Tuesday Afternoon

Chapter 11

Tournament or Torment?

You left the hotel room early in the morning to do a bit of quick shopping. Mostly for foodstuffs and ammo. Vash had been dead asleep when you prepared to leave, and you figured he would probably be up by now. You also figured he wouldn't be too worried if you were gone when he woke up. Or at least, you hoped he wouldn't be. You forgot to leave a note...

You heaved a sigh after haggling the prices for the ammo down just enough to make it affordable. 9mm was cheap enough but the 45mm definitely was not. Of course, it would be Vash's ammo that caused problems, it was his "thing" after all (even if usually not at all his fault or at the least intentional).

You jammed the boxes into your backpack and rushed to get away from the stupid gunshop and its equally stupid owner. You just blew over a hundred double dollars on ammo! It made you groan for the fifth time this morning, running a hand through your hair in distress. You hoped that this would be the worst of it today.

"MISS (Y/N)!!!!"

You froze mid-swig from your water bottle. Apprehensive, you slowly turned to see a gaggle of children running toward you.

"What's u- AHH!" They didn't even give you a chance before they bombarded you. One took your hand and started to forcefully drag you back in the direction of the hotel. "Guys, slow down! What's wrong!"

"Mr. Vash is looking for you!" One of the kids exclaimed giddily.

"Really?" A whimsy look crossed your face before it contorted back to confusion, "Wait, why is he looking for me? Did something happen?"

"You weren't at the hotel!" Ah, yes, the simplest reason is usually the right one. "He thought you got kidnapped by bad guys."

"Pshh-" you rolled your eyes and waved a hand dismissively- "I would never get kidnapped by bad guys, I'm too cool for that, you know."

The kids started pouting at your answer.

"She didn't fall for it," one said.

"Huh?"

"We thought if you fell for it you would go back to the hotel and get Vash to play with us..."

You laughed, "He'd play with you guys if you asked. He likes you guys that's why he's played with you every day."

Annnnd they were off. It made you sigh in relief, although a bit peeved that they thought they could trick you by using Vash. Oh well, now that you had the ammo sorted out you could buy some food.

Maybe I'll bring Meryl and Milly breakfast, you absentmindedly thought.

You found a sweet cafe and got a few things to go after you finished stocking your bag with food. You also found a few things for Psyche the cat, who you've gave to the girls since they were less likely to run into trouble; it was the least you could do since you were the one who wanted to keep her anyway.

After dropping off your stuff in your shared hotel room, you made you way over to Meryl and Milly's.

"I brought food," you announced as you opened their door.

Meryl gave a lackluster greeting while Milly excitedly said hello before returning to her binoculars. Psyche rubbed up on your legs, seemingly very happy to see you again.

"That's cute," Milly said. "Mr. Vash is being put in strangleholds by the children again!"

"That's nice..." Meryl sadly replied.

You snorted, "I gotta see this."

Milly handed you the binoculars. Sure enough, Vash was being turned into a pretzel by the same gaggle of kids you saw this morning. The sight made you laugh. The legendary gunman, brought down by a couple of kids.