled in relief. It was a small girl in a chick costume.
Ruelo was walking toward them, one hand clutching an egg tart the size of her own head. She'd been so absorbed in stuffing her cheeks to bursting that she only now registered the older girls staring and froze mid-step. She must have been so focused on eating in the dark that she hadn't heard their voices.
"Gulp... um, do you guys want some? I've got a lot."
The four reunited briefly exchanged their accounts and learned that each had overcome her assigned opponent in her own field of expertise. They'd known Ruelo's raw strength was unusual, but hearing she'd subdued a strongman several times her size in a maze of traps still stunned them.
"So, Luri... do you always carry those around?"
Reina had been watching Ruelo dig snack after snack out of her backpack as they talked. She'd demolished enough food in minutes to last an ordinary person days.
Luri rubbed the back of her head, face red.
"W-well... I'm just hungry. After you use your strength, you know how you just keep wanting to eat?"
Wonderstein's modifications had granted Ruelo power most people couldn't even imagine, but the energy for that power didn't come free. She had to eat her work back. The reason the others hadn't noticed this side of her before was simply that she'd rarely had occasion to exert that much strength consecutively.
Now reunited, the four resumed tracking Wonderstein. They searched the remaining passages and soon spotted wheelchair tracks on the floor.
As they descended, Karen threw questions at the bound Mickey.
"Who are you people? What's your connection to Rekachev?"
"Are there more of your friends down there?"
"What other traps are set?"
"Why'd you kidnap the Troupe Leader and Ella?"
Mickey stayed silent through the first questions, but the last one made him open his mouth.
"We're friends from Ella's hometown."
"Hometown friends? All of you?"
"Yeah. There was a circus school back home."
"Then why kidnap her?"
The memory of that day a year ago surfaced, and Mickey grimaced as if in pain before forcing the words out.
"Revenge."
"Revenge?"
A massive blast shook the passage. It came from close by.
"Run!"
They bolted, all earlier caution about traps forgotten—in a situation like this, hesitation meant being buried under rubble.
The passage groaned and collapsed behind them the moment they cleared it, sealing the entrance.
"Huff, huff—what was that? That impact?"
"I don't know. It sounded like something massive hit the wall..."
"Another one of your traps?"
Karen seized Mickey by the collar. He shook his head frantically.
"No, we didn't set up anything like—ah!"
Mickey's eyes, scanning the cavern for Ella and Charlie, locked onto one spot. Everyone's gaze followed. And what they saw turned them rigid.
"T-Troupe Leader?"
A horrified whisper broke from Reina's mouth.
Wonderstein lay collapsed on the floor, drenched in blood. And standing over him, Ella had a gun aimed at his head.