Manga and book Ikumi Mimura is two years younger than Shinji, but I messed with her age to make her younger since it fits the story better.

"So the dumbass PAID you 10,000 yen to stand next to him for five minutes?" Hirono Shimizu asked incredulously.

"Yup," Mitsuko said, counting the bills. "I swear, who needs education when I can make a living off stupid, desperate guys? 'Cept this one really WAS a desperate idiot…"

"Damn! Does he need any other help?" Hirono asked with a chuckle.

"Never thought I'd see the day when Shinji Mimura couldn't get a girl he liked," Yoshimi Yahagi said incredulously. "I mean, every girl in school—cept for us, and Takako, I guess—is like in love with him! Why'd he pick YOU, Mitsu?"

"Hell if I know," Mitsuko rolled her eyes, "But who cares. Anyone up for a manicure?"

"Sure," Hirono and Yoshimi agreed. Mitsuko stood up, but apparently didn't see Hurricane Takako coming.

"YOU BITCH!" Takako screamed, and proceeded to tackle Mitsuko in mid-air, causing both of them to go soaring towards the ground.

"AAAGH! GET OFF ME!" Mitsuko shrieked, having been caught off-guard therefore rendered useless. "Hirono, DO SOMETHING! Get her the fuck off me!"

Hirono carried a pocket knife, but honestly speaking she was too scared to get within range of Takako's murderous fury and Amazon-like strength, despite the fact that Mitsuko was being pulverized.

"OW! Get off, you crazy bitch!" Mitsuko screamed, landing a punch on Takako's face and trying to throw the enraged girl off her.

"Yeah! Chick fight!" yelled some guy from another class.

"Woo! Take your top off!" his friend cheered.

Takako was so angry she was getting careless, and Mitsuko was able to kick her off. However, Mitsuko Souma wasn't one to go down without a fight in return, so she promptly stood up, avoided Takako's punch and hit her in the stomach.

"What the hell's your problem!" Mitsuko shouted, shoving Takako off her.

"FUCK YOU!" Takako screamed back, tackling Mitsuko into the ground and cocking her fist back, to smash into Mitsuko's face. Mitsuko yelped and jerked her head to the side, and Takako's fist hit the ground. Mitsuko sprung her legs upward and kicked Takako in the stomach, knocking the crazed girl off her.

"ARE YOU TWO USELESS BITCHES GOING TO DO ANYTHING!" Mitsuko screamed at Hirono and Yoshimi, who were hesitant to join the fight despite their loyalty to Mitsuko. Both looked on with awe as the two girls beat the living daylights out of one another, Mitsuko's strikes evolving from self-defense to intended death as her anger increased.

By now, there was a huge crowd gathered, most of them boys who heard two of the prettiest girls in the school were currently beating the hell out of each other. Yoshimi was covering her eyes with her hands, and Hirono was considering stabbing Takako in the leg when she got close enough, although she missed the opportunity about seven times now.

Finally, Shogo Kawada, the tough exchange student with the scar, broke through the crowds and hollered, "ENOUGH!"

Takako and Mitsuko didn't seem to notice, although the now-terrified bystanders stopped screaming lewd remarks instantly.

Shogo rolled his eyes and with one hand grabbed each girl by her arm, pulling them off each other. Both girls' faces were bloodied and bruised; Takako's skirt was torn from her waistband down, and the left arm of Mitsuko's blouse had been ripped off. Takako's injuries were mostly scratch marks and bruises, aside from a few large chunks of skin missing in her left arm, clearly from Mitsuko's long nails. Mitsuko had been beaten worse, and was bleeding quite a bit.

"You're scaring the birds!" Shogo growled. "Clear off, all of you!"

Mitsuko jerked her arm free from Shogo. "What's the matter with you! I swear to God, if this is about god damned Mimura—"

"What about Mimura!" Takako shouted back.

"I'm not dating him for real, you dumb bitch! He paid me 10,000 yen to pretend to be his girlfriend to make YOU jealous! He's too pussy for my tastes anyway!" Mitsuko shouted, and without another word, stormed off. Yoshimi and Hirono exchanged nervous glances and followed after her, Yoshimi picking up Mitsuko's abandoned bag.

"TAKAKO!" Hiroki cried, seeing Takako and Shogo, who hadn't left yet. "What happened!"

Takako looked like she felt like she was the recipient of the 'stupidest person of the year' award. Finally, she said, in a low voice that terrified Hiroki and Shuuya more than her yelling ever would, "Did you two forget to tell me something?"

"Takako, you ran off before we could—"

"Mimura paid Mitsuko to pretend to be his girlfriend to make me jealous," Takako said calmly, wiping her bloody face and wincing. "And guess what else she said?"

Too afraid to ask, Shuuya and Hiroki stared at her, hoping she couldn't smell fear.

"SHE DIDN'T SAY THIS, BUT YOU TWO ARE THE DUMBEST IDIOTS I'VE EVER MET! DON'T YOU GIVE ME THAT LOOK, HIROKI, YOU COULD'VE SAID SOMETHING TOO!" Takako yelled furiously. "WHY DIDN'T YOU IDIOTS TELL ME HE WASN'T REALLY DATING HER!"

"We didn't get the chance to," Shuuya said quickly, "But hey, at least you got to beat up Mitsuko, right?"

"Oh for the love of God, is this about all the Mimura bullshit that's going on!" Shogo groaned, apparently giving up on his bird watching and pocketing his little whistle. "I don't even know the guy, and I'm sick of hearing about this bullshit! Mimura this and Takako that—" He glared at Takako. "I assume you're Takako?"

"Yes, I AM," Takako scowled, "And I'd shut your mouth if I were you, jackass, because—"

"She means, thanks for breaking up the fight," Hiroki said quickly, not wanting to antagonize the huge guy, but Takako punched him in the arm angrily.

"No, I don't! Shut up and don't talk for me!" Takako said furiously, and turned to Shogo, jabbing him in the chest and poking raw muscle. "I appreciate you getting Mitsuko away from me before I killed her, because I'm not in the mood to go to prison for the rest of my life, but—" she scowled and let out a loud groan. "I'm yelling at the wrong person. I'm sorry, Kawada."

"No, please continue, I love being screamed at by girls half my height," Shogo muttered, rolling his eyes sarcastically. "I've seen it all, don't mention it."

"If we paid you enough, would you beat Mimura up for us?" Hiroki asked, looking excited.

Shogo seemed to be considering the offer. "How much?" he asked.

Takako scowled. "I'm not going to hire someone to beat Mimura up, that'll be a waste of money, I'd just do it myself," she snapped.

"I've got an idea," Shogo piped up. "But you might not like it. Takako, Mimura's brilliant plan to make you jealous by using Mitsuko backfired in his face, because you found out, right? Well, what if you tried the same thing back at him, but made it more convincing? For example, the guy you were pretending to go out with was convincing too?"

Takako frowned. "I don't wanna stoop as low as Mimura did. Besides, it wouldn't work."

"Sure it will," Shuuya said brightly, grinning at Shogo appreciatively, "if you act it out right."

Takako frowned. "The whole point of this is to end this stupid charade, the last thing I want to do is encourage it—"

"No," Shuuya interrupted, "the conditions for victory have changed. The new goal is to get you and Mim together for good this time, so you stop fighting this stupid war. Now, c'mon, what do you say? Want to give it a shot?"

"Depends," Takako said. "Who's going to be my pretend boyfriend? No offense, but Sugi's nowhere near good enough an actor—"

"We're not talking about Sugimura, Takako, we're talking about someone else. Someone who, if Mimura sees you with, will drive him so insane he'll completely lose his mind and you'll have him at your mercy," Kawada told her.

"I do like the idea of that," Takako admitted. "Alright, I'll bite. Who do you have in mind?"

Kawada grinned and pointed. "This one here."

"ME!" Shuuya wailed.

Shinji shook his head angrily, trying to clear the burning thoughts in his head but failing. He still felt guilty; he tried thinking about everything he could think of, literally, but everything wound back to Takako with tears in her eyes.

He literally felt like shit. Takako was so tough, so strong, so unbreakable, and the thought that he of all people had been the one to breach her toughness and make her cry was really twisting at his insides. Feeling like he was going to be sick, Shinji decided to go home where his conscience could at least torment him in the privacy of his own room. He got up and trudged in the direction of his house, when an enraged, deranged bloody mess jumped in front of him.

"YOU!" the mess shouted, and Shinji recognized it to be Mitsuko. "YOU REALIZE WHAT YOUR PSYCHO GIRLFRIEND DID TO ME!"

Shinji gave her a blank look, which apparently pissed Mitsuko off even more. "She attacked me, that's what!" she snarled. "Thanks to your stupid plan, she went crazy and took it out on MY face! Lucky for me I know how to fight, or I'd be dead right now!"

"What'd you do to Takako! You better not have hurt her!" Shinji retorted, before he was able to stop himself.

Mitsuko looked like she'd quite like to kill him. "I knocked the shit out of her," she informed him, "but if she EVER—EVER—EVER comes within 10 feet of me again, I swear to GOD I'll hire someone to kill her, and believe me, I'm perfectly capable of carrying that threat out, because I already did it to my mother—I mean, uh, DO YOU HEAR ME, MIMURA!"

"Whatever," Shinji said, and Mitsuko, enraged that her threats didn't seem to be having much of an effect, pulled her fist back and punched him clean in the face.

Shinji's nose hadn't fully recovered from the last punch to the face he'd received less than twenty-four hours ago, but he barely felt the crunch of his nose or the blood oozing from it. He shoved past her, ignoring her screeching, and continued on home.

Before going inside, he hastily wiped the fountain of blood coming from his nose on his sleeve, not in the mood to be questioned about what happened. Instead, the blood left a bright red stain on his white school shirt. Luckily, nobody was home except his little sister; once again, Shinji rolled his eyes in disgust at the ridiculous antics of his parents, who left a nine-year-old little girl at home alone, but today he was glad to escape the interrogation from his mother about whether or not he'd been fighting again.

"Hi Shinji," Ikumi Mimura called from the couch, waving at him. "Guess what?"

"Whatever it is, I'm sure I don't care," Shinji said shortly, and hated himself even more for being nasty to the only human being who was currently talking to him, his little sister of all people.

Ikumi's face fell and once again his insides churned with guilt for the dozenth time that day. "Sorry, Ikumi," he told her, coming to sit on the couch next to her. His sister was possibly the happiest kid he knew; if anyone would cheer him up, or make him feel a bit less pathetic, it'd be her. "I just had a bad day. What's up?"

"Mommy and Daddy are fighting again," she told him, "but that's okay, since Mommy told me I could stay here with you until she got back!"

"Mom left?" Shinji asked incredulously. "Great. Where's Dad?"

"I dunno. He said something about another lady and a hotel," Ikumi said, looking at him curiously. "Shinji, are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," Shinji told her, scowling. "I had a bad day, let's leave it at that."

"You're always mad," Ikumi whined, "and you never wanna play anymore."

Guilty feelings were back. "Alright, what do you wanna play?" Shinji asked, desperate for human contact.

"What happened to your nose?" she asked suddenly.

Shinji's hand went to his nose automatically. Seeing his hand was covered in blood, he yelped. "Oh, SHIT!" he swore angrily. "God dammit! That bitch broke my nose!"

Remembering his sister was watching him, he sighed. "Uh, Ikumi, I've got an idea for a game, let's play 'Let's go to the emergency room'," he grumbled, touching his nose and wincing with pain. "Oww!"

"Shinji!" Ikumi said, looking scared, "what's wrong?"

"My nose is broken," he finally told her, "I, uh, got in a fight. Look, I need to go to the hospital, and I guess you've gotta come too. Sorry, kiddo, I know you had other plans, but—"

"Uh uh," Ikumi told him, grabbing his clean hand. "I just wanna spend time with you anyway."

Shinji couldn't help but grin at that. Well, at least someone still liked him!

Argh, if I could I'd go back and rewrite this whole story, but whatever. This chapter is mostly a YES I AM STILL ALIVE, the next chapter will be longer. Cheers!