Not my world, just my playground.
Bloody Monday
After leaving the gritty streets behind for the immaculate crispness of the hospital waiting room, Ban crumpled his now-empty box of Marlboros and lobbed it at the waste bin, carefully pitching it just over Shido's head.
Shido bristled, and Madoka stroked the knee, which, curiously, her hand seemed never to have left.
"You must know something we don't, Ban-san," she said softly, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You're certainly in a better mood."
"Ginji's going to be alright," he answered, shrugging. "I took care of it." He laid a very light emphasis on the word 'I,' mostly to irritate Shido. Were he more honest with himself, he might have admitted that he wanted to remind them that he was Ginji's partner, and entirely capable of looking out for the hapless former Thunder Emperor, despite the unfortunate events of the previous evening.
Kazuki closed his eyes, and the very slight movement of his lips informed Ban that the string-user had bitten his tongue. Juubei turned an ear toward Ban. "Just what, exactly, did you do, Midou?"
"I took care of it." He spoke the words as definitively as he could, leaving no one any room to question him.
"Midou-san?" A pretty nurse approached tentatively. Each head snapped up to the sound of her voice, and she reddened a bit at the unexpected attention. "It seems as if your partner, Amano-san, is going to recover."
"That so?" Ban asked, just a bit smugly.
A look of consternation crossed her face. "Evidently someone broke into the quarantine wing and administered an antivirus. Without proper knowledge of quarantine procedures, they could have contracted any number of deadly diseases." Apparently she realized that was an inappropriate thing to say, as it damaged the hospital's image and could conceivably began a panic; she flushed and cleared her throat. "He will need to stay for observation for several days, at least. The virus caused some serious damage to his lungs, and though his… unique… physiology should allow for a full recovery, he should remain still and quiet for awhile longer."
"Can we see him?" Natsumi asked uncertainly.
"As soon as he has been moved out of the quarantine wing, you may visit him during normal visiting hours, but no more than three people at a time may sit with him. Alright?" She looked them over expectantly, waiting for any remaining questions to be asked.
"Who broke in?" Shido cast a sidelong look at Ban, who put his nose in the air and crossed his arms.
"Security thought it was a brother and sister duo. Amano was unconscious, so he didn't see anything." Straightening a little, she smiled and said, "Let me know if you need anything, alright?" She walked away.
"Brother and sister?" Hevn looked at Ban curiously. "I know most of your contacts, Ban-kun. I don't remember a brother and sister partnership."
"You don't know half my contacts, Hevn," Ban retorted, carefully hiding how much the nurse's description had unsettled him. "Besides, half of that 'duo' was me, and I don't have a sister."
"So who's the girl?"
"None of your business." He took a seat opposite Hevn and stared at her, daring her to question him further.
She didn't. Kazuki had opened his eyes, and now regarded Ban speculatively, but if he found anything amiss, he didn't say so. A painful silence hung in the space between Ban and Ginji's other friends; to ease his own nerves, Ban watched them all carefully, weighing each uncomfortable shift, each averted glance, each bitten lip, drinking up the words no one was speaking.
Shido sat lowering at the Get Backer, angry firstly that Ban's carelessness had endangered Ginji, angry again that Ban had been the one to help the former king of Lowertown, rather than his older, more reliable comrades. Madoka's presence only softened the edges of that rage, and Ban found himself curiously shrinking away from that primitive, feral wrath.
Natsumi scarcely seemed to register the tension in the air, and though Ban could see that Rena did recognize the hostility, she pushed it aside as unimportant and unworthy of her attention.. Ginji's wellbeing occupied the thoughts of the two girls, and their selfless concern touched Ban more than he liked to admit. Ginji gave continually of himself, of his boundless optimism and empathy and sense of purpose, playing friend and guide to anyone who needed him, often gaining nothing but a half-trustworthy friendship in return. This assessment was a bit unfair, of course, but his partner had nearly died, and Ban felt rather disinclined toward generosity. So knowing that Natsumi and Rena's good hearts wanted nothing but Ginji's welfare pleased him.
Kazuki and Juubei were composed as always. Probably they had never really believed the Thunder Emperor could die. He could see the wheels spinning in Kazuki's head, lining up the facts as he knew them, pulling what outside information he could into the lineup, gauging Ban in precisely the same manner as Ban was weighing everyone else.
Hevn wanted to know about the girl. He couldn't blame her. He wanted to know about the girl himself.
And Paul… Paul hadn't said a word, not a single word. And who knew what he was thinking anyway, behind those dark glasses? Ban didn't trouble himself much about Paul. His father's old friend kept his own council, and that suited Ban perfectly.
After a several anxious hours, the nurse returned and invited "only three, please," to come and visit Ginji, though she warned them that he had been seriously ill and would probably be fast asleep by the time they got to his room.
Ban, Hevn, and Paul followed the pretty nurse into an elevator car and out of it again when they reached the sixth floor. Paul caught Hevn's wrist and tugged on it briefly, catching the reflection of her eyes in his glasses. She nodded, and they waited silently in the hall as Ban stepped into the hospital room.
Someone had turned the lights out. Ban frowned and flipped the switch. Ginji had once admitted to preferring to sleep with the lights on, though not because he feared the dark. As some children need white noise or a favorite blanket to fall asleep with, Ginji found the "feel" of electricity coursing above and around him a comforting sensation.
"Ban-chan?" Ban hid a wince as the words clawed their way out of his partner's throat, a tearing, rasping sound.
"Shut up," Ban said, pitching his voice low. "If it hurts to talk, don't."
Big brown eyes fluttered open, framed by blue-black bruises. "Ban-chan…"
"Didn't I tell you to shut up?"
Ginji shook his head weakly. "I'm sorry I broke the little bottle, Ban-chan. I was –" A series of wet, bloody coughs broke into his apology.
"Don't apologize for something stupid like that," Ban said evenly, handing his partner a wad of tissues to wipe the blood away with. "If you're going to worry about something, worry about sticking us with all these damn hospital bills."
Ginji swallowed painfully, and a wet shine appeared in his sickness-dimmed eyes, and Ban's cool demeanor warbled just a bit. "You punished yourself, you know, cutting yourself on the broken vial," he said off-handedly. "So you can quit looking at me like I'm gonna be mad at you. Nothing I could have done to you would have been as bad as this."
"I just…" Ginji doubled over, coughing again, turning to face away from Ban. His knees jerked up to his chest, and the whole bed shook with the force of his coughing.
"Don't worry about it!" Ban snapped, loud enough to be sure Ginji could hear him.
When Ginji could breathe freely again, he seemed too exhausted even to move, and he didn't turn over to look at his partner.
"I have to take care of some things, Ginji," Ban said quietly, after a few minutes of silence. The back of Ginji's head dipped slightly in acknowledgement. "I told the monkey trainer and the thread spool to stick around, though, alright?" Another slight bob of blonde spikes.
Ban rose to leave, to tell Paul and Hevn they could come in, to tell them Ginji was asleep, because if they thought he was they'd leave him alone. And maybe he would get some rest.
There was a stiffness in Ginji's shoulders that Ban couldn't ignore, so he paused by the door and, without turning around, said, "You know we couldn't have given that vial back anyway, Ginji, even if our employer had genuinely intended to pay us. So it's a stupid thing to feel bad about."
The strain he sensed didn't disappear, so he waited a moment longer by the door.
"I'm sorry I made you worry, Ban-chan," Ginji said hoarsely.
Ban smiled a little at the door, feeling the tension evaporate. "Feel better, Ginji."
"He's sleeping," he informed Paul and Hevn, pushing past them. The lie sprang easily to his lips as he entered the hall. Paul probably knew he was lying, but he wouldn't tell. He knew what it was like to have an injured partner.
Sure enough, a small smile appeared at the corners of Paul's mouth once Hevn's back was turned, and when her heels clattered loudly on the glaring white tiles, he shushed her with a sidelong glance at Ban. Ban returned the glance but not the smile.
He found the 360 with yet another ticket under the wipers; evidently he had parked in an employee only parking lot. Which would explain the red, wooden bar he'd crashed through in his panic to get Ginji into the hospital. Crumpling the ticket, he tossed it in the back and slid into the driver's seat to turn the key in the ignition.
The bar that the girl had mentioned was on the other side of Tokyo, but Ban found it with no difficulty. He pulled up beside it, for once taking care to park carefully, reluctant to chance having the car towed. If something unexpectedly went south with Ginji, he wanted to be able to return to the hospital in a hurry.
Her almost-blonde ash brown hair stuck out like a sore thumb at a bar full of black heads, and he saw immediately that she'd rested her purse on the barstool at her right, presumably reserving the seat for him. For several minutes, he watched her nurse what he took to be a rum and coke. Observation constituted a great part of his so-called "battle genius," and he took the time to carefully file away every minute detail he could pick up from the back of her head.
Her hair fell just past the small of her back in layered, sculpted arcs. The shortest layers fell just beneath her shoulders, not counting the similarly sculpted bangs that parted in the middle and framed her heart-shaped face. She obviously had some western blood; like Ban himself, her coloring was fairer than that of most Japanese. Dark khaki corduroy jeans rode comfortably at her hips, and a simple white cotton blouse had been neatly tucked inside. A white tank peeked over the top of the blouse's top fastened button, three buttons down from a perfectly starched collar. Beside her on the bar, a casual denim jacket lay neatly folded in half. To the untrained eye, she exuded classic style, but Ban recognized the high quality and double stitching in her clothing almost immediately. Whatever it was she did, it required alternately cool professionalism and hard work.
So far as personal adornment went, she wore only a pair of silver studs in her earlobes and a single silver ring on the index finger of her right hand. If she went about armed, Ban couldn't detect the telltale bulge of a concealed weapon.
She didn't move enough, didn't fidget or tap her feet or look around, and Ban picked up on this after several minutes of watching her. Sighing, he realized why her mannerisms seemed so unnatural.
"When did you realize I was here?" He handed her the purse off the stool she had reserved for him.
"I knew the moment you walked in the door." She glanced at him long enough to take the purse. Looking away, a half-smile pulled at her mouth. "Did you find whatever it was you were looking for?"
"Only more questions," Ban replied, somewhat sourly, irked that she had detected his presence.
"So ask them."
"Who are you?" Her smile fell.
"Would it trouble you too greatly to leave that question a while longer? You've had ample time to observe me; I would like the opportunity to assess you before handing out my name."
"You know mine," he pointed out. "Doesn't seem fair, but whatever." He shrugged, willing to play along for the time being. "Answer me this instead: how did you get the antivirus? The entire stock was supposed to be in the warehouse that burned down."
"I happened to be at the warehouse and saw that your friend had infected himself with SR-419. As your formidable talents distracted security, the antivirus was practically abandoned, and I was easily able to retrieve it."
Ban pursed his lips, reasoning that he could ask about her experiences in the warehouse, and her reasons for being there at all, later. For the moment, he had other concerns. "You have the other syringes as well?"
"I have one more. The others I distributed among the appropriate authorities," she answered candidly.
"You're very forthcoming." Suspicious by nature, the girl's ready answers and seeming ingenuousness sounded warning bells in Ban's head.
"I prefer to be honest when possible." She raised her glass to her lips, but paused before drinking. "It is exceedingly difficult to lie to people who expect duplicity. Harder still deceive those who believe you personally to be dishonest. Three or four parts truth to one part lie, and most people will swallow the whole thing."
That amused him a little, though he remained wary. "But you do lie.
That seemed to amuse her, for she smiled a little herself. "When necessary, Midou-san."
"Has it been necessary to lie today?" he asked bluntly.
She regarded him thoughtfully, mismatched eyes bemused. "Thus far, no. Though I make no promises in regard to the future."
He eyed her suspiciously, and deeming the answer sufficient, posed another question. "Why did you help me?"
"The answer to that is closely tied to your first question, which I declined to answer. Suffice it to say that you and I have held an enemy in common and now we also share a common purpose. I required the antivirus for other, unrelated matters; chance, or perhaps fate, permitted me to use it for your benefit. Regardless, I am positive that we would have eventually crossed paths. This meeting was inevitable, Snake Bearer."
Ban's heart skipped a beat, but he didn't allow the shock to register on his face. "I think its time we go back to that first question, lady." A dangerous note had entered his voice, and he did nothing to conceal it.
"Perhaps you're right," she agreed, unconcernedly. Reaching into her purse, she withdrew a stack of papers that had been folded in half and stapled at the upper left corner.
"When you registered for your retriever's license," she said, "you were administered a drug test and a background check, and your fingerprints, retinal patterns, and genetic data were put on file in Japan's official records. Correct?" She raised her brows, and he nodded a careful, wary confirmation. "This is you?" She slid one stack of papers across the bar, and a black-and-white photograph of his own face stared up at him. He flipped through the pages quickly and set them aside.
"Believe it or not, lady, this stuff I'm pretty familiar with." Wordlessly, she handed him the other stack. The formatting of her official records seemed a little different from his, but hers predated his by two years, according to the date that appeared in the footer of every page, and that probably accounted for the dissimilarity.
Adorlee Aurore St. Julian. He looked up at her incredulously. "French?"
She shook her head, but offered no explanation. Returning to the papers, he found curious blanks in a number of places. No birth date was listed, and no parents. He looked up at her again expectantly.
A grim smile touched her generous mouth. "I was abandoned as an infant. That is a story you shall soon be asking to hear, I assure you."
He continued through the pages and discovered she was a registered protector, which probably also accounted for the difference in the formatting of their papers.
"You don't have any fingerprints?" Clipped to the page that ought to have displayed the spread of both hands' fingertips, there was instead a notice explaining that the subject had no fingerprints to offer, and that handprints had been accepted instead.
She turned her palms upward for him to examine. Where swirling patterns of minute ridges ought to have been, there was instead smooth white skin.
Scars.
"Surgically removed? Why?"
"Because in Japan it is common practice to fingerprint children not long after their birth, and the individuals who found me didn't know whether I had been fingerprinted. It would have been bad for them if someone could identify me. I actually do not have toe-prints, either," she offered, still smiling bleakly.
He decided to follow that later, and turned the page to find that her retinal patterns and genetic information were intact.
Frowning, he studied the STR profile that served as her genetic identifier in Japan's records. Reading over the numbers, secretly pleased he remembered as much about DNA as he did, he stopped short about halfway through the table.
Flipping through the other stack of papers, he found his own STR profile.
Adorlee – if that was her real name – turned away.
"This isn't possible," Ban said flatly. "Don't fuck with me, lady."
"The hall of records is around the block, Midou-san," she answered quietly. "That is why I chose this meeting place."
"But why – " He stopped himself. "How?" he demanded.
"I was not entirely certain of the facts myself until four days ago. Midou-san…" Her voice trailed off, and she seemed distinctly unhappy.
Ban wasn't feeling especially chipper himself. "What?" he asked shortly.
"Your mother…was she superstitious?"
There was a painful, awkward silence. "Extremely."
"I was found in a dumpster behind a maternity ward outside Tokyo, twenty one years ago come this December," she told him, looking into her now-empty glass. "Supposedly there were fingernail marks across my face, across my eyes."
Ban blinked, and could have slapped himself for being so slow. Heterochromia, a condition in which one's eyes appear to be different colors, had once been seen as a mark of the devil, right up there with double pupils and extra nipples. A wave of compassion threatened to overwhelm him; he forced it down, along with the memories Adorlee's question raised. He couldn't afford to pity someone he couldn't trust.
"Who found you?" he asked after a moment, after he had collected himself.
Her grim smile resurfaced. "I told you we had a common enemy, did I not? My would-be rescuers belonged to an organization known as Brain Trust."
Ban closed his eyes against what he knew was coming.
"They are fond of experimentation, the members of Brain Trust," she said, not bothering to conceal the bitterness in her voice. "But that was long ago, and Brain Trust is now little more than a bad memory. I thank you for that."
Burning with questions, he opened his mouth to ask her when she had escaped Brain Trust, but she shook her head. Raising her watch, she showed him the time. It was 4:30 in the afternoon.
"Visiting hours end at six o'clock," she said with a small smile. "You should look in on your partner. Amano-san seems like a good person."
He studied her smile a moment, wincing inwardly when it became uncertain and tentative. "I've never known better," he said finally, allowing the truth to break the silence. She nodded and got to her feet.
Feeling like a fool, but not really sure as to the appropriate manner to assume toward a long-lost sibling, he took her denim jacket from the bar and held it open for her. Her brows knit in puzzlement, but a pleased smile played on her lips, so he figured he'd done the right thing. She shrugged into the jacket and thanked him, in her typical, wordy, formal manner.
"You could come with me," he said, affectedly nonchalant as he held the front door open for her.
"I…" She bit her lip, and then exhaled sharply and nodded. "I would like that very much, Midou-san."
"The invincible Midou Ban-sama," he corrected her. "Or Ban-san. Or just Ban. But not Midou-san.
"Otouto?" she asked with a smile.
He grimaced. "Why would you assume you're the older twin?"
"I am the elder. Your father signed your birth certificate, and that would have been done minutes after your birth. I would have had to have been born first, or he would have known about me. If he had, things probably would have turned out quite differently." Something faintly mischievous sparkled in her eyes. "You know," she mused, "I rather liked 'Ban-chan.' Your friend is very clever."
"Absolutely not."
Evidently she picked up on the lack of heat in the words, because the mischief didn't fade. "Very well, Ban-kun," she conceded. He scowled a little, but she didn't offer to change it again. Which was okay. It sounded more respectful coming from her than Hevn or Akabane, so he didn't really care.
She got into the 360, into Ginji's seat, and fastened the safety belt. Climbing in beside her, he gave her a sidelong look as he pulled out into the street. "What should I call you?"
"'Adorlee' has served well enough these past ten years; I see no reason to change it."
He nodded, but before he could reply, he was assaulted with the sudden knowledge that Ginji was in danger. Gunning the engine, he began to weave in and out of traffic, suddenly oblivious to the girl beside him.
"Midou-san?" She took hold of the back of his chair, bracing herself. "Midou!"
"Ginji," he ground out, "is in trouble." Two of the car's wheels came off the ground as he hit a right turn. His heart threatened to pound out of his breast, and his whole body broke out in a cold sweat. He wasn't going to make it in time.
She pursed her lips. "Pull over."
He didn't deign to answer, and she repeated herself. "Pull over, Midou-san."
He forced the gas all the way to the floor.
"Ban-kun." Reluctantly, his eyes slid toward Adorlee. She seemed completely unperturbed. "Pull over. There are better means for transporting ourselves quickly."
Cursing, not sure whether to believe her or not, he conceded. Pulling the car into a fire lane, and be damned to the ticket, he looked at her expectantly. Her eyes seemed to shift color, just enough so that both became a remarkable shade of violet blue.
And then he wasn't sure what happened. He felt himself racing forward, felt his legs pumping, his arms swinging, felt himself climbing, felt rough stone beneath his fingertips. But he saw nothing, and he knew he hadn't caused his body to move.
And then, all at once, he was standing in Ginji's hospital room. Ginji lay unconscious on the white bed. Adorlee was on her knees, gasping for breath. And the danger he had sensed stood poised over Ginji, dressed in doctor's scrubs.
"Sir, I'm just –" Ban vaulted over the bed, fist raised, and the "doctor" pulled a vicious-looking knife from somewhere within the green garments.
"You're just leaving," Ban informed him coldly. The other man launched himself at Ban, who neatly sidestepped the clumsy attack and aimed a blow at the back of the man's head as he went by. The "doctor" crashed against the wall, beneath the window, but to his credit, immediately got to his feet again and charged a second time, this time holding his knife as far out in front of him as he possibly could. Ban caught the man's wrist in a Snake Bite, and the knife clattered harmlessly to the floor.
"Who sent you?" Ban demanded, kicking the knife away.
The "doctor" trembled and fell to his knees. "I… I can't tell you!"
Dropping the wrist, Ban bunched a wad of green scrubs in his right hand and pulled the man to his feet. He pressed his face directly into the other man's, so that their eyes were inches apart. "I won't ask you again."
"They'll kill me!"
"Not if I kill you first." It was an empty threat, Ban had no intention of killing the low-man on the totem pole. But it had the desired effect.
"I can't!" He began to blink furiously, and struggled futilely against Ban's hands. "I didn't! I didn't tell him! Please, I didn't!"
Something hit Ban full in the chest and face, and he distinctly tasted blood on his lips. He staggered back. A massive, bloody chunk of bone and hair and brain had affixed itself to his shirt – the "doctor's" head had exploded. Before he could quite process the amount of gore that dripped and oozed around the hospital room, he could sense Ginji waking up behind him. Frantic to hide the carnage from his partner, he scanned the room for some kind of towel or blanket he could drape over Ginji's eyes.
It didn't prove necessary. Adorlee, though still breathing heavily, had managed to reach Ginji's side. Covered in blood spatter, though she'd escaped the worst of the gore, she lowered the tips of her fingers to Ginji's forehead and whispered something under her breath. Ginji's breathing evened and slowed. He began to cough a little, but Adorlee turned him on his side and the coughing eased.
Ban locked the door and stripped out of his ruined shirts. Then he turned to Adorlee, who sat silently by Ginji in the single chair the room offered, evidently undisturbed by the blood and viscera that surrounded her.
"What," he asked her quietly, nauseous, angry, and not a little frightened, "What in hell was that?"
