7/5/07 update: I would like to apologize to anyone and everyone who went to read this story and found it a copy of my LOTR one-shot. I have no idea how this happened. Thank you to Light of the Shadows and the other reader for bringing this HUGE mistake to my attention. My apologies to the reader I didn't name; I didn't write your name down and the message from you is gone. But thank you to both of you!

A/N – This is an AU story. The first chapter takes place a little over a year before the rest of the story. I do not own anything other than the plot and the evil people.

Rating: T - Rated for language, some graphic torture and possible suicide (in later chapters). Rating might go up for later chapters.

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Chapter One - Loss

The remaining members of Section Nine either stood or sat within the lounge of their headquarters, all bearing grim, angry or saddened faces, or a combination of the three, depending on the person. Saito had a bandage around one upper arm.

Just over five hours ago they had raided on what they had thought was the Shadow Ghosts headquarters. The Shadow Ghosts were a gang into much the same business as the Yakuza. They were almost as big and were – if possible – even more ruthless in how they went about their business, but much more subtle in doing so.

No one was speaking, and surprisingly Pazu, Boma and Ishikawa were not smoking. Aramaki was not present as he was out of the country, and there was currently no way to contact him to relay their news.

Suddenly Batou smashed his fist angrily against the wall he was leaning on, cracking it. "How the hell could we have been so stupid as to let this happen?" he demanded furiously, shattering the oppressive silence. "How?"

No one answered him for a long moment. Then the Major stood up from her chair. Slowly she walked to the lone window in the room. It was raining out. She closed her eyes. "It's my fault," she whispered. She turned around to look at the others. "It's all my fault."

FLASHBACK

"Ishikawa, how many people are you detecting inside the building?" the Major asked as Batou and Pazu leaned against the wall opposite her, guns out and ready. It was nothing more than a large storage building – at least that was what it looked like from the outside – situated pretty much in the middle of nowhere. There was a door on either side, more rusted than the rest of the building, and a few windows scattered throughout the length of the walls, some of the panes cracked or broken. A river ran behind their position a couple hundred feet away, at the back was a cliff and the rest of the building was surrounded by forest. The only good thing any of them could find about the building was that it was only one story – above ground, anyway. But that still cut down on how much area they and the two Tachikoma had to search, depending of course on how deeply underground this place went.

"At least thirty, Major." Ishikawa reported after a moment. "But it could be more."

"'Could be more'?" Togusa repeated. "And this information is helpful to us how?"

Don't blame him, Mr. Togusa! One of the Tachikoma chirped. The building is surrounded by a distortion field created by multiple computers that can block almost all technology, even Mr. Ishikawa's thermal readers.

Batou smiled as Togusa apologized to Ishikawa, who brushed it off.

"All right, men – and Tachikoma," the Major added hastily. "Be careful when we get in there. Because of the extremely high-tech distortion field we have no positive way to know just how many people – human or cyborg – might be in there. And that's not counting anything else they might have in there, or what other nasty surprises their computers can do that we don't know about."

"Don't worry about a thing, Major."

"We'll shut the Shadow Ghosts down and lock them all up for good."

"And we'll make sure they can't hurt any more people."

The Major smiled at the chorus of agreements the men gave, not knowing that soon she would be wishing she had worried about things, and that indeed the Shadow Ghosts were going to hurt more people after that night. Just one, but that was one too many.

They had no idea just who these Shadow Ghosts were, or what they looked like. No one at Section Nine would have ever thought that the answer to the second question was much closer than any of them could have ever dreamed of.

The Major gave the order to enter the building.

Then everything went to hell.

END FLASHBACK

"Don't blame yourself, Major." Pazu said heavily. "None of us did anything."

"None of us could do anything." Ishikawa reminded the group.

"Like hell," Batou spat. "There is always something that could have been done."

A lone Tachikoma sat in the corner of the room, unnoticed until it spoke.

"Mr. Batou is correct. There is always something that could have been done."

Saito nodded in agreement with the Tachikoma, but refused to speak. He was still furious with the Major and Batou for refusing to listen to his cry for help.

FLASHBACK

"Damn it, just how many of these things are there?" Batou growled as he, the Major and Pazu fired repeatedly around the corners of the walls they had taken refuge behind. Droid-like creatures had attacked their group soon after they had reached the inner part of the ground level of the building. At least five feet tall, they had excellent marksmanship and were wickedly fast, making it was extremely hard to shoot one. The Tachikoma who had entered with them had taken a different route, hoping to divert some of the droids, which it had, but that still left the others.

The Major had lost contact with both Saito's group and Ishikawa as soon as they had all entered the building, confirming her theory that there was more than just a heat-thermal distortion field around the building, but also a cyberlink disruption field, one good enough to halt even Section Nine's state-of-the-art cyberlinks.

"Little bastards just won't die!" Batou spat, firing his gun again as the others backed up another hallway towards the door they had entered through, hoping no more surprises awaited them.

"Major, Mr. Batou! Something has happ-" one of the Tachikoma began excitedly, but the Major cut it off, not bothering – or not thinking – to ask how it had managed to contact them through the disruption field. "Unless we're about to be attacked from another direction whatever you have to say can wait!"

"You're not going to be attacked Major, but-"

"Then silence, and that's an order!"

"But-"

"She said silence, Tachikoma!" Batou snapped. Do it!

Silence.

Deciding to make a dash for safety, Pazu, Batou and the Major ran out of the same door they had entered through earlier. A muffled explosion followed their footsteps out just as a message came over the group cyberlink.

"Major, get out of there!" Ishikawa called, able to communicate with them now that they were clear of the building. "The building's about to explode!"

Oh, really? Batou asked sarcastically. That must've been the explosion we just heard.

Another muffled boom shook the ground violently before the building exploded outwards, throwing glass, metal and rust away from the foundation and underground levels.

Then everything went silent.

The two Tachikoma were next to Ishikawa's truck as the Major, Batou and Pazu arrived. Saito was leaning against the van, holding a bloody cloth to what looked suspiciously like a bullet wound on his arm. The others were standing with the Tachikoma.

"Saito, what happened to you?" the Major asked, concerned.

To the surprise of the new arrivals, Saito glared at her. "Nothing you'll care about, Major." He growled.

The Major frowned at him, but Batou spoke to her via their cyber connection. "Look at the Tachikoma, Major. Something is bothering them. Especially the one who was with Saito and Togusa."

"Well, I did yell at it," she pointed out. "Maybe-"

"No. That would not put it out this much."

Batou approached the one he favored; the one who had tried to contact them during the firefight. A closer examination of the Tachikoma showed it had destroyed some of its circuits, though it was still – for the most part – functional. That explained how it had contacted them from within the building. It had blown so of its own circuits in an attempt to give them a message. The one they had not bothered to listen to.

Batou crouched down in front of the Tachikoma. "What's wrong?"

The Tachikoma placed its clawed arms in front of itself, lowering itself as it spoke with uncharacteristic softness: "You didn't want to listen to me, Mr. Batou, Major."

Batou frowned. If he wasn't mistaken, the Tachikoma sounded sad. "We're sorry Tachikoma, but surely-"

"'But surely' nothing, Batou," Saito spat. "I don't care how many enemies you were fighting, you still should have taken the time to listen to our message."

"What is up with you guys?" Batou demanded, exasperated.

The Tachikoma sniffed, as if it were crying. "They got Mr. Togusa."

END FLASHBACK

"He might still be alive," Ishikawa suggested half-heartedly. "From the looks of things they took Togusa belowground before the explosion. Maybe they have – had a transportation system down there as well, in case they got raided by the police. Or us."

"Well, well, well, dear members of Section Nine. I must say your attack against one of my bases was not what I had expected from people like you."

The computer screen on the desk across the room flickered on. The upper half of a man whose shoulders underneath a dark gray jacket were broad enough to convince anyone he was a cyborg appeared on the screen. His face was distorted into a blur of color and his voice altered to sound slightly lower pitch than normal.

The man gave an overdramatic sigh before continuing, "No, not what I had expected at all. It was very disappointing, in fact." He shook his head. "And allowing a full human to be part of Section Nine. How could you all stand it, his incompetence, his weakness? We of the Shadower Ghosts would never have allowed such a thing. But you are not like us, and because of this you always had to look after him. And even then you utterly failed him." The man's voice took on the sound of a smirk. "Oh, and Ishikawa, don't bother trying to pin down my location, or clear up the video feed. Anything you try will shut the connection down completely and you'll never get to find out what happened to the human."

Ishikawa, halfway to the computer, stopped dead.

"You keep your mouth and your hands off of Togusa!" Batou snarled, despite the face that the connection was one-way.

The figure on the screen laughed mockingly at them. "Ah, I expect someone is yelling at me – Batou, perhaps? You did always have a strong friendship with Togusa, didn't you? And yet you let him down when he needed you the most." The figure paused, bringing up a large hand to his chin as if he was pondering a thought. "Or maybe that display of utter devotional friendship was just a show while you were obeying orders to watch out for him, hm?"

Batou swore at him. "You fucking bastard! What the hell have you done with him?"

"Worried you've failed your orders, are we?" the man asked, false sympathy dripping from his voice. "Well, let me put your hearts at ease, my friends and fellow cyborgs. You don't need to worry about the human any longer."

The screen flickered for a moment before settling into a clear, sharp image; a photo.

The Major gasped, not bothering to hide her horror; Batou clenched his teeth as his hands turned into fists at his sides. Saito, hardened sharpshooter and assassin ran from the room. A moment later he could be heard retching as his stomach rejected his earlier meal. Pazu, a stricken look on his face, looked like he wanted to do the same. Ishikawa and Boma both looked horrified.

The screen showed a wall splattered with blood. On the blood-washed floor in front of the wall were the decapitated and bloody bodies of Togusa's wife and child on either side of another - whole but still bloody - body.

It was Togusa. His face was hidden underneath an arm thrown protectively up over his face. It was covered in small cuts and what looked like cigarette burns. What was visible of Togusa's bare chest and back was covered with their own share of torture marks much like the ones on his arms, but much worse. His legs were probably the same under his torn and charred pants.

The Major closed her eyes briefly, not wanting to accept what she was seeing as

real. But no matter how much she wanted to deny it, she knew Togusa was dead. Opening her eyes she studied the image again for any clues. Next to her, Batou was doing the same. There was no way she – or any of them – were going to let these … these monsters, these bastards get away with doing this. Heaven and Hell would sign an honest, legitimate peace treaty before they would do nothing about this.

A closer look the blood on the wall showed it was written in letters - a sentence proclaiming the reason why Togusa and his family lay dead below the message.

"This is what happens when you mess with the Shadow Ghosts."

"Dear gods above, what have we done?"

A/N – Well? Like it? Or not? For those of you who do like it, don't worry; this is NOT a one-shot. Section Nine still needs to get their revenge on those Shadow Ghosts, right? And yes, I know, the Major – and probably Saito to some extent – are both rather OOC, but I did the best I could. I also know my terminology on the thermal radar, cyber link disruption field, etc. that Section Nine uses in the Anime is nothing like what it is supposed to be, but like I have said before, I do not own the series so have nothing to reference with. Any corrections would be gratefully accepted for the upcoming chapters.

Updates on this story will take a while. Sorry.

Review, please!!