Ayame was walking down the town and came across a park. She was walking through it, and she heard a whoosh as something was heading right for her.
"Watch out!" somebody shouted.
Ayame looked to see that it was a soccer ball. She moved out of the way on time and avoided the ball as it bounced off the tree next to her and landed at her feet. She looked to see that a bunch of elementary schoolers were playing with the ball.
"Sorry!" one of them called. "Can you pass that back?!"
"OK!" Ayame called back.
She started dribbling the ball while running back towards the group of kids. However, in her way were two older middle schoolers.
"Gangway!" she shouted as she charged.
Before the middle schoolers realized that there was a first year girl coming at them while dribbling a soccer ball at her feet, Ayame had knocked one of them down and she returned the ball to the younger children.
"Arigatou!" one of them said.
"Oi, you!" the middle schooler that Ayame knocked down called.
He went up to her alongside the other middle schooler he was with.
"You dirtied my clothes! You better pay for them!" he said threateningly to her.
But when he looked up, Ayame was walking away like as if nothing happened.
"It's hot today..." she said in a lazy tone.
"How dare you ignore me!" the middle schooler shouted in anger.
He ran up to her from behind, ready to punch her, but Ayame reacted faster. She did a backwards kick without looking and landed it right in the face. The middle schooler got very angry and kept trying to punch her. She dodged with ease while still maintaining a calm presence around her and kept walking like as if nothing happened.
"I'm not throwing any more kicks, because if I do, you won't beat me," Ayame said. "If you wanna fight, sure, I'll take you on."
Ayame finally stopped walking while still dodging, and she delivered another hard kick on the middle schooler's face. This time she stomped her foot down on his shoes.
"Want me to dirty your shoes this time?" she asked menacingly.
Ayame then started beating up the middle schooler by kicking him repeatedly. The middle schooler had tried to fight back, but with her great reflexes, Ayame avoided the blows. By the time she was done, she walked away with a look of satisfaction while the middle schooler lay on the dirt ground, beat up and filthy.
"Thanks for being my kicking bag for today," Ayame said as she flipped her hair off her shoulders.
She walked out of the park and walked back into town. This time she saw another middle schooler.
"Oi, you," she said. "I've heard about you from Momoshiro-senpai. You're Kamio Akira of Fudomine, right?"
"I am," the boy answered. "That's a Seigaku uniform..."
"Right, I'm from Seigaku," Ayame said. "I heard that you're the fastest runner in Fudomine. Can you beat me in a race?"
"Of course I could!" Kamio said. "Nobody could run faster than me!"
"Oh well," Ayame said, tying back her long hair. "If you could beat me in a race across town, then I'll believe you."
Ayame and Kamio got in a starting position at one end of town.
"Ichi... ni... san!" Ayame shouted, and they both took off.
At first, the two were running at the same speed, but they were still very fast. Ayame wasn't running her fastest, but she was just testing to see how fast Kamio could run.
When they were halfway through the town, Ayame saw something ahead. She stuck her foot out to brake.
"Holy crap, look out!" she shouted.
Kamio didn't get her warning until it was too late. Directly up ahead was a car that was off of the road on the sidewalk, right in the way. He crashed right into the car. Ayame had managed to make a complete stop right in front of the car. The instant she had a close look at the car, she remembered the car accident she was involved in eight years ago. The accident that happened here was very similar to back then.
"Ahhh, looks like we couldn't settle it this time..." she said with a sigh.
Kamio recovered from his crash and got up.
"What's your name?" he asked her.
"Kanna Ayame," she answered.
"I can't believe you were able to keep up with me..." Kamio said, staring at the young girl in disbelief.
"But damn..." she swore as she looked at the ruined car in front of them. "One hell of an accident must've happened here. I'm not gonna hang around here any longer. Later."
Ayame ran away as the accident that she saw reminded her of the past, and she didn't want to think about it. Eventually, she ran into a group of middle schoolers.
"That's her!" one of them shouted.
Ayame looked up and saw that it was the same middle schooler that she beat up at the park.
Ohhhh shit... she thought as she eyed the group.
She turned around and bolted.
"Oi, get back here!" one of the middle schoolers shouted.
"Like hell I would!" she shouted as she kept running.
Ayame could easily outrun them, but she had already used up some of her energy while racing with Kamio, so she couldn't run full speed. She fled to her neighborhood with the middle schoolers still in hot pursuit. She hadn't gone too far inside when she saw directly up ahead of her was Ryoma and Momo, walking together. She skidded to a halt in front of the two boys.
"Oi, gimme that!" she said as she snatched Ryoma's tennis bag off his shoulder.
She threw down her tennis bag, opened it and Ryoma's at the same time, and pulled out a racket from each.
"W-what are you doing, Ayame?!" Ryoma cried in shock.
"I'll save the explanations for later!" Ayame answered as she kicked a few tennis balls from her bag into the air.
Ayame used both rackets to hit the balls and attacked the incoming middle schoolers that were chasing her. She knocked them down with a few blows with the tennis balls, and stopped once all of them were lying on the ground.
"Sorry 'bout that," she said as she put Ryoma's tennis racket back into his bag and handed the bag back. "But that was a life or death situation."
"Why were they chasing you?" Ryoma asked.
"Because I accidentally dirtied one of their clothes earlier when I was at the park," she answered.
"What exactly happened?" Momo asked.
"While I was walking at the park, there were these little kids playing with a soccer ball," Ayame began her story. "One of them almost hit me with the ball by accident, but I avoided it. They asked me to pass it back, but I couldn't kick it back in one go, because I was afraid that I might kick it too hard. So I began to dribble the ball back, but then there were these two middle schoolers in the way. I did tell them to get outta my way, but they didn't move, so one of them fell. And then he got pissed at me because I dirtied his clothes, so he threatened me. I tried to walk away, but the guy wasn't letting it go, so I resorted to beating him up. And much later, he brought a couple of friends so they could beat me up, so I ran away, and... here I am."
'Although...I'm the one at fault because I knocked down the guy and didn't say "sorry"...' Ayame thought. 'I tried to pretend that I didn't see it happen to hopefully get away with it, but it just caused a lot of trouble for me.'
Ryoma stared down at Ayame's victims.
'With her running around Tokyo, nobody's ever gonna be safe if they go against her,' he thought.'At least half of the freshmen at school are scared of her already.'
Momo was speechless as he looked at the beat up middle schoolers. Even though she's a first year middle schooler, Ayame was capable of taking out a whole group of older middle schoolers targeting her just like that. And given how she handled two rackets at once, she must be an experienced tennis player.
'Make sure to never cross her, even if you have your friends with you'Momo made a mental note to himself while wondering if Ayame was actually very good at tennis.
Ayame looked back at the middle schoolers and knew that if she never knew the Echizen family living next door back in America, she wouldn't be the person she is now.
'They taught me tennis...' she thought.'And with that old pervert acting creepy to me all the time, I realized that the best way around it is to kick him. Since I always kicked him every time I went to see Ryoga and Ryoma, I think it helped me with my foot strength. And they were there to help me build my speed and reflexes... that was the main thing that allowed me to get away unharmed... Oh well. I didn't get hurt. That's all that matters.'
With no more thought about the incident, Ayame turned to Ryoma and Momo.
"So... where're you two headed off to?" she asked.
"We're going to get some burgers," Momo replied.
"Can I come along?" she asked.
"Fine," Ryoma answered.
"OK, I'll let my dad know," she said.
Ayame walked with Momo and Ryoma as she pulled out a cell phone and called her father.
"Dad? It's Ayame. Listen, I'm going with Ryoma to get some burgers, so I'll be home late... Uh-huh... yeah... Oh, don't worry about that. We're with a senpai who'll pay the burgers for us."
Momo realized that he has another person to pay for... again.