- Disclaimer: Matantei Loki Ragnarok belongs to Kinoshita Sakura.

Love Me and More

written by Kurosu

- Chapter Six: Bloody Moonlight.

Loki rushed madly out of the house and down the street, almost running over Yamino on the way. A few minutes ago, he had received a phone call from Mayura's father demanding to know what happened to his little girl. The boy didn't understand a single thing the man was shouting about, except the 'Mayura is unconscious' part had him out the door, leaving the caller speaking to the emptiness.

He explained to his butler about it on the way back to the Daidouji shrine. Of course with such urgency, it took them less than the normal fifteen minutes to arrive at the doorstep. Loki practically forced his way inside, passed the upset father, and right into Mayura's bedroom.

The sight of her flushed, red face was not a good sign. She was sweating profusely, but her body was shivering underneath the covers of her futon. Her breathing was more like gasps for air.

Loki knelt by her side and grabbed her hand, holding it to his face with silently prayers for her to recover. Yamino and the Shinto priest appeared in the doorway, with the latter demanding an explanation, in frustration, "What did you do to her?! What happened?! Why is Mayura like that?!"

The faithful caretaker tried to calm him down, "That's what we want to know too, Daidouji-san. Please calmly tell us what happened before she came home."

The man fell to his knees, trying to hold himself together, from bawling like a baby. "She came home and was fine. Then we were opening up a box-"

"Box?" The older man pointed to the box of flowers on the desk, and Yamino walked over to it and picked it up.

Confused, the priest spoke incredulously, "You think it's because of those? That can't be. I was with Mayura when we opened it. And I... I feel fine."

Yamino, covering his nose and mouth with a white cloth, inspected it up close. He then asked, "Did Mayura-sama eat or drink anything unfamiliar today?"

The man shook his head, "No, and I don't know who sent those either."

"Loki-sama," he called out to his young master. He watched the boy tuck Mayura's hand back under the covers and gently brushed his fingers through her hair. He made sure she was comfortable, despite her ill state, before standing up. He walked over to Yamino as the latter showed him the box of purple lilies, "She's been poisoned."

Loki, who had been abnormally quiet, was seething with anger at seeing the flowers. He grabbed them and crushed them within his hands and threw them aside, knowing very well who was behind it all. The flowers and the poisons were his signatures after all, elegantly exposing the victim to two separate chemical components that when combined within the person would activate the poison.

His head whipped to the man of the house, who absentmindedly took a step back, horrified at the raw rage in the boy's expression. His green eyes glazed over with fury, the amount of deadly intent pouring out like a river crashing through a dam. His fists were clenched tightly, bearing his knuckles white, and he growled out, "Daidouji-san, please take care of Mayura. We get the antidote."

He walked out of the room with Yamino in tow.

The moon was beautiful tonight, in the clear, velvet skies. There was an eerie glow to the waning sphere above him, almost hungrily watching him, and the only source of light that he desired. He shifted his legs from crossing them to letting them spread out in front of him, undignified but comfortable, not that it mattered with him being the only presence on the veranda, overlooking the Zen garden.

He propped up his right leg and rested his arm lazily on his knee, but his free left hand was tense, absentmindedly running his fingers across the glimmering scabbard that laid next to him. Almost as tall as his height, he knew how to use the weapon well. He had trained with various weapons, but the long Japanese sword had always been a favorite: beautiful and graceful yet strong and lethal too.

Beside the sword, the small, ceramic cup of tea had cool down and remained untouched for who knew how long since he sat there.

Silence continued into the night.

He was waiting.

He could almost count the silent ticks of each second, as if the gods were toying with him in his own game he had set up. For all that was taken away from him, he would return with a vengeance, pain and suffering, ten-fold in retribution.

Without a single hesitation, his left hand grabbed the sword, swinging the scabbard directly in front of him, with the end diagonally in the air to block a silver glistening blade. It happened in mere seconds when he faced the intruder, the amusement of his violet eye stared back at a pair of unnatural red ones, radiating with murderous intent.

"Higashiyama, you bastard!" the attacker growled, almost to an animalistic point.

Kazumi drew his own sword from its sheath and retaliated with a downward slice, forcing the intruder to pull back. He laughed with a hint of insanity in his tone, "I've been waiting for you!"

In the moonlight, a furious Loki stood with two hands clutching the hilt of the sword. The blade was as tall as he was, but he had no trouble in handling the dangerous weapon. "Give me the antidote!" he ordered, which only invited more laughter.

"You've gotten soft, Loki. And for a mere girl." As an afterthought, he inquired, "Have you tasted her? You probably haven't yet, since you're such a gentleman." He talked like a man who had just acquired the forbidden fruit that had been locked away in the garden, denied to all men.

Loki loathed him, his teeth grinding at the insinuation.

The dark-haired boy stood confidently with his sword by his side, but his senses were aware of the heightened aura his opponent released. It was incredible strength, that even Loki himself might not have noticed. He brushed two fingers over his lips, looking at Loki haughtily, "Her lips were so soft, so sweet. I could almost feel her moan."

That did it. He snapped at the provocation and charged at Kazumi with speed that the latter could barely sidestep. He quickly spun around.

Swords clashed.

Metal against metal, in split seconds.

It was a traditional Japanese home but far from being simple. The compound was a maze of shoji screens, different hallways, rooms and several buildings. Even some of the floors were secretly uguisubari, the floorboards would chirp when walked upon, but the young man knew of this. It was a typical security method of ancient times on an estate this large and old.

His feet appeared to be gliding across the boards, sensitive to his surroundings.

Yamino kept calm, but his patience was wearing thin, having already searched half the property for the antidote to Mayura's poison. He didn't want to think of the consequences of not finding it. If Loki couldn't beat it out of the culprit, then it had to be somewhere on the compound.

But it was strange that he had not come across any guards.

He jumped back when a sharp edge barely sliced a strand of his hair.

So much for making it easy.

Another blade swept by as he ducked down, and it cut the screen behind him in half. He could make out two men in dark clothing attacking him, and he evaded them easily, unfortunately being pushed back from where he had come from, which meant he was heading down the right path.

A slash went by his arm; a jab to his stomach. He carefully avoided them. When an opening appeared with a sword thrust at his body, in the final seconds before it contacted, Yamino shifted his body a notch and grabbed his attacker's arm and twisted it till the sound of bones cracked. The weapon dropped to the floor, and he threw the man at the other guard. Both hit the wall, and with unbelievable speed, Yamino grabbed the fallen sword and then pierced it into the two men, through the chest of the first and exited out of the second man's lower back.

He stood over them, watching them with indifferent eyes. They were still alive but in pain, dying. He kicked the armed man's sword out of his hand, holding onto the hilt of the sword that had wounded them. "Where is the antidote?" he questioned, but they only answered him with a gurgle of blood.

The boards had creaked during the fight, and he knew more men were alerted about his coming. He ignored the bloody scene and yanked the sword from their bodies before continuing down the hallway. He met several oppositions, but in the end, no one was able to stop him.

Yamino was... one hell of a butler.*

Blood splattered across the pale sands of the garden, as both fighters continued their assaults on each other. The after shock of Kazumi's strike left a two-inch cut on Loki's left cheek, underneath his eye, while the former wasn't left unscathed either, with a deep wound into his right side. He hadn't anticipated Loki's rage increasing his strength five times.

It really had been too long since they last crossed swords, even though he trained every day to surpass his rival, but it didn't seem that he would win this fight. His only flaw had been underestimating just how much one girl meant to him. He had found her and used her to be his bait to draw Loki out, to break him and then defeat him, further humiliating, once and for all.

He brought up his sheath and deflected Loki's crescent moon-like slash. His armed hand swung at his target, who in one single move, slipped to the side and hit the flat pommel into Kazumi's opening. It smashed hard into his other side, and he painfully fell to the ground with the sheath tossed to the side. He coughed up blood as he rolled out of the way, missing Loki's blade by a centimeter.

Kazumi's breathing was rough and scarce, and he still wouldn't admit Loki had the advantage, but the latter didn't even pause. He clenched a fistful of sand, as Loki's sword flew upwards at an angle, aiming for the dark-haired boy's head. He pulled away at the last second, avoiding serious damage to himself, and threw the grains of sand at his opponent, momentarily blinding him.

"Bastard," Loki growled, wiping the specks from his eyes. He could still sense Kazumi despite his handicap and brought his sword to his left to defend, but the latter swept his leg towards Loki and knocked the boy down.

He was quickly on his feet and mercilessly started kicking the fallen boy. He stomped on Loki's hand repeatedly till he released the sword and then raised his own blade to his rival's face.

Bruised and beaten, Loki could taste the blood in his mouth. He glared up at Kazumi, whose foot was now pressed down on his chest. He knew he couldn't die here; he had to save Mayura. If anything, he was willing to trade his own life for hers. He wanted to open his mouth and offer it to the ass, but part of him, his pride, had refused to do. His body was beginning to feel weak and numb.

"It looks like you won't be able to save her," Kazumi gloated, reveling in the moment that his long time rival was now at his mercy. He was far from being sentimental, but it was the girl's unfortunate luck that she associated herself with Loki, so she was going to die too.

Kazumi swung his sword, slashing it in the air, at the object that was aimed at him. The tea cup (from earlier) sliced into two pieces and dropped to the ground. He looked at the direction it came from and saw a young man wearing a tattered suit, standing on the veranda, with a bloody sword held at his side. Fresh blood was still dripping from the tip. He cursed himself for not remembering the loyal butler.

"Loki-sama, are you all right?" his voice filled with concern.

He managed to squeeze out between breaths, "Y-Yamino... I'm... f-fine..."

Yamino took two steps forward, but Kazumi forced him to stop, inching the tip of the sword closer to his young master's neck. "He's fine for now, but not another move if you want him to remain that way," he ordered. He raised his free hand towards Yamino, "I'm sure you've found the antidote, but I won't let you save her. Neither of them will be saved. Now hand it over!"

"Higashiyama-san, I think you should be more worried about yourself."

Kazumi sneered at the stupid man for speaking nonsense. The one with the winning pieces in hand was him, not Loki, but he was suspicious of the enigmatic statement. He watched the butler pull something from his inner coat pocket and held it out underneath the light of the moon. His eye narrowed to a slit, and he pondered the contents of the papers.

"You might not have realized the identity of the man you had killed in your territory."

"Hmf, that Liu Tsai? He was a nosy pest getting in my way," he surmised and looked down at Loki, "One of your men, huh? He deserved to die then!" His defeated opponent just stared back, without any reaction, and when he glanced over to Yamino again, there was something strange about the two. Something definitely wasn't right, because the two were very calm about the situation.

"What are you getting at!" he barked.

Yamino flicked his wrist, and the stack of papers soared through the air and in to Kazumi's hand, "Liu was planted in Hong Kong to monitor you. Before you caught on to him, he managed to send his reports to us."

His dark eye widened at the information he held in his hand.

"Business has been prospering for you, but wouldn't the media have a field day when these papers leak out? Your illegal weapons trade and drug trafficking into Southeast Asia is a bit of a problem for you."

He heard Loki chuckling at him, despite feeling like a broken doll, and all he could after that was his rival's wild laughter mocking him. Loki managed to give him a few more words to think about, "What do you think old man will do to you?"

The severity of the situation finally hit him at the mention of Odin. Everyone was terrified of the old man, even in his late years, and if any of the family's dirty business was aired out in the public, it would be the end of them, especially him, and Odin was not forgiving when it came to failures. Even as his grandson, he was not spared, having been reassigned overseas, far from his own home.

"You fuckin' bastards," Kazumi spitted at them and threw the papers to the ground. He wanted to kick the fallen Loki once more, but he had to worry about himself right now. He stalked pass Yamino, who threw the weapon away and made his way to his young master, and into the shadows of the house.

Yamino picked up the small boy, with his sword, into his arms and prepared to leave, but the latter tugged on the young man's coat, mumbling for the antidote. He reassured him that they did have it now, "Mayura-sama will be saved."

And with those comforting words, Loki rested his eyes as Yamino sped from the enemy's terroritory.

Hours later, Loki was resting on his own futon by Mayura's side. His wounds were taken care of and properly bandage -notably the one across his cheek - after the girl drank the antidote and her condition improved, which he had adamantly insisted. He wanted to be sure she was going to be fine before he would let anyone care for him. Watching her now, her complexion returned to normal, and her breathing was now steady.

"Loki..."

She had whispered his name, and he looked at her, mildly surprised, so peaceful in her sleep, and he wondered what exactly she was dreaming about. He sighed happily and stared up at the ceiling of her room, with a soft, reminsicing expression. A faint smile appeared on his lips before he closed his eyes for some sleep too.

Her hand never left his own.

* This line best describes Sebastian, who even says it himself, from the anime Kuroshitsuji, and I thought it was funny and appropriate to put it here to describe the multi-talented Yamino too. =)