Chapter One.

For the first time in his life, Akashi Seijuurou was afraid.

Of course, tied up and gagged at gunpoint in a dark warehouse can do that to anybody.

Even if you're an Akashi.

Not that he would dare say it out loud.

Akashi blinked and winced as pain erupted in his left eye. He felt something warm trickle down his cheek. He cursed in his mind. Somerhing not better happen to his eyes or else...

"What the fuck? He's taking too long! He should've dropped it off an hour ago! Does he not care about his son?"

Akashi's blood went cold. So his father hasn't paid the ransom. Just... great. He'd rather lose his son than his business. The redhead smiled bitterly. He should've known that from the start. He was a fool to even hope that his father would do something to get him out of this situation. Turns out that he was in it alone.

As always.

"So what are we gonna do with him?" He heard one of his abductors say.

"After all that effort of kidnapping the sole heir of one of Japan's biggest companies, it seems like he is useless after all."

Footsteps were coming towards him and it took all of his will to stop himself from shaking. He cursed himself again and again. He never felt so weak and helpless. Akashi had always prided himself in being absolute — an emperor. But now, he wasn't so sure.

A hand grabbed his crimson locks and tugged at it forcefully, forcing himself to look at his captor. Akashi barely supressed a shiver when he saw him grin sadistiscally as a cold sharp blade ran under his chin.

"What to do with you now, hmm?" The blade was pressing quite closely now. "To think that we're not getting anything out of this... And you call yourself rich? Tsk."

His other kidnappers approached them. One of them spoke up.

"Hey boss. What now? The old geezer won't even budge."

'Of course, he won't', Akashi thought bitterly. 'It's my fault for being caught in the first place.'

"Hmmm... What do you think we should do to him?"

"Haaaah~ Just kill him and throw his body in a ditch. He's useless."

"He's quite handsome, don't you think?"

At that man's statement, Akashi felt his captor withdraw the knife at his neck only to be pulled closer to him. He could see the man's eyes observing him closely. He immediately felt sick when he saw the lecherous grin that appeared on his face.

God, no.

"Yeah, he is." Akashi shivered when he felt the man's breath tickle his ears. "What do you say, kid? Might as well enjoy ourselves with your body, eh?" Mismatched eyes widened when something wet and warm came into contact with his ear. The others had come closer. He was surrounded. Without warning, he was slammed to the ground and he almost groaned in pain but he managed to hold it back. No way in hell will he give this bastards the satisfaction of seeing him in pain or fear.

But that doesn't change the fact that he's going to be molested by this men.

The leader knelt beside him and removed his gag. Akashi shot him a death glare but it only seemed to amuse the man even more. "So you're a feisty one, hm? Well, never mind — I'll have you moaning loudly in a while."

Right then and there, the man began to strip. Akashi wanted to vomit at the sight. So he's gonna die like this? Violated and killed afterwards?

How the mighty have fallen then.

Catcalls and jeers can be heard coming from his other captors, only to be replaced by shouts of surprise and fear as they fell one by one, bathed with their own blood. The leader looked at his companions only for him to be shot smack in the middle of his forehead. His bloody corpse fell on Akashi, his blood soaking the boy as he squirmed to get away from it. However, with his hands and ankles bound securely with ropes, the redhead was having a hard time moving. As he struggled, he failed to notice the figure that seemed to remove itself from the darkness of the warehouse. Only when it was standing right beside him did Akashi saw it.

Akashi looked up when a shadow fell on his face. Eyes narrowed as he took in the sight of the figure on his right. Another bad guy?

No, wait.

He blinked as he realized that this was no guy. Aside from the fact that she was carrying a gun in her left hand. The figure — a she, Akashi can tell as much based on her silhouette — stood looking at him before finally speaking.

"Time to get you home, Akashi-sama."

"You're finally awake."

Akashi slowly opened his eyes and cautiously looked at his surroundings. It was dark in the room that he was in, and he can only barely make out the things in it. Not that there were a lot to see to begin with. As far as he can tell, the room only had the bare necessities — not built for comfort but for survival. Thick curtains blocked the windows, and on a desk to the far right of the room perched several monitors, their screens lit showing programs and codes that Akashi doesn't recognize. The gun didn't escaped Akashi's notice.

A movement caught Akashi's eye and he turned his head to look at it. What he saw was a girl sitting on the sofa, arms and legs crossed, eyeing him carefully.

'What now? Another killer out for my blood?'

"We'll be leaving in a moment. Prepare yourself." She stood abruptly to exit the room. However, she paused for a moment at the curtain, peeking behind it. A ray of light momentarily illuminated the room before plunging into darkness once more when the girl finally left.

Ten minutes later, Akashi went out of the room properly dressed. When he saw his own clothes on the bedside table, it wasn't hard for him to put two and two together.

His father had sent her to retrieve him.

Akashi, being the kind of person he is, knows the workings inside and out of his family business. He is aware of the fact that several dangerous people are affiliated with the Akashi Corporation. They are the ones who do the dirty work when it was deemed necessary, while some work as bodyguards for his father and other high-ranking people in the company.

But he never thought that a girl also belonged to those people. He never saw her file when he looked into their 'secret' employees' files, although he did see few females, but she was not definitely among them. She's too young.

Akashi narrowed his eyes at the girl who he assumed had been standing by the door all that time he spent preparing himself. What irks him was that he could not read her — another unpredictable being, like Kuroko Tetsuya, his friend and former teammate. But unlike the teal-haired boy, this girl carries an aura that makes Akashi think that he is looking at a blank wall that gets splashed by different colors only to be washed again to its original state.

Her head was bowed down, bangs covering her eyes. To a normal passerby, one would assume that she was sleeping, but Akashi could see that even in that vulnerable position, her muscles were tense and ready to spring into action if need be. She finally lifted it to look at her charge, allowing Akashi to have a proper look at her face.

Golden eyes peeked out beneath chartreuse bangs. They were haunting to look at — they seemed so lifeless, yet sharp and calculating at the same time. Her face is blank, just like her eyes, and her lips were set in firm line that never betrayed her emotions whenever she speak.

She reminds Akashi of a certain character in those light novels that Mayuzumi like to read so much. Looking at the girl, Akashi found himself comparing the two.

'Could she be lost, just like that fallen angel?' If the girl was, well, she didn't show it.

The girl raised an eyebrow at him."Done staring? We don't have a whole day so move it." Her voice was a monotone.

Something in Akashi snapped. "No one orders me around." His eyes glinted dangerously. "Not even you." Evidently, even after being abducted and all, Akashi was stil Akashi.

The girl was unfazed by his threat. "I just did." Akashi's hand gripped her wrist painfully, almost bruising her porcelain skin. With a quick flick of her wrist, she freed herself from Akashi's grasp. In a her usual monotone, she added. "It would do well for you to know that threats, empty or not, do not work for me." She spun on her heels and headed for the elevator, a speechless redhead following closely behind.

On the drive back to the Akashi manor, Akashi was silently fuming. 'How dare she defy me.' From the backseat, he glared at the lime-head — so hard that he could've bored a hole through her head.

"We're here."

She cut off the engine and they stepped out of the car. As they entered the house, servants rushed to the door to bow and welcome the young master. Akashi paid them no heed, and headed straight to his father's study.

Akashi Seito turned his chair away from the window when he heard the doorknob turn. His face was a picture of satisfaction when he saw who his 'visitors' are.

His only son and the youngest assassin paused at the door as the younger Akashi greeted him a good morning — out of habit — while the girl just bowed and said nothing.

"You're back."

"Yes, Father." Akashi kept his eyes and face blank, lest it betray his feelings to his father. 'He just don't really care', the heir thought as his mind processed the words that his father told him when they met again. No asking about his well-being, just a simple 'You're back', and that's that. In the end, he was just another tool to his father. Nothing more, nothing less.

His father eyed him for a few moments before shifting his attention to the girl beside him. "I see that you've returned him relatively unscathed. Good job as always, Cera."

The man chuckled when the girl did not bother to reply, as if he already knew that she would do that. After that, he turned back to being serious and looked at his son.

"There's been a lot of threats on your life lately, Seijuurou." He stated casually, as if he was just talking about the weather and not about his son ending up dead somewhere.

"I'm perfectly aware of that." Akashi replied without missing a beat. In his mind, he recalled his previous brushes with Death. It all started two months earlier, when a sniper was stupid enough to try to kill him in broad daylight, in his school too nonetheless. It caused quite a scare in Rakuzan High, not to mention that it sent a certain group of high schoolers with varied hair colors rushing to a private hospital in Kyoto when they heard the news that someone attempted to kill their former captain. It happened again several times outside his school, and in one business party, someone had tried to poison his drink. It was only now that Akashi was actually captured — not that you could blame him. He was fresh from training, so exhausted that he could not fight back against his assailants. He woke up to find that he was held for ransom and was about to be raped when a girl appeared out of nowhere and killed all the kidnappers without batting an eyelash.

"After yesterday's incident, we need to be more careful. If the heir to the Akashi Corp. dies, it will reflect badly to the company. That's why, security measures are to be done until we find the one responsible forall this incidents. Starting tomorrow, you will be escorted to and from your school, and I will assign a bodyguard to keep watch over you. We can't have them thinking that they can just openly threaten the Akashi's."

Akashi agreed to his father's 'wishes' and was dismissed from the room while his father discussed matters with the girl.

Cera.

In his bed, Akashi lay on his back staring at the ceiling, thinking. He was being out of character today. His life was catching up on him, he mused. Looking around his room, his gaze fell on the picture frames that adorned his bedside table. Sadness enveloped his being as he stared at the picture of a beautiful woman hugging a small red-haired child carrying a basketball that was too big for his small hands. They were smiling, and Akashi was reminded of his childhood when at a very young age, he was already learning about things that were far too advanced for his young mind. He was taught countless lessons only to be replaced with another after he mastered them. Every day he would wake up only to be greeted by his countless private tutors and then after the day was done, he would wearily trudge back to his room to sleep just so that he could rest to go over the same routine the next day. His father would ocassionally visit him during one of his sessions, only to leave when he had made sure that his son was doing well with his lessons. At dinner, he would ask the same question: "How are your studies?" which Akashi would answer with "They are satisfactory." and his father would nod and tell him to keep up the work, that excellence is the only way to make himself worthy as a member of the Akashi household, that failure is not an option and that he expects greatly from his only son and heir. The young Akashi can only answer in agreement to his father's words while his kind mother can only smile at him. She had been his sole source of comfort — even going as much as teaching him basketball despite his father's disapproval. And then she died, leaving him behind. With her gone, Akashi's life turned hell at the hands of his father. He put more pressure on his son and increased his lessons without giving a thought to the boy's well-being and plunged himself to the family's business. Basketball was the only thing that comforted Akashi every day. Everytime he dribbles or shoots a ball, he could pretend that his kind mother was there cheering for him. His eyes shifted to the other picture on the table. And through basketball that she had taught him, he was given the chance to meet people whom he treats as his true friends.

Akashi allowed a small smile to grace his lips as he looked at the other photo. It was one taken last year. Six boys and a girl after a game of streetball. He chuckled slightly as he took note of their hair colors. 'What a colorful bunch', he thought. He remembered the time in middle school when Kise Ryota, their blonde teammate, commented that they looked like the Power Rangers, only to run in panic when he saw crimson eyes glaring at his direction. Inwardly, Akashi had agreed with the Copycat's words, but somehow it was more amusing to watch the blonde scramble away from him. He locked on the teal-haired boy at the center of the picture.

Kuroko Tetsuya.

A person that Akashi would be eternally grateful to. After all, he was a shadow that became their light when they got lost in the dark times of their lives.

As the boy reminisced about the past to take his mind off things, he didn't realize that he had fallen asleep, a peaceful look on his face.

Akashi woke up early as usual and prepared for another long day ahead of him. As his father had said, a limousine was already waiting for him the moment he stepped out of the house.

"Akashi-sama." The butler bowed and opened the car door for Akashi. Once inside, the driver promptly left and delivered Akashi to the gates of Rakuzan High. Students stopped and stared at the luxurious car only to turn away hastily to their own business when their own student council president emerged from it. Akashi told the driver that he will inform him when to get him as he has further things to do after class and might be held up late going home. Once done, he dismissed him and proceeded to his classroom.

The room was in an uproar but the moment Akashi set foot in it, his classmates immediately shut up. The redhead pretended not to notice but inside he was extremely annoyed. He sat at his desk and pulled out some documents for the student council. He signed them and made the necessary corrections while waiting for the bell to ring. Around him, his classmates talked in whispers so as not to disturb him, but his ears caught the words "transferee" and "new classmate". They were talking excitedly and Akashi mentally sighed as he crossed out another unneeded detail in the file before him. Why they look at that matter like it was a big deal was beyond the redhead's comprehension.

Just as he finished putting away the papers, the school bell went off, and their teacher arrived a few minutes later. The students greeted him a good morning which he returned in kind before telling the class that they are having a new classmate starting this term. He called in the new student to introduce herself.

"Hajimemashite. Watashi wa Fujiwara Mizuki desu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu."

Akashi, who was looking outside the windows, turned his head to the speaker. There was no mistaking as to whom that voice belongs to. Akashi do not know anyone who can speak in a monotone yet melodious at the same time.

There, in the center of Akashi's classroom, stood no other than the girl that saved Akashi's life.