Konichiwa! This is my first GetBackers story, so go easy on me in reviews please! Although if you have any critics or suggestions, please make them, I'm willing to hear anything that might make this story better. It's becoming something of my baby as I work on it, I love it, I pamper it, I'm proud of it, and I have no idea where it's going! - Hehe, anyway, please enjoy!

Summary: To escape from danger, she ran into darkness. For safety, she joined a warring street gang. To save her dying soul, he is determined to make her smile, and bring her back to the light.

Protégé

Prolog: Haunted Eyes

Anyone who thinks that life is fair or sweet ought to take a trip down to Mugenjou, thought Rouran Joker Emishi in a rare moment of cynicism. It didn't help matters that the sky had been emptying itself by the bucket load for the past few days. Scowling, the usually easy-going man cast a withering look at the sky, as if hoping that his angry stare would cause the storm clouds to fly away in shear terror. Unfortunately storm clouds, non-living beings that they were, didn't just pick up and fly away. Which left the joker with the two remaining options of a) staying out in the rain and getting soaked, or b) seeking shelter somewhere. Emishi opted for choice b as his wet clothes were starting to chafe, not at all comfortable.

The Rouran Joker picked up his pace from a lazy trudge to a brisk trot, eyes open for a handy doorway. He found one after a while and gratefully utilized it, stepping into one of Mugenjou's many storehouse like rooms. After a glance around to see if he could pinpoint where he was, and thence how to get elsewhere from there, he walked across the room and opened a door on the other side, slipping in easily. He kept up his brisk pace as he walked down the hallway, his whip slapping gently against his side with his movements. His loose, casual demeanor threw off those who did not know him, for years of living in Mugenjou had taught him to never let his guard down, not even for a moment. His senses were always on high alert, ready to spring to action at the slightest hint of danger. So it was with little effort that he heard the vague echoes of a fight resounding through the halls.

Without even thinking about it Emishi followed the echoes. He followed the noise through the twisting halls until they became distinct enough for him to begin to distinguish different voices amid the wild shouts. He found himself in the doorway of a balcony that overlooked another storehouse like room, where the fight came into crystal view. There were several bodies scattered around on the floor of the room, a quick count numbering them at fifteen, and six figures left moving. It seemed that five of the figures were determinedly attacking one lone female figure, who was the apparent cause of the numerous sprawled figures. She was doing quite a job of defending herself, wheeling twin curved blades through the air effortlessly, blocking the strikes of her five remaining attackers.

As Emishi watched she took out two of them, breaking one's leg, and giving the other a roundhouse kick to the temple. When given an opening she kicked the broken legged boy in the head for good measure as he was groping for his dropped weapon. Of the remaining three the short, black-haired, well-muscled, nun chuck wielding man was the obvious leader. He was also, it seemed, the fighter that the girl was having the most trouble in fending off. He would occasionally punctuate his attacks with taunts.

"What's the matter girly? Tiring?" He laughed as he lashed out again, the girl bringing up one of her curved blades in a desperate block, breaking the nose of the man closest to her with her other hand, leaving her with just two more opponents. "You can't beat us, girly, no matter how many lame-brains you take out," he continued to taunt. The girl was panting in desperate gulps of air, and it was clear even from Emishi's standpoint that she had long since past the point where she had begun to tire, her forced movements made it clear that her muscles were cramping up, a dangerous thing in a fight like that. "You can't win if you're being careful girly. Weren't you ever taught how to fight properly? You don't dance around being careful of your foe's life! You worry about your own, the winner is the survivor!" The girl let out a shriek of denial, throwing herself forward in a furious attack. She had to duck as the man lashed out with his weapon and didn't quite manage to get fully out of the way in time, the nun chuck catching her over the top of the head. She crumpled to the ground and started to roll in a desperate evasive maneuver. She stood quickly and suddenly, taking the remaining man by surprise and kneeing him hard in the groin. Emishi grimaced from where he was standing. That had to hurt. The girl knocked the boy out with a swift, hard punch to the head, knocking him out of his misery in Emishi's opinion, then turned to face the leader, who hadn't moved from where she had gone down.

Emishi wondered if he could scrounge up some popcorn and get back here fast enough to watch the fight. The girl looked tired beyond words, but was not yet swaying on her feet and if she could take out nineteen armed men with barely a scratch on her she would prove to be quite the opponent for the man across from her. A fact that seemed to be crossing the man's mind as he stared at her.

"Please!" the girl cried out finally. "Please, just let me go! I've had enough of this!"

"Oh, the timid little rabbit has grown tired of fighting the big, bad, wolves?" the man asked in a baby voice.

"I'm tired of hurting people, for God's sake let me go!" the girl shrieked. The man pretended to consider it, then looked up at her with an evil leer.

"No." Then with no warning he lashed out, his weapon moving almost to fast for the eye to follow, but the girl was faster and had struck it aside and danced out of the way. The man's stunned shock didn't last very long and with a roar of rage he charged forward again. His moves were quickly deteriorating into blind swings of rage. The girl was able to block each and every one. She no longer pleaded with him to stop, knowing that in his blind rage he would likely not even hear her, so she didn't waste the breath. When given the opening she slammed a fist against his temple, but all it did was phase him for a moment. They danced this way around the room and Emishi began to wonder what was taking the girl so long to finish off the guy. A movement caught his eye and he turned to see one of the men on the other side of the room sitting up and rubbing his head. Frowning, Emishi looked carefully around the rest of the room and confirmed his suspicions. Every single downed man in the room was alive, maybe not completely unbroken but alive and in no real danger, unless you counted the ongoing fight. Emishi turned his incredulous gaze on the girl, who had by now realized that her opponent was not to be downed by blows to the head, however hard she could deliver them.

"Please!" she screamed again. Both fighters remained oblivious to the fact that the room was emptying around them, men who were conscious dragging out the ones who weren't, or who were too injured to walk. "Please! Please don't make me do this!" she cried out desperately. The man ignored her cries, beating down with his weapon all the harder. With the wild, strangled cry of a wounded animal the girl darted forward, her movements almost to fast to read. In barely a few seconds the man was lying on the floor before her, a crimson stain just beginning to pool alongside his neck, his eyes going glassy. The girl was left staring at her curved blade, either from shock, relief, or a mix of the two.

Emishi used this as his cue to leap gracefully from the balcony and land facing the girl. To him, timing was everything but the girl didn't seem to appreciate his impeccable timing or grand entrance. Her head snapped up, eyes wide as saucers as they regarded each other in a split second that contained an eternity all it's own, then she leapt forward with the wild fury of a cornered animal that has no choice but to lash out at it's attackers. There was no sanity left in the girl's eyes, only a keen desperation, and a wild instinct for survival. But for all the girl's speed and skill she was still half a room away and her weapons were short range. Emishi had his whip dancing through the air the instant she started moving. It cracked across her hands sharply, causing her to drop her blades, then snapped around to pin her arms to her sides and sweep her feet out from under her. She struggled wildly on the floor, trying to disentangle herself from the whip, knowing her efforts were useless but not willing to just close her eyes and give up. She finally went limp, panting for breath as she lay still on the floor, her dark chocolate colored hair in a tangled disarray about her head.

Emishi approached the girl carefully, going to one knee beside her gasping form, his grip on his whip handle loosening ever so slightly. A strong breeze sprang up out of nowhere and hit him forcefully on the back, sending him stumbling forward at the same time that the girl gave a sudden, wild jerk and to his shock and horror Emishi felt the whip handle leave his hand. Impossible, he thought wildly in the instant before he snatched it up again the girl had jerked her arms to the sides and gotten the coils around her loose enough to shoot out of them like a rocket, propelled by some unseen force. She darted around to snatch up her weapons and spun to face Emishi, barely a foot from him. Some human sense had been restored to her eyes, their hazel depths losing that wild insanity they had possessed barely a few minutes gone, but the desperation was still there, the instinct to fight for survival whatever the cost. Emishi struck, but for the first time someone fended off his blow. Whatever skill she had been using for her past fight was nothing to the skill she called upon now. A breeze was stirring through the room as the girl twisted in an intricate dance around him, avoiding the whip which Emishi couldn't use to its best capacity at such a close range, a fact this girl was well aware of as she kept that close distance between them, wherever he tried to move.

Without warning, Emishi bumped into a wall with a startled exclamation, the whip's path now impeded as it slapped the unyielding surface. Emishi was unable to pull it forward fast enough to strike the girl before she reached him and in a flash had her blade to his throat, her other hand, also clutching its weapon, holding his whip hand in place. The weapon dangled from his hand like a dead snake, unmoving and lifeless as Emishi looked at the girl before him. She had been herding him, he realized, moving around his and making back up to where she wanted him to be and he hadn't realized it. Her head was bowed, her chocolate hair shielding her face, but that didn't stop him from feeling the trembling in her slight frame. He heard her gasps, and thought there was something about them that made them sound like they weren't just gasps for air.

"Please," she whispered once again. "Please let me go."

"Let you go?" Emishi asked, quietly as he was trying to avoid puting pressure on the blade at his throat. "Who is holding who captive here? I should be asking you that question."

The girl let out a hysterical laugh that Emishi knew had nothing to do with humor. Then she raised her face to look at him with eyes brimming with tears. Her hazel eyes met his blue ones behind his pink rimmed glassed and the Rouran Joker found himself, for once, at a loss for words. He knew of no one in Mugenjou who had eyes that reflected happiness or peace, they wouldn't live in Lower Town otherwise. Everyone there had lost something, or was running from something, or had stopped caring about life. The eyes of most of Mugenjou's citizens were dead. But hers were very much alive, and brimming with emotion. Her eyes were an ocean of grief and fear, and they threatened to drown him in their depths.

"Please, don't make me do this, not again," the girl was pleading with him again. "Please let me go." The hand that had held his weapon hand in check moved to his shoulder and bunched the material it found there, her face pressing into his chest. Though his hand was now free, Emishi made no move to use his whip, still conscious of the blade at his throat.

"This is VOLTS territory, I cannot let you leave without knowing your purpose here and if you mean harm," Emishi pressed. The girl let out a humorless laugh.

"Harm?" her voice was a cracked remnant of a normal human voice, almost like a broken music box and it jarred his ears. "I'm merely passing through," she continued in a dead tone. "I mean none harm! That was self defense! I begged him to back down! Begged him!" her voice had risen to a hysterical cry, but for all her body's shaking the hand with the dagger to his neck was quite steady. "I don't need anymore blood on my hands," she said miserably. "I don't want yours there too, they're stained enough. Please let me go." Her voice was a strangled sob now and the material of his shirt felt rather wet around the area where her face was. Her other hand still clutched desperately at his shoulder and if her other hand hadn't been holding a dagger to his throat she would for all the world be crying for comfort from him. She eventually forced back the tears and leaned back to look at him again.

"I'll let you go on one condition," Emishi finally said. A spark of hope flickered in the girl's eyes along with a wave of wariness. "Tell me your name," Emishi said smoothly. The girl blinked in surprise, confusion overriding her other emotions for a moment.

"Amity," she said with a bitter whisper. "My name is Amity Lyn." The irony of the statement was not lost on the Rouran Joker.

"It's a very nice name," Emishi said simply, in neither the position nor state of mind to crack a joke. Amity's mouth twisted into a bitter smile as she removed her hand from his neck, and Emishi breathed a sigh of relief. "My name is Emishi," the Joker said. The girl looked up at him, attaching her blades to a special belt she was wearing.

"You didn't have to tell me that," she said flatly. "You bargained my name for my freedom, you were not required to give me your name." Something deep inside of Emishi was insisting that he help this girl, was horrified by the wild grief or complete lack of life that would dominate her eyes.

"Well if we ever see each other again I hardly want you referring to me as 'hey you' or 'whip man' now do I?" Emishi asked, a grin on his face.

"We won't be seeing each other again though," Amity said, then turned to go.

"What, no goodbye?" Emishi asked, as though deeply hurt.

"I hate goodbyes," Amity said tonelessly. "Because it means that I'll never see the person I say goodbye to again. Goodbye is too permanent."

"But I thought we were never going to meet again," Emishi persisted.

"Do you know how to do anything other than annoy people?" Amity asked, a waspish snap to her voice.

"Not really," Emishi said happily. "But you really seem to want to be going, so instead of saying 'goodbye' let's say 'ja ne.' 'See you'."

"Ja ne," Amity sampled. A small, half-smile formed for a moment on her lips and Emishi let out a little inner cheer at the sight. "All right then, since you're so persistent. Ja ne it is. Ja ne Emishi-san."

"Ja ne, Amity-han." Emishi watched with a mix of worry and satisfaction as she walked away. He continued to smile after she was gone. 'Ja ne' it really would be, for there were more ways to keep track of people in Mugenjou than he was even aware existed. But he knew enough to know that he wouldn't lose track of Amity if he didn't want to.

End chapter

Need to knows

For all of those who are new to anime and/or don't know any Japanese, r's are pronounced as l's, so Rouran is actually pronounced Lo-lan. I'm a bit of a stickler for spelling Japanese words correctly (kind of stupid since I can't spell most English words correctly) and not by sound, so that's why I don't type Loulan. Oh, sue me, I'm sure you all have pet peeves too.

For those who didn't get the dry humor of Amity's name, amity basically means peace or harmony, so having 'Amity' attack and wind up killing someone renders her name rather hypocritical.

Like the story, hate the story, let me know, but no flames. If you hate it, give a reason.