Kyo, Yuki and Takeo followed the red lights of the van that carried Chiyo away from them. It had taken a few minutes for them to catch up, but they luckily took the right turns and found it. The people inside didn't seem to notice they had three young teenagers tailing them, but that was fine for the three.
I just hope they don't hug her or anything. Each one of them thought something like that, they were worried of what could happen to her. Eventually, the van began to slow down and it turned through the doors of an old warehouse. The boys hid behind the corner of a nearby building while they caught their breath.
"So, what do we do now?" Takeo asked, he had nothing close to a plan in his head yet, his only goal was to get Chiyo out.
"We go and save her!" Kyo told him.
"Stupid cat, we can't just run in there and expect to ever come out again." Yuki said.
"Then what do we do?"
"I think we could grab those two over there and change into their clothes, there has to be another one around here somewhere." Yuki suggested.
"I'm game. It should be easy to take down those two." Takeo agreed.
"Alright. Let's go." They hurried away from their shelter and towards the closing doors the van had drove through.
Inside the building, Chiyo was tied up to a chair after they dragged her out of the van. Luckily for her, none of them grabbed her in any way that could be mistaken as a hug, so she didn't transform, but she was exhausted and extremely stressed out when she woke, she was close to transforming on her own. She wriggled against her bindings for a bit until she decided she couldn't do that any more.
After a while, the lights inside the room flashed on, they made her blink and squint as her eyes adjusted. She realized she was in a room filled with tools. She was the only person in there, but she began to cry as she thought of what they were planning to do with the tools. Chiyo noticed the video camera that hung from a corner of the room, and the mirror implanted in the wall in front of her, she assumed it was like a window on the other side and they were watching her. She stopped crying, she didn't want to give them any satisfaction.
A man walked into the room, he was fairly scrawny, but Chiyo thought any of the bulkier men would be outside the room, watching out for any interruptions.
The man looked at her hungrily, like he wanted to tear her apart and eat her piece by piece. At that thought, Chiyo felt like she was going to be sick, but kept herself from doing anything. She just sat strongly, without crying, without even looking at the man.
"Chiyo, are you happy to see me again?" The man asked, his face was too close to Chiyo's for her comfort, the man smelt as if he hadn't brushed his teeth or even taken a bath in over a month, which he probably hadn't. Chiyo didn't answer him, she had no idea where he knew her from, "Don't you remember me? I know I saw you in that closet. You watched your parents die, you poor girl." He faked pity and ran the side of his knife against her cheek. Chiyo winced slightly, but didn't give him any more of a reaction.
"I would have done this a long time ago, Chiyo. But killing children, it's just not satisfying, you know what I mean?" He asked her as he paced around her chair, as if she would know, "It's a good thing, though, because now I get to do it AND I'm being paid. Isn't it wonderful?"
"Who's paying you?"
"Chiyo! You have such a sweet voice! I never knew, too bad I'll be ripping that voice box of your out."
"Who's paying you!"
"And I never expected you to be so brave when we finally met again! I thought you would be in tears, begging me to let you live. Oh well, makes no difference to me."
"WHO is paying you?"
"It's not like it matters to you. You'll be dead in a little while anyway. But if you must know, his name is Akito Soma. He told me exactly where to find you. I have no idea how he found me. After I killed your parents, I changed my name and left the area for a while. I'm still very surprised no one ever suspected me on my travels."
"I don't care about your travels. I don't care about you at all."
"Honestly, Chiyo, when did you become so brave?"
"I have friends that taught me how to be brave. What bravery is. How easy it is when you stop running and finally face your fears, and see that they're not so scary after all. In a way, I feel a bit sorry for you, because you'll never know friendship and you'll never know what it's like to be willing to die. Because you'll always just be a scared old man."
He sucked in a breath, he was angry with her, but he wanted to see if she would break anytime soon. "This Akito boy, he said that you would know exactly who he was if I told you, and he said that you were the one tearing his family from him. You were the one weighing them down and making them more and more sad. He wanted to know if you felt guilty for any of that."
"No. Are you going to kill me or what?"
"No, he told me to torture you, make you pay for the sadness you've given him, not that I really care, it just gives me a reason to kill you slowly." He knelt down beside her and looked up at her face, "I took a while, planning out what I wanted to do with you. I wanted to gut you like a pig, while you were still alive. And I wanted to tear apart your limbs. I also wanted to strangle you and feel your soul leave your body. But first, I'm going to cut up your feet so you can't run away. And your hands so you can't fight back."
"I'm tied up. I can't fight back or run away anyway."
He gritted his teeth and jabbed the knife into her foot furiously. Chiyo gasped in pain, and he smiled, happy to feel the rush of adrenaline that came with every kill. He pulled out the knife and went to stab it into her other foot, but they both heard a crash outside the door. He stood up, enraged, and stomped to the door. It flew open before he grabbed the handle and two boys rushed in.
They beat the man up, threw him across the room into his tools, making him bleed more and more with every blow. Yuki untied Chiyo once the villain was unconscious.
"Can you walk?" He asked her. Chiyo shook her head and motioned towards the blood on her foot. Kyo didn't take another second and picked her up.
"Okay, let's get Takeo and get out of here." Kyo said, determined to get out soon. Chiyo squeezed her eyes shut and let the boys take her out of the building. They had taken out most of the lackeys throughout the building on their way to get her, so only a couple man came after them as they made their way out, Takeo and Yuki took care of them easily.
They finally made it out of the doors and back outside. Chiyo breathed in the cool air and reminded herself that she made it out alive. They ran almost ten blocks away from the building before they stopped. Kyo put Chiyo on a bench so the boys could take a break and breathe again. Takeo pulled off his shirt, though it was quite chilly out and handed it to Chiyo.
"Here. Wrap you're foot up with that, then don't ever make me do that again." Takeo huffed.
"I didn't make you do anything." Chiyo said, then wrapped the material around her bleeding foot and tied it up.
"I'm still wondering why that man didn't just attack her and kill her in her apartment at night." Yuki puzzled.
"I don't care, I'm just glad he didn't." Takeo told him.
"He said Akito Soma was going to pay him to torture me. He was the man that killed my parents. I have no idea how Akito found him." Chiyo said.
"Akito? I should have known that! Shigure told me Akito was not happy with Chiyo being here. Akito must have helped him hire all those men, too."
"That's the guy that killed your parents?" Takeo asked, furiously, "I'm gonna go kill that idiot!" Takeo snarled and began to walk towards the building again.
"Yeah! And I'm gonna go kill Akito!" Kyo yelled.
"Hey! Wait! Get back here! No one is killing any one tonight!" Chiyo shouted at them. They stomped back to her and Yuki.
"Can we go kill them tomorrow?" Kyo asked.
"No. Now get me back to Shigure's! Takeo, aren't you worried about the twins? You're not usually away from them this long out of school."
"Fine. Let's go." Takeo grumbled, he picked Chiyo up on his back so she could rest as they made their way back home.
