Shi Hanako tripped over her own damn boots as she scurried up the dingy, smelly hall of Lotus Local's main research building. Born to be an eternal klutz, her square frames went skidding across the stone floor and settled themselves neatly against the feet of a suit of Samurai armor that stood beside an office door. Blindly crawling across the floor, she searched desperately through the terrible blur before her until her green fingernails pinpointed the useless spectacles. Another great start to another great day.

Not that she had expected it to be anything less. Orochi Maki would never forgive himself if he did not ensure that Shi's day went without discord, insults and sexual harassment. It was the way he liked things, the way he thrived, because there was not a damn man, woman or child who would dare to argue anything less than Orochi Maki.

Shi quickly ducked into the women's restroom to clean the dirt off of his white summer dress. His white summer dress, not hers. No, never hers. It was always going to be his because he demanded it be that way. He would not have her in anything else. His rule from day one had been simple: Look as I command, act as I command…do as I command. A chance at the University of Tokyo made following his commands worth it. With his connections, she had a very good chance at obtaining such a dream come true. But only if she did as he commanded.

Her dark orange hair hung pathetically over her face and she struggled desperately to keep it back, having forgotten braids yet again. Dark eyes stared back at her from the other side of the mirror and they asked for a simple truth: What next?

Shi did not believe that there would ever be a next. Just a… now and a deal with it. Naturally, that was the only way it could be. She brushed a dead beetle out of her hair (which had gotten lodged in her curls when she had tripped), and pumped her fist firmly.

"Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day." She spoke the words aloud, but believed them only on an exterior basis. It was a stupid little rhyme that she had taught herself to lighten an idea within her soul as each day began. And often times, Maki liked to prove her otherwise.

Her dress cleaned, she nearly tripped again as she sped out of the door, checking her watch desperately. She was already ten minutes late for work, and Maki always noticed. She sped through several offices, accountants and telemarketers glancing up as an orangey white blur shot past them. She managed to make it into an elevator just as it was closing, and the young man stared at her incredulously. He was a fine man in a fine suit with a fine haircut: practically the opposite of how she considered her ruffled state at the moment as she breathed hard, leaning against the wall for support.

"You know this job isn't so great as to take it that seriously," the man said with a half smirk, amused. "Take a breather."

Shi glared at the man, her eyes narrowing into a deathly gaze. "Appreciate your means, appreciate everything else," she replied dryly. Standing up straight, her breathing coming under her control, she began to fix her hair as the elevator went down into the basement level. The young man chuckled, and was still grinning as he stepped off into the basement and left her alone in the elevator. Breathing deeply, she placed a little golden key from her purse into a lock built into the button pad. Turning it right once, she hit a button near the bottom: Bz. Bz, the finality basement, a special location for those who had the proper authorization, and for good reason, too. The experiments did down here were beyond illegal.

Stepping out into the musty, smelly sub-basement, the air thick with the scent of almost sulfuric chemicals, Shi rounded a corner and stepped into the main lab. It was like a doctor's observation studio converted into a mess of tables filled with hundreds of glowing beakers and papers. To one side, there was a massive glass tank, almost as if it had been ripped from the shark section of an aquarium, but this tank was not filled with water: it was filled with hundreds of insects. Caterpillars, butterflies, grasshoppers, bees, wasps, flies… It was a utopia of crawlies. A series of tubes led from the top of the tank to a machine that looked a lot like a generator, over which a man in a lab coat was bending over, examining.

To the other side of the lab was a smaller, tucked away space, and it was covered in plants. Ivy, flowers, a miniature lotus fountain and a tank filled with bright purple hemlock, all surrounded by bubbling beakers of vibrant green and blue goop. Her lab station, and probably the most foul smelling. But her work was quite worth the chemical odor that made hairs stand on the end. Her work that no one else seemed to believe in. She quickly bustled over to her flowery corner, glancing up at the Tokyo Tribe poster over her desk. Takeshi Uematsu glared down at her, sparking encouragement into the start of her day at Lotus Local and the insane men who governed her very future.

She saluted the male model on the paper and bowed before him. "Give me strength, bitter one," she whispered, and she immediately set to work, checking her charts and the growth of the giant pea pod from last night. Stretching out her measuring tape over one of its long, slender necks, she saw that the pod had grown about six inches more from the previous night…well below her expectations.

She glanced at a beaker of purple goo. The enhanced growth hormone was not doing what was expected of it, and Maki would never sell it unless the results showed a foot growth within a ten hour radius. Cursing to herself, she slipped on a pair of thick, black rubber gloves and carefully, carefully picked up the purple goop. The chemicals that comprised it were highly volatile when handled roughly, and she had already received plenty of burns on her legs. She had to handle it very, very-

"Hanako!"

She nearly dropped the entire thing, jumping. His voice was practically neck raping her, and she turned around, finding his face inches from her own. Maki had wandered over from the generator-like machine that he had been inspecting, and was gazing at her with cold eyes. Thirty-three, fair haired with a fine goatee, the man prodded a gloved finger sharply into her left shoulder.

"Ouch?" Shi suggested, grinning sheepishly.

"Ouch," Maki mimicked. "Ouch, ouch. Ouch!" He prodded her again. "Late. What kind of people walk in late, Shi Hanako?"

"You tell me," she replied, just as she had rehearsed. "You're the boss. Your word is law."

Maki smirked. "Stupid, uncaring, uninvested time-wasters. What kind of people walk in late?"

"Stupid, uncaring, uninvested time-wasters?"

"Very good. I'm pleased that you know these things, because the information is essential to the evolutionary growth that Lotus Local strives for. Naturally, you care more than even I for its successes."

"Naturally is the keyword, just as you said-"

POP! He slapped her, hard. Her cheek went blood red at once and she doubled over, the beaker slipping out of her grip. It smashed onto the floor and saturated her boots, and Maki jumped backwards. Purple steam began to rise, and Shi quickly covered her face, leaping away as well from the cackling, acidic vapor. She looked at Maki incredulously, who was looking as amused as quickly as he had annoyed with her.

"Nice athletics…" he muttered.

"Why!?" Shi persisted, tears in her eyes as she gestured at the mess on the floor. "You know what those chemicals cost, what it takes to produce them!?"

"More money than you're worth," Maki whispered, and he pushed her roughly against the wall beside her corner. The back of her head seared with pain where she hit the stone, and she tried to massage the throbbing bump, but Maki closed the space between them, his hot breath fiery upon her neck. She trembled in fear. Maki had never made such movements this early in the day… and none so forcibly… Her cheek burned with the furiosity of his impact, but he had her pinned and she could not even rub the damn thing. "Isn't that right?"

"Y-yes!" she nearly sobbed, struggling to contain composure. "Yes!"

"Say it," he whispered into her ear, his slimy tongue running across the upper portion of her neck. She was revolted, felt sickened by the man. She had grown used to, over the course of two years, Maki making these kinds of advances in the dead hours of the night, her silent contract with him her beckoning… but this… so early, and so…violently… A mad shadow had descended down upon this demon.

"I-I-I…" She was stammering and sweating. "I'm a not worth the money, I'm not worth the money!"

His hand slammed into her… into a place where it need not go, but there it was. She felt faint, crippled by the rape but lacking the willpower or physical strength to throw him off. His fingers dug greedily, and she bit her lip in pain, so hard that she drew blood.

"That's right, Shi," her rapist whispered. "You're a piece of what?"

"T-trash…" she sobbed, succumbing to her tears, her body going limp. Resistance was futile.

"But what will I build you up to be?"

He mouthed the word with her. "Royalty."

"That's right," he whispered, his free hand around her neck. "I build up emperors. I build up legends. Tokyo will benefit from the gifts I will send along with you. Isn't that right?"

"Y-yes…" Tears and tears and tears.

"And that is because?"

"I-ouch! Aagh… B-because I w-will have learned from the Dragon Prince."

Maki nodded, pulling away from her and freeing her of the sexual assault. He slapped her once more, very lightly, on the cheek. "Correct. Forget it not… and don't be late for work ever, ever again." And Maki turned away, hands reaching into his pockets, a confident smile upon his lips.

Shi stood there forever, caught in an eternal web of immobility and strife. Her heart littered whatever remained of her interior, her face saturated in tears. Just…like that… She was shaking. Cold and terrified. Maki bent back down over his machine, picking up a screwdriver as he did, humming to himself cheerily. Shi leaned against her desk, desperately staring about at the beakers assembled before her. Some very poisonous chemicals bubbled in these glass containers, and her soul screamed at her to toss them all at Maki.

Sighing, she lowered herself down to her chair, but cried out in pain, unable to sit. His fingernails had cut her deep, and she felt blood down there. Blood there, and blood in the back of her hair. She had hit that stone hard. She could not sit. She could hardly breathe.

"Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day," she struggled to say, her lips trembling as she blinked back the tears. "Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day."

"Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day." That phrase was her existence. She desperately reached out with her gloved hand and stroked the petals of an overlarge white lotus. Her only friend. Her only friend.

"You won't ever hurt me, will you?" she whispered desperately to the flower, needing it to speak back to her, assuring her of…something. Her plants were all she had in this world, and her work with them kept her alive and moving forward through the daily hells that Maki believed her worthy of enduring. Shi Hanako, "that weird plant girl…" It was all she had to her name, but it was all she could ever have until she was safely tucked away in Tokyo's university and far, far away from Maki.

She would endure. She had to endure. It was essential that nothing stand in the way of her work, and her future. She would succeed where Maki wished to make her fail. He could attack her body, but he could not attack her experiments. He needed them. He would make a fortune off of them in the long run. So let him rape her… let him hit her… because in the end, she would rise above anything that he could ever be. When she was accepted into Tokyo, she would be one with Japan's greatest scholars. Maki was not going to tear her future down!

She set to work, mixing new chemicals together to replace the growth hormone that the bastard had wasted. She could hear him whistling away in his corner, fixing that stupid assimilation machine of his. The ultimate breeding factory for the vibrant buzzers, he had claimed, whatever the hell that meant. She did not care. Bugs were not her work, plants were. And she was devising a plan to make these plants capable of fighting off the insects that threatened them. Not only did she intend to give them enhanced growth: she intended to give them new biological advantages. Weapons. Her work meant more to the world than his stupid bug machine.

Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day.

She shut out his whistling with her catchphrase, concentrating on applying the correct dosage of Baylean extract to the Nydrus chemical.

Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day.

She was in so much pain. He had hurt her so bad. She needed to run to the bathroom, to clean herself, to check the damage… but if she left, she knew he would hurt her again.

Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day… Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day… Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day…

Her experiments were among the illegal considerations that required a sub-basement such as this one, but for the life of her she could not fathom as to why his bug mating experiment was a red flag. She never asked Maki about his work. Why should she?

Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day.

There were a few other researchers who popped on in down here, calling out their greetings to Maki, who cheerfully bowed to their lateness. He raped them not. He beat them not. They were allowed to come down whenever they damn well pleased. But she…she was his slave. She bore no such right.

Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day.

The more pain she felt, the more she tenderly stroked the vines that hung from the giant green bulb before her, and the flowers that surrounded her workspace, whispering desperate pleas for attention from them.

Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day.

"Fuck him," she hissed to herself, squeezing the beaker of Vllynthine fiercely. "He just can't do this…"

Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day.

"I'm a human being, aren't I!?" she snapped angrily at her plants. They almost seemed to be very attentive to her pleas. "Aren't I worth something after all this!?"

Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day.

"And he treats me like shit because…because…." Because he could. Because he was her ace in the hole, and he knew it. He had influence. His family had influence. She did not. She had come from a poor background, a street vendor family from Osaka, thriving off of the business venture of well cared for flowers and hay dolls. Her sister had been one for the dolls, but Shi Hanako had needed the flowers. They had given her the true nature of motherhood that she desired. Power to give life, to watch it grow, to feel it thrive. However, none of this merited much influence in Japan's school system. Private tutors meant nothing to esteemed academic palaces.

Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day.

And now what? Now what!?

Today is a day that will not turn gray, but rather turn into another fine day.

"His whore," she sobbed quietly to herself. She set the beaker down and buried her face into her gloves, the pain too much to bear. She spun around, intent on going to the bathroom, accepting whatever fate he would have for her when she returned.

She leapt back. Maki was once more standing there, his arms crossed, a small smile on his face. Had he been listening to her talking with the plants? Had he seen her sobbing?

"Please move," she whispered desperately, trying to wipe away her tears. "I need to go to the bathroom."

"In due time," Maki whispered back. "But first I want to brief you on an assignment."

"Whatever it is, can't it wait?" Shi begged. But Maki shook his head.

"No, trash…it can't. Now, listen: I have a very, very important meeting tonight. The meeting is set to take place in the Cherub Gardens, 9 p.m. sharp. And I need a driver."

"D-driver?" She shook her head incredulously. What in the hell?

"Yes, a driver. The bastards suspended my license this morning and I can't pick the thing up until tomorrow morning. So I need you to drive me to the Gardens."

"I-I can't!" Shi said, shaking her head. "I have plans tonight…"

"Your plans, the only plans I'm giving you permission to have, is to drive me to the Gardens," Maki said in his most threatening tone yet, shadowing her with his demonic malice. She cowered in that shadow. "And let me tell you something else: you won't speak, and you won't get out. I'm to meet my guests alone. You'll drive me, you'll shut up, and you'll wait. You'll wait for as long as it takes. And let me make another thing clear." His hand shot out and found her neck once more. This time, he squeezed firmly. She felt her air cut off, felt bruises within her desperate future. He leaned forward, and pressed a deep, firm kiss onto her lips. When he pulled away, he hissed, "After we're done, you're to drive us to my condo. I've got a long night ahead of me and I need a favor from you."

He smiled. She almost vomited. A favor. Of course he did. There was only one thing that "favors" meant to Maki. She slumped, forgetting how firmly he held her neck even after he had released her. Some of his fellow researchers were glancing their way, but they were all used to Maki's abuse and, quite frankly, cared only if it was targeted directly at them. He smiled kindly at her now. "Go clean your cunt." He turned and left.

Shi Hanako collapsed onto the floor, her hand desperately grasping at her bruised throat. She leaned her head against an overhanging vine, and held onto it dearly for life, wishing that she could become a plant herself and hide away from Maki forever…