A/N: I did this over a random camping trip...I want to see what people think about it...so, here goes.
Chapter 1
"God, if this job were any worse, I would be pissing in a jar," Sanosuke was never short of complaints. Even as he squatted atop of a nearly finished high rise, courtesy of a couple of construction workers nearly shitting themselves at the sight of the barrel of his gun sticking from the tennis bag, he couldn't manage to find a good thing to say. His eye was pressed to the scope and his finger was getting to know the trigger better than his last girlfriend.
"Yeah well, I can smell that dinero a mile away," his partner smiled. "Once I have that money in my hands, me and Monica are going to Rio for the sexiest week of my life," Sanosuke only rolled his eyes.
"Shut up and keep an eye out like I told you to," Sanosuke adjusted the sight and glanced around. His mission was clear: kill the corrupt politician before the politician decided he was going to oust the organization. He'd only been a customer of the Killer's Creed for the last few years of his senate tenure. Now he thought he would be a hero because he thought that the Creed was getting out of hand. One bad shot ended up killing an innocent bystander. The operative was handled immediately, and the media was paid through the ass, as well as the police. Nothing was off. But the politician was holding a press conference because he thought things were getting 'too dirty'.
"All right, all right," Sanosuke paid little attention to his partners. If things worked out the way that he would have liked, there would have been no 'partners'. But the business needed somebody to train their younger generations. Sanosuke, being a seasoned veteran, was the prime choice. His only problem was he wasn't a great mentor, not that the Creed faulted him for that. "What do you do with the money? You seem like that type to stash it in a Swiss bank account or something…"
"If I tell you, will you shut up?"
"Um…"Sanosuke knew that his partner was looking at him dumbly, but he ignored it. "I guess. I mean, look, this guy's not suppose to be out for another five minutes."
Sanosuke took his eye from the sight and looked his partner in the eye. At least he did for a few moments before it seemed that his partner's head exploded. Sanosuke was hardly taken aback. His shoulders dropped. "I lose more partners that way."
"Take your hands off the gun, Sagara," Sanosuke's hands released from the gun and rose as though he was surrendering. "Get up and turned around. You won't get hurt."
"Funny, you said the same thing to Aoshi before you broke his jaw," but Sanosuke was still rising from his squatted position and turning around to look at the red haired man that had a gun poised toward his chest. "We need to stop meeting like this, detective."
"Stop killing and we will," the red head smirked and lowered the gun.
Sanosuke spit out a toothpick and lowered his hands. "How do you know I'm not armed?"
"I trust you," the red head walked closer. There was nothing about him that said he was a detective. He didn't have that overworked, underpaid weariness on his face. His clothes were always neat, and every hair was in place. What especially gave away that he wasn't part of a police force were the black market gun and the silencer that was fitted on the end of it. If the red head was a cop, which Sanosuke highly doubted but never investigated, he would have been a cop patrolling five and dime stores in the middle of nowhere because that was the type of person he was. He was too calm for his own good.
Getting mixed up in the dangerous business that they often exchanged in showed that he had another side to him. Not a darker side, that much was for certain. He acted on part of a reckless vigilante; a clean Batman, but a dirtied Superman. There was no glory in his pursuit of those in the Creed.
"Trust me? Why would someone as smart as you do that?" Sanosuke was getting dangerously close to the red head, and it was at that point that he could see the scar that was neatly covered by a long strand of hair. His left cheek was marred, likely by his work, in a fashion that made him seem as though he were doing God's work, and that when he finally became a martyr he would already have a seal of approval. The cross on his cheek was rough but faded. How long ago had it happened? And Sanosuke, being his usual imaginative self, could consider the possibility of the red head sitting in his bathroom with a knife and trying to cut neatly but being a cry baby about it.
"Because, I already know about that knife on your thigh," the gun was still resting at the red head's side. How close would Sanosuke have to get before it was brought up again? Close enough that he was standing over the red head when it was pressed against his breastbone. The red head didn't even have to extend his arm. "We really shouldn't complicate things. One body, sure, but two? Too much paperwork."
"Then don't shoot."
In a few swift moves, Sanosuke grabbed the gun and twisted it away from the detective. The quick and decisive move was no surprise to the red head, but when Sanosuke blindly aimed away from the both of them, mostly in the general vicinity of a slowly gathering crowd of civilians, and pulled down on the hammer, the red head's face was stricken.
"I'm going to get my money."
"You wouldn't."
"Oh, I would. And then I'd mail the gun to the police and let them take you into custody for killing the senator."
The red head's grin faltered. A small cackle of laughter could be heard coming from between his closed lips. This minuet was nothing they hadn't danced before. Except this time, it was assassination and, likely, treason if the red head was unwittingly linked to the Creed. Sanosuke realized the ramifications of everything even before he took the red head's gun. How long would it take for him to pack the rifle back into the tennis bag and go back down to ground level and look like a regular citizen? If the red head wasn't involved—less than five minutes. But he complicated things. Now he was left with a dead partner, two sets of rifles to break apart and carry down, not to mention being tailed, ostentatiously, by a short red headed police officer wannabe whose gun he would still be carrying. He wasn't in the mood to steal a car. Too much.
"I'd like to see you try Sagara, I really would."
Even from where they were they could hear the news stations as they closed in on the senator, now revealing himself on public library steps. Sanosuke turned the gun back on the red head and pulled the trigger. Without caring if he hit the red head or not, Sanosuke dropped the gun and turned toward his rifle, knelt down, took two seconds to find the senator in the sight (and one to caress the trigger) before pulling. The shot rang out, travelled the distance from the high rise to the steps of the library, and within seconds there was a splatter of blood.
It wasn't a kill shot.
Sanosuke didn't have time to clean up the job. He turned around to the red head that was back on his feet, injured or not, and had the gun back in his hand. How long would it take the police to find him on the high rise? How long would it take to break apart his own rifle, stuff it in the tennis bag, and simply run like a coward and let his dead partner take blame? He didn't care. He picked up the rifle and ran by the red head, shots hitting at his heels, and began breaking the rifle apart as he struggled down the stairs.
This was all wrong. He shouldn't have tried the shot if he wasn't sure. He shouldn't have tempted the red head. Now he was guilty for hurting the man (assuming he had been hit because Sanosuke hadn't heard any gasp of pain). There were footsteps behind him. Sanosuke ducked into small crevice and shoved the rifle into the tennis bag. Too little, too late. The silencer was in his face and the red head was standing before him. There was no pain on his face even though there was blood dripping from his fingers and onto the floor.
"Don't do this. I didn't kill the sorry bastard."
"I've been chasing your for two years now. Don't think that I'm going to let you get away from this…predicament you could have gotten yourself out of in ten million different ways."
Sanosuke backed up against the wall and kept his ears open for extra pairs of feet. Any second he was expecting the police to be storming up the high rise and arresting him. The worst part about it was that the red head would be considered a hero for it all—backing the would-be assassin up against the wall. The police wouldn't care that he had a black market gun with a silencer; hell, he caught the guy with that tried to kill the senator. The man would be a national hero!
The only thing that came to Sanosuke's mind was the knife that was at the small of his back. The red head already knew about the one pressed on his thigh, but Sanosuke always brought a spare. He didn't doubt that that knife was also accounted for, but it never hurt to try. He eased his hand to the small of his back and lifted his shirt. The gun was pressed underneath his chin. One shot and the bullet would go through his mouth, his sinuses and then come out through cerebral cortex without ringing through the empty hallways of the high rise. All that would be left would be brain matter on the wall. Still, he chanced it. Once his fingers were running over the leather band on the handle of his knife, Sanosuke knew that there was no going back. The knife whipped out and cut upward, the gun knocked from the red head's hand, and his other fist was in the red head's stomach.
Nothing fazed the guy. His other hand, his wounded hand, was around Sanosuke's wrist and turning it painfully. Still, the gun was out from under his chin. Before he knew it, he was pressed against a railing and half of his body was leaning over a fifteen story drop to the bottom. The red head's gun was on the floor and his hands were on the collar of Sanosuke's shirt, a makeshift look to make it seem as if all he was doing was going to play tennis as he walked about the chaotic streets after the kill.
The only good part was the knife was now at the red head's throat.
"We can do this one of two ways," Sanosuke managed to say despite the collar of his shirt digging into his windpipe. "You can chuck me over and try to play hero, but if you're as I am, you don't want anyone exposing you. So, in light of that, why don't we split this fifty-fifty? Partners in crime and all that jazz, hm?"
"You don't exactly look to be in position to bargain with me, Mr. Sagara."
"Au contraire," Sanosuke pressed the knife a little closer to the red head's Adam's apple. "I am in the perfect position. I don't know about you, but I know that the police are going to be here in a New York minute, not to mention the senator's security. And by the looks of it, if I didn't hit an artery, I got close."
"It's a flesh wound," and they both allowed a second to drink in the stupid humor. With the moment that it seemed the red head was distracted, Sanosuke kicked at his footing and, with the hands free of his collar, grabbed the red head by the arms and flung him into the wall.
"What are you? Some kind of bounty hunter? A corrupt officer? Hm?"
The red head was working his way to his feet. He was getting just a little dizzy, as said his unstill footing. There was a small gush of blood that fell from his sleeve.
"If I told you that, it wouldn't be fun now would it?"
Sanosuke didn't take the time to listen to the red head. He darted down the flight of stairs and kept going, bounding over two or three at a time. Now his only fear was missing the edge of one and landing flat on his face. Luckily, as this kind of scenario had been practiced on many occasions, that didn't happen. He was at a landing that was only two stories from the main level. There were voices at the bottom. He looked up and saw that his injured detective was climbing down via the railings instead of taking the typical route.
"Just a heads up your jackass! There are cops, and they're ready to arrest your scrawny ass!"
That was when he realized there seemed to be a supernatural streak in his little follower. The red head, from at least three stories above, let go of the railing and let himself plummet until he hit the railing across from Sanosuke and, without taking a second to reposition himself, pressed his feet on the railing and spring boarded over the railing across the way, climbing over. Sanosuke looked down to the voices.
"We're royally fucked. This is your fault entirely," Sanosuke looked to the red head that had also become immersed in the voices coming from below.
"There's got to be another way out," the red head murmured. He was clutching his shoulder, the acrobatic trick obviously taking the most out of its usability. "Go in there," he pointed toward a door just off the stairwell.
"What good will that do?"
"There's gotta be another set of steps. There always is."
For their sake, Sanosuke hoped to God he was right.
A/N: So, tell me what you think so I can see if I will continue it or not...till next time, KenSan out!