Disclaimer: I don't not own Sekirei or any references made.
Chapter Two: Fateful Meetings
"You can drop me off here." Karasuba said, gesturing to a patch pavement right beside an alleyway that lead into a residential area. Natsuo nodded and wordlessly turned the convertible towards it, stopping by the side of the road.
Not waiting for the car to fully stop, she undid her seatbelt and vaulted over the door, collecting her nodachi from the back seat of the car.
"I'll call when i'm done." The black sekirei said, giving a casual wave to her ashikabi as she started down the alley. Natsuo only nodded again, watching her from behind a pair of polarised sunglasses as she disappeared down the alley.
It was at her insistence that he decided to drive her around so she could run her 'errand' and given any other circumstance he would have denied her. But at this point, time was of the essence and if it meant she'd get off his back for the time being, he'd gladly take it.
Putting the car back in gear, he dropped the clutch and the Ferrari disappeared down the streets in a red streak and a screen of tyre smoke.
Karasuba scanned the house numbers as she walked down the asphalt road. It almost felt surreal how quaint this part of town was, so detached from the hustle and bustle of modern metropolitan life.
Finally, she came across the one she was looking for. A white small two story Japanese style cottage marked "Izumo Inn". Karasuba figured she should just ring the bell and ask for her by name, but no sooner had she stepped up to the gate did a cold torrent of water land right on top of her, drenching her from head to toe.
"Ah, sorry about that!" She heard a female voice shout from behind the fence. "Stay right there i'll get you a towel!"
Karasuba heard the sound of a door opening, followed by loud thumbs of furniture being shifted before the gate finally unlocked and creaked open, and the brunette head of Musubi pop up from behind it.
"Ah! Karasuba!" She squealed and grabbed her senior's hands in her own, the notion of a towel long forgotten in her excitement.
"Nice to see you're still lively as ever Mu-chan." Karasuba smiled. "But about that towel…." The Black Sekirei turned to Musubi's left.
Puzzled, Musubi followed her gaze…
To where the said towel lay on the ground, in a puddle of water.
"Ahhhh!"
"I'm really sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" Musubi apologised as she bowed profusely to a half dressed Karasuba. The older sekirei only smiled fondly at the her juniors antics.
"I'm fine, Mu-chan." She consoled the brunette, before turning to put on her loaned slip, her clothes had been tossed into the tumble dryer before that. Musubi looked up as she did, and caught eye of the crest on her back. Her eyes immediately shone when she saw it.
"Ah! So you met your fated one?" Musubi gleamed up at her senior. "What is Karasuba's ashikabi like i wonder." She got a light chuckle in response.
"Has Mu-chan been winged too?" The older girl asked.
"Yes! Musubi has found her ashikabi too!" The brunette answered enthusiastically, breaking into a light hop. "Musubi's ashikabi is Minato. He is kind, caring and has a really big heart." She proclaimed, making a big circle with her arms for emphasis.
"I think that's all kind of the same thing…" Karasuba commented, causing Musubi to pause mid circle while her brain processed what she just said. She sheepishly scratched the back of her head when she realised her blunder.
"Yeah i guess it is…" However, undeterred, she resumed.
"But, he's a little weak too! Like that one time i gave him a light punch because he made a really mean joke. Then he just fell over and complained he couldn't feel his arm for a week." Mususbi huffed.
Karasuba snorted. "Humans are such fragile creatures."
"Ah but enough about me." The junior girl said. "What about your ashikabi?"
The Black Sekirei took a second to ponder about an answer to give. Somehow images of that day at the MBI viewing gallery crossed her mind.
The feelings of emptiness, of loss and seeking solace in destruction….
His wit, intuition, how he answers the phone.
And his perfect english…
"i know you're hiding something."
"You could say he's quite an... interesting character too." Karasuba smirked.
Sahashi Minato couldn't believe his luck, or lack of luck to be precise. He'd thought of just going out for a walk in the nice spring air and get away from his sekirei for a while, only to realise he'd left home without his wallet.
Which was why he was now at a convenience store counter desperately digging out any spare change on his person to pay for his bottle of coke. He could feel the metaphorical daggers in his back from the cashier and everyone in the queue, as he struggled with his jacket pocket.
A friendly hand tapped him on his shoulder. Minato turned, his gaze meeting a very handsome young man dressed in an sharp black suit and tie.
"Forgot your wallet?" The man asked, flashing him a reassuring smile.
"Yeah…" Minato replied, as he sheepishly scratched the back of his head.
The man nodded and reached in his jacket pocket, pulling out a very familiar looking black card. Minato immediately recognised it as the one that Tsukiumi was issued with. "Is this guy a sekirei then?"
"Put mine together with his, please." The man said as he placed his bottle of water on the counter and handed the cashier his card. All with perfect, practiced mannerisms. Minato couldn't help but be impressed by the amount of polish applied even to such a small gesture.
The cashier gruffly took the card and, after scanning the drinks through the barcode scanner, swiped the card and handed it back to the man with his receipt. Though if the man had an issue with the cashier's rudeness, he didn't show it and simply thanked him and left.
Minato followed in tow out of the store, where he found the man checking his phone by a striking red convertible Ferrari.
"MBI employee?" Minato thought. "Still, why would he have a black card?"
"Erm, thanks for helping me back there." He started. "That was really stupid of me to forget."
"Ah, it's no problem." the man replied with a kind smile, making Minato feel even more awkward about conversing with the seemingly upper class human being. "It happens to everybody."
"Ah- My name is-"
"Sahashi Minato." The man cut him off mid sentence, causing alarm bells to go off in Minato's head.
"Currently you have 2 sekirei: Number 88 and 9." The man continued, gracefully stepping into his car.
"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage then." Minato recovering from his shock quickly enough to reply.
"Ichinomi Natsuo." The man replied, holding no animosity, though his tone turned serious.
"Nothing personal, but for your sake I hope we never meet again." He continued, starting his car and putting it in gear.
"It's probably not good news for you if we do." With that, Natsuo gunned the engine, and the red car sped off down the road, leaving behind a rather perplexed ashikabi.
The late afternoon sun glazed the scenery gold as long shadows flowed from every object it touched. The owner of Izumo Inn hummed a tune as she took it all in, her walk suited for a refined lady like herself, purposeful but unhurried.
"Well I'll be going then, Mu-chan."
"Yep! Remember our promise Karasuba!" The spirited sekirei shouted, the mention of that name causing Miya to stop in her tracks.
She had gone out during the day to restock some of the inn necessities, and clearly some unfavourable characters have entered her husband's dwelling while she was gone.
Miya's face twisted into a scowl as Karasuba started walking towards her direction.
The grey haired woman's eyes blinked in recognition, though her mouth was still twisted in her usual conceited smirk.
"Fancy meeting you here." She greeted, earning a growl from her ex-superior.
"I told you never set foot in his house didn't i?" Miya said dryly. "Do you have a deathwish?"
"Getting a little ahead of yourself aren't you?" Karasuba taunted, as her hand shifted to the nodachi on her hip. "So sure you can beat me? What would your husband think?"
A nerve twitched inside Miya and a hand shot beneath her other sleeve, tightening on a hidden knife she kept with her, her shopping bag long forgotten on the pavement.
Karasuba twitched with excitement and overflowing bloodlust when she saw her taunt had struck a nerve. But that quickly went away the moment Miya relaxed her grip and picked up her shopping bags.
"He would have not wanted to see me fight someone as unsavoury as MBI's dog." Miya said flatly and continued walking back to the house, past Karasuba, who had likewise dropped her guard.
"But what I said stands." Miya warned. "If you dare step inside my husband's house again, i will kill you."
"I look forward to it." Karasuba nodded with a sadistic grin.
Wendell Hunt looked up from his thick stack of documents, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Yawning he turned to the digital clock on his desk.
"11 P.M. already?" He sighed. "Must have stayed longer than i expected."
The CIA director got up from his chair and packed up his desk. He was about to grab his coat of the rack and leave when his phone rang. Wendell rolled his eyes and sighed as he quickly went through a mental list of who might be calling at this time. Finding no one, he picked up the phone.
"Yes?" He answered slightly impatient.
"It's me." An accented female voice answered.
"Oh." He replied, quizzical at why she would be calling at this time. "What've you got for me?"
"Straight to business huh? Typical of you Americans." The woman chastised amusingly.
"Well, considering that it's 11 at night and I was on my way out of my office already. You can probably guess i'm not very interested in a catch up." Wendell said flatly, trying to stifle another yawn.
"Fair enough." The woman mused. "I went over the blueprint you sent, unfortunately i got nothing concrete. Could be a focusing mechanism, or it could just simply be a very high powered microscope. It's too vague to tell."
"I figured as much" The man sighed. "Anything else?"
"Yes, as you know, the second stage of the sekirei plan involves MBI effectively locking down Tokyo."
"Yes, and they're going to conduct raids to weed out all foreign military and intelligence operatives. As well as effectively hold the entire Japanese public hostage by threatening to freeze all finances in the country, if the government doesn't hand the capital city over to them."
"So they can have a complete information blackout on what's happening within Tokyo." Wendell finished.
"Exactly, however i did some thinking and came up with this." Wendell heard a electronic blip behind him, and turned to see that his computer had switched itself back on.
"How did you do that?" He asked, more amazed than anything.
"Your servers are full of cookies that can be infected with my modified malware, all it took was a little hocus pocus to generate a script to control individual terminals." The woman said prosaically, as if it were to most natural thing to do if one wanted to crack into one of the most secure networks in the USA.
"Anyways, don't sweat the small stuff. Check this out." She continued, and a new window opened on screen. Wendell looked the diagram, but his mind drew a blank.
"What exactly am i looking at?"
"A way to... how would you say… 'Fuck shit up'… Even more for the MBI informations network. That way we could at least preempt and plan our next move. Maybe help us turn the tide of the battle should there be one."
"How would you do tha-" Another window opened before he could finish, causing him to roll his eyes. It was a terminal window, with a large chunk of source code.
"The same way i tapped into your network. Unfortunated MBIs intranet is not as electronically tainted as yours, so i still haven't found a way of sending it to them. Which is why i haven't used it yet."
"So you need someone on the inside to upload it?" He heard a sigh from the other end.
"Yes." She conceded. "As much as i don't like that option."
Wendell felt her apprehension.
"Still don't trust him?"
"No." She replied. "And not anytime soon."
"But i supposed the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
If this was supposed to be the start to an action film, it would be the last choice any good director would pick for a setting. But here they were, in a back alley on a serene, peaceful afternoon. None of which seemed to stifle the amount of killer intent the opponents had for each other.
"Ah Mitsuha stop, you can't beat her." A woman clad in a long white flowing robe said to her very aggravated partner. The blonde however ignored her, continuing to glare with the utmost contempt at the challenger in front of them.
The Black Sekirei only smiled, flexing her fingers as she itched to draw her nodachi.
"Are you gonna stand there and talk all day?" Karasuba taunted. "I don't like to be kept waiting you know."
"Bitch, I'll show you." Mitsuha snapped back, tensing at the taunt and drawing back her stance, whip curled to her side in preparation for a strike. Though rather than fazing the smiling demon, all it seemed to achieve was make her sardonic smile wider.
"Mitsuha, she's number 4, the murderous Black Sekirei." Akitsu warned as she grabbed Mitsuha by the shoulder, jerking her back. "You'll die if you fight her."
"Well I've never heard of her!" The blonde snapped back, growing more annoyed by her friend's apparent lack of faith in her ability. "And Black Sekirei or not, this bitch just challenged me to a fight, so she's going down!"
"Honestly i'm a little hurt you haven't heard of me." Karasuba sing-songed with an exaggerated pout, further aggravating her opponent.
"However my friend here," She shook her sheathed nodachi for emphasis. "thinks that Miss Scrapped Number over there has the right idea."
Akitsu twitched at the mention of that unsavoury title, but however made no attempt at a retort. Mitsuha on the other hand, expressed no such restraint.
"Alright that's it! You asked for it!" With a strong shove, the blonde broke free from Akitsu's grip and charged with blinding speed, her coiled whip drawn up like a cobra in attack mode.
"Mitsuha!" Akitsu pleaded but to no avail.
Karasuba smirked, and responded by taking a lazy step forward, her hand resting slack on the grip of her nodachi.
A split second flash, a surreal bel canto of steel cutting through air then flesh, followed by the finality of a spray of arterial blood like a finishing stroke to a renaissance masterpiece.
It took Mitsuha a second to realise she was staring at her own dismembered midsection from the ground, before blood loss did the rest.
The Smiling Demon turned Akitsu, allowing her sword arm to fall limp by her side.
"So, you wanna go next?" She asked, the bloodstains on her face and clothes giving her an even more deranged appearance.
Akitsu staggered back, before turning tail and breaking into a full sprint down the alleyway, desperate to get away from the infamous murderer.
"I suppose not." Karasuba chuckled, giving her sword a firm swipe to remove the blood before sheathing it. She turned to the mutilated body on the floor. "Now to wait for someone to clean this up."
The Black Sekirei cracked her neck.
"Well that was refreshing."
"Sekirei Number 59 was just disabled ma'am. Seems to be a problem with her shutdown protocol." An engineer reported. "I got no vital signs here. Last seen in combat with Number 4."
The lead researcher, Sahashi Takami felt her blood run cold at the mention of Karasuba's number. She paused her writing and snuffed out her cigarette.
Takami Takami stoically walked over to the engineer, hands in the pockets of her lab coat, to analyse the data collected. Though her instincts told her this was more to confirm her suspicions.
This was going to happen eventually.
"No signs she was unwinged as well." The engineer continued, perusing the information screens perplexed at the abnormality.
"Can we bring up a security camera feed?" Takami asked.
"Yes ma'am." The engineer sharply acknowledged, keying a few lines of code into the terminal. They were quickly linked to a feed from one of the many cameras MBI had placed throughout the city specially to monitor sekirei activity.
The sight that greeted them however, made them regret that decision.
The piercing ringing of his mobile broke the monotonous drone of office machines. Natsuo promptly answered it.
"Ichinomi here." He said.
"I need you to do something for me." A female voice replied, causing him to raise an eyebrow. Now why would she be dealing with him directly? He thought.
"I'm listening." Natsuo took a stealthy glance round before he replied, intrigued.
Modernity is a double edged sword. On one hand it provides safety, security and convenience. Think of what all the world would be like without mobile phones, supermarkets and street lighting for example.
But on the other hand, modernity has also provided much in the way of creating conflict, weapons production, unethical surveillance and violation of civil rights.
Right now, it was that side of modernity, that an ashikabi and his sekirei were fighting against. They had been running for the past hour or so, from exit to exit, trying to find a highway or some sort of road that MBI had not closed off. To escape the second stage.
Finally they found one.
A small two way bridge, leading out to southern Kyushu. The pair almost jumped for joy at their luck, before running down the bridge to freedom.
"Now where do ya think you're going?" A female voice called out from behind them, immediately making their hearts to sink into the abyss of desperation. "Not planning on running away are you?"
"Who are you?!" The runaway sekirei, a muscular woman with short hair, clad in form fitting clothing snapped. Her ashikabi, a rather scrawny youth squirmed behind her.
"Disciplinary Squadron, Number 105, Benitsubasa." The petite, pink haired girl stated, with an arrogant smirk plastered on her face.
"What now?" The young ashikabi fearfully asked, as he attempted to hide behind his sekirei. She however was preoccupied with sizing up the Red Sekirei who was casually striding towards them.
She growled.
"Guess we'll have to fight then!" The runaway sekirei shouted, raising her tonfas and charging towards Benitsubasa.
"Wrong answer fuckface." The petite girl snorted and gracefully dodged her opponent's opening strike. She then doubled back, going into a handstand, and followed through with a roundhouse kick.
The sekirei managed to dodge in time, but not before the edge of the kick took off a shred of clothing from her chest. Benitsubasa seamlessly transitioned from the kick, back into her fighting stance.
"Oh, i'm so gonna enjoy breaking every bone in your body." The Red Sekirei flashed a cocky smile as she put one arm behind her and raised her other hand in front of her and beckoned her opponent, Bruce Lee style.
The taller sekirei growled and charged again, throwing a powerful tonfa strike aimed for the Rei Sekirei's head.
"Too slow!" Benitsubasa crowed as she ducked low, sliding beneath the strike and under her opponent's guard, flowing into a quick uppercut right into the woman's gut.
Her first disabling blow dealt, she vaulted back, kicking up with her heels as she back flipped and connecting with the other sekirei's jaw.
Hearing the deathly sound of bones snapping, the young ashikabi dropped to his knees, staring with a gaze of disbelief at his fallen companion, motionless on the ground.
"Well that was fun." Benitsubasa dusted off her clothes and walked up to the limp body.
Kneeling, she pulled back the sekirei's clothing, revealing the winging crest tattooed on her trapezius. The Red Sekirei pressed her hand to it.
"Fist of my pledge, go forth and shatter the bond of this sekirei."
The tattoo glowed and vanished.
No one really ever came into the head office at MBI, unless they had a problem or a death wish. So when one furious head of MBI research, Sahashi Takami stormed through the obscenely grand office, it's quite a big deal.
A clipboard slamed into Minaka's desk with a sharp snap, jolting the man from his afternoon doze.
"Ah, Takami, what a pleasant surprise." The head of MBI greeted groggily.
"Cut the bullshit!" Takami screamed, turning the clipboard loaded with photos of Mitsuha's murder over to Minaka. He took a look at the contents and raised an eyebrow.
"I see our dear Karasuba has been busy?" Minaka observed, shrugging. "I don't see the issue here." he continued, earning himself another slam of the desk from the head researcher.
"The issue, is that she straight up killed her." Takami screamed, shoving at an autopsy photo of Mitsuha's dismembered body into Minaka's face with enough force to almost push him off his chair. "If Karasuba had exercised a bit more restraint like you said she would, Number 59 would would only be in stasis right now, not in a fucking morgue freezer!"
"So what's the next part of this genius plan of yours? We're supposed to let your pet aliens slaughter each other now?" She sneered, pointing an accusatory finger and a steely eyed gaze at the man in front of her.
"Number Four is a special case, so until her behaviour severely compromises the plan or an event of insubordination, I will treat this as an isolated incident." Minaka stated firmly.
"Bullshit, Minaka! You know what she's capable off. What about collateral damage? Civilian casualties? You really haven't thought this through, have you?!" Takami protested angrily. "If you don't do something about it, once the game kicks off for real, the bodies are going to start piling up."
"Hence, i relegated her to the Disciplinary Squadron." Minaka countered flatly. "Where her, talents, could be better utilised."
Takami shook, outraged at his proposition.
"My son! No, our son, is part of the sekirei plan! If you don't do this for me then at least do this for him!" She screamed, trying to appeal to the last of Minaka's sensibilities.
"Well then, he can take pride in the fact he is doing God's work in reshaping the world." The head of MBI shrugged, smiling.
"You're really going to just let this go aren't you?" The head researcher asked coldly, as she massaged her forehead, feeling the onset of a massive headache.
All she got in response was another noncommittal shrug.
"God damn you you piece of sh-, uggghhh!" Takami screamed, kicking over a chair and hurling an ornament on Minaka's desk through a large glass window before storming out of the office in hail of broken glass shards.
"Oh and close the door on your way..." The gargantuan wooden door slammed shut before Minaka got a chance to finish his sentence.
"...out."
The door to the lower vault hissed and opened, allowing Minaka to enter. It was a rather large, circular room, with metallic walls bathed in dim purple light. At its center, a round glass chamber.
Minaka walked up to the chamber, looking forlornly at the contents within. Within the chamber stood 8 pedestals. Each of them less one, had a inverted cone shaped glass crystal on it, and within each of them, a scarlet crystal sphere.
"Soon, my precious. Soon." Minaka whispered, storking the glass affectionately. "Once I find the last of your sisters, and kill that blasphemer who dared to take her away from me." His face contorted into a murderous glare towards the empty pedestal.
"Then, we will cleanse this world with fire." He sneered, malice thick in his voice.
"And reshape it anew."
"Hound 1, this is Hound 2, come in over." Benitsubasa visibly cringed as the overbearing screech of feedback filled her ears. They've been instructed to use comm sets and trackers so they could be accounted for at all times on the MBI battle grid.
Which would have made sense, if the audio levels had actually been tuned properly.
"Sometimes i wonder how they even get things done." The Red Sekirei sighed, wanting more and more to bang her head onto the roof of the building she was on top of.
"Benihime, you doing ok down there?" Her ashikabi asked over the comms, immediately making her reconsider her decision.
"Ah, I'm fine Natsuo!" She replied, sounding a lot more chipper after hearing her ashikabi's voice.
Natsuo couldn't help but smile at her fickle mindedness as he watched the CCTV feed. He had found Number 105's bipolar behaviour traits troublesome at first, but with time learnt to accept and preempt her bouts of foul mouthed violence. It also helped that she could be genuinely sweet if she wanted to be, helping him out as a de facto assistant in his day job and such.
"It's so sweet I think I'm going to get diabetes soon." Another voice, this one deeper and more gloomy, piped up. Benitsubasa didn't need to turn around to see who it was. Just the familiarity of her presence from their shared bond of their ashikabi gave her away.
"Shut up Haihane, no one asked you anything!" Benitsubasa snapped back, annoyed that her stream of potential compliments had been disrupted by her teammate.
"Now now, play nice you two." Natsuo codelled over the comms, and was given a huff from Benitsubasa in reply.
Number 108, Haihane, took her place behind her teammate and sister-bound sekirei.
While Benitsubasa was sweet on the outside and the embodiment of fury itself when irked, The Blue Sekirei was the exact opposite. It was as if fate was having a laugh at Natsuo's expense when he designed the social chemistry between them.
Her menacing appearance of dark makeup, a body wrapped in bandages and hooked steel claws, was just a disguise that hid her casual, laid back and lazy indoors personality. It also didn't help that Haihane often teased Benitsubasa about her small breasts.
"But really what are we even looking for?" Haihane asked dryly. "I really don't see how this is worth missing 'The Walking Dead' over."
"You're still going on about that?!" Benitsubasa shouted, as she glided gracefully through the air. "What's with you and watching stuff with dead people anyways?"
"I see dead people." Haihane humorously quoted with perfect impression, a line from a famous horror movie in response.
"Like hell you do!" The Red Sekirei shot back.
"We've received reports that a group of individuals were seen scouting the checkpoints in this area. Intel suggests it is highly likely the mole is among them, or at the very least, it's someone trying to escape the game." Natsuo announced, with slight amusement in his voice.
"Heh? Didn't they get the memo already when i broke that girls face in?" The Red Sekirei faked a sigh as she bounced from rooftop to rooftop, eyes scouring for anything suspicious.
"Seriously, these people never learn." She sighed.
"Well why would they?" Haihane quipped up behind her. "I mean, getting your teeth kicked in by some vulgar flat chested teenager isn't much of a story now is it?"
"Fuck you." Benitsubasa shot back, though her anger only encouraged more teasing from her sister-bound sekirei.
"Yeah, you wish." The Blue Sekirei laughed. Benitsubasa simply huffed and rolled her eyes in response.
A brown haired youth watched from behind a wall as the two disciplinary squad sekirei scouted around the street, quickly ducking back as a searchlight swept past his hiding spot.
He heaved a sigh of relief as they seemed to have found nothing and leaped away from the adjacent rooftop, a couple of military spec Black Hawk helicopters roaring past in tow.
"They're gone, Kuno." He said to the blonde girl huddled to his chest.
"I'm scared, Shigi." Number 95 whispered, pulling her ashikabi closer to her, still not daring to look up from the ground.
"It's going to be alright." Shigi reassured her, stroking her hair. "It's going to be alright."
"We just need some help."
"Found anything yet?" Minaka questioned while pacing the length of his grand office. Natsuo schooled his expression into his best poker face before answering.
"Negative sir, leads so far have been inconclusive. The trail seems to have gone cold." He said, as flatly as he could make himself sound.
Minaka paused, and stroked his chin while he considered Natsuo's words. Benitsubasa felt a drop of cold sweat drip down her back as she assessed the mood. Haihane in contrast, just remained her usual bored self.
The head of MBI sighed before turning back to the disciplinary squad ashikabi.
"Well, keep looking." The white haired man sighed. "In the meantime, we need to move things along with the second stage." Minaka continued going to his desk to retrieve a electronic tablet from one of the drawers.
"The blockades have been set, and the Japanese government is too powerless to do anything to stop us. I basically have them by the balls now." He snorted as he handed the tablet over to Natsuo, who accepted it with a raised eyebrow.
"Sir?" He asked.
"A dossier of all foreign safehouses and operatives." Minaka replied.
"We will make the announcement and begin the attack tonight. I'm assigning your team to some regular assets so you can assist them." The head of MBI continued. "I'm gonna show these motherfuckers what happens when they fuck with my plans."
Natsuo tried his very best not to appear shocked, defaulting to his unreadable smile. "That's two weeks ahead of schedule." He mentally cursed.
"Search and destroy."
"What do you mean you can't do anything about it?!" Natsuo yelled into the phone, as he locked the fire escape door to the top floor viewing platform.
"The board has discussed this beforehand, we can't do anything about it on such short notice." Wendell's voice orated mechanically.
"It would only raise suspicion and risk compromising you, our closest agent." He explained. "We can't risk that."
"I don't care what happens to me. Just get these people out of there now!" The ashikabi retorted.
"Look, i don't like it either, but my hands are tied over here. I can't help you even if i wanted to." The CIA director conceded. "They're trained agents, they understand the risks."
"Sorry but, they're on their own now." Natsuo fell silent at these words.
"Go through with the plan, agent." Wendell concluded, putting an unspoken emphasis on the last word. "The less evidence they have of your involvement, the better."
With that, the line went dead.
"Goddammit!" Natsuo cursed under his breath.
"You want to escape the plan you say?" Minato asked, seemingly perplexed at his latest request. All eyes around the dining table, save for a burly man who was too engrossed at the moment with stuffing his face were on Shigi and his sekirei.
"Yes, if I were to fight, Kuno here would not stand a chance." His confirmed with a firm nod, though his mention of her uselessness seemed to have driven a stake into Kuno's heart.
"I'm sorry, Shigi…." She whimpered, sniffling as tears formed beneath her puppy dog eyes.
"It's fine Kuno." Shigi assured her, patting her head. "But still, at this rate the best course of action is to escape."
"However MBI has blockaded all the roads going in and out, and the disciplinary squad has so far eliminated all who tried." Minato mused as he considered the proposition.
He was jolted from his thoughts when a certain volatile blonde slammed her hand onto the dining table.
"I disapprove of this. Escaping the battle on the grounds of weakness is cowardly." Tsukiumi chastised, pointing accusingly at the offending couple.
"But Tsukiumi! For the sake of their love, we must help them. A sekirei must remain with their ashikabi forever, it is our vow." Musubi protested, somehow instinctively shifting closer to Minato as she did. Much to her sister-bound's annoyance.
"Then they should do the honourable thing and fight to keep their love." The blonde countered firmly, crossing her arms over her chest.
An uncomfortable silence followed, with everyone, save one, deep in consideration for both proposed points of view.
"I'll help you." Minato said, earning a round of stares from everyone.
"Minato!" Both his sekirei exclaimed in unison, one in elation and the other in anguish.
"You'll help too right, Seio?" Minato turned to the burly man, who at this point was busy wolfing down his third helping of rice.
"What? Don't involve me in your problems kid." Seio replied in between large mouthfuls.
"Yeah, why should we have to help you?!" His sekirei, the lightning twins, Hikari and Hibiki added in unision. "We owe you nothing!"
"Ah, some freeloaders in my husband's house are refusing to pull their own weight." Miya mock sighed, a sudden aura of dark, overwhelming dread permeated from behind her.
"Maybe i shall do the honourable thing and kick them out forever." She continued with the most inappropriately sweet smile, while menacingly clutching a broom.
One could swear a hannya mask with glowing red eyes appeared out of the darkness behind her, growling at the three offending ones.
HIkari and Hibiki squealed, Seio choked.
"Now, now. No need to get hasty." He croaked in between coughs, with the twins patting his back. "We were only taking our time to consider."
"Well consider faster." Miya cooed, the mask disappearing.
Tsukiumi however was absolutely livid.
"You are my ashikabi, Minato. However i cannot agree with something that is against my principle." She sighed, dejected. "I refuse to help you let them escape."
"I understand, Tsukiumi." Minato replied, nodding with an affectionate smile. He reached over and gave Tsukiumi's hand a firm squeeze, causing her to tense at her lover's touch. She felt a rush of heat as a blush threatened to creep up her face, but quickly banished it with a firm clearing of her throat and withdrawing of her hand.
"I'm sorry but your tricks won't work on me this time." She admonished, and returned to folding her arms. Tsukiumi looked away, however remnants of the blush remained.
Musubi watched this interaction with the greatest fascination. As if the whole new world of nonverbal conversation was just opened to the usually outwardly vocal girl.
"I didn't mean that as a trick." Minato apologised, rubbing the back of his head and laughing sheepishly. "I'm sorry if you felt that way."
"Idiot, stop saying all the right things already." Tsukiumi scolded him mentally, still refusing to make eye contact.
"Just come home safe." She finished.
Authors note: So i'm in the process working to find a balanced output to posting these chapters. If you found the pilot chapter short, it was because i haven't really got a sense yet of how much of the world i'm going to flesh out in this. So i didn't want to make it too long and draggy, but just focus on telling key aspects of the story and not leave any plot holes, which is a real danger when you're writing AU stuff. What changed was that my friend, who helps me with proof reading, is a pretty big fan of "In Flight", told me that one chapter in that is about 10-12k words long.
While i don't plan on building something to that scale yet (not that i'm even that good in the first place), a bit more detail couldn't hurt. So with that in mind i made the decision to try and stretch the length as much as possible without feeling too draggy. There was also the case of relevance to the chapter title, and some concerns if i keep writing i might end up straying too much from the theme i've set. So really, this is just a fine balancing act of knowing when to go for it and when to pull back.
I've settled on about 6k words for now, because i find it gives me enough length to do some important dialogue and character development stuff.
Also, leave a review guys, because that really validates our efforts in bringing this story to life. I'm not a writer, and i just do this as an interest so even if you hate it, please tell me why, so i can do it better next time.
Peace and Love guys.