AN: What's this you see? Why it's a long overdue update!
Chapter 9
Mamoru upon leaving Usagi went straight to his grandfather. He heard Usagi's frustration but ignored it. He knew it wasn't directed at anybody in particular, he was pretty frustrated too. "Keno Akane, what is it that has you hating my future bride so much?" He really hadn't prepared what he was going to say so the words surprised even himself.
"Of the same reason I didn't like your father." Akane didn't even seem to hesitate to find his answer.
"My father was a good man." Mamoru defended not expecting his father to be attacked.
"In the end I learned he was, but he was taking my daughter even further from me than she'd already gone herself."
Mamoru growled in frustration. "The argument between my mother and you had nothing to do with my father or between me and Usagi. Don't drag that into this. You liked the thought of Usagi, you were excited to meet her but the second you saw her, barely letting her say hi, you were ready to throw her right back out again. What was it?"
"Your fiancee will have to be the one to tell you that. She and I are locked in an impasse, I won't be the first to break." And no matter what else he tried, he couldn't get Akane to elaborate on that.
That night Usagi stuck her head in Akane's room. "Good night Chiba-san, Mamo-chan."
The two men were playing a game of Chinese checkers, they'd- Mamoru had invited her to join but she declined. She said her goodnights, hugged Mamoru quickly and slipped back out of the room and headed upstairs.
"Somebody should tell her my name." He grumbled to Mamoru.
"I didn't tell her all that much about you, just Akane, grandpa, sick and would love her instantly, accepting her as quickly as you accepted me." He gave Akane a look. "Apparently you've made a liar out of me."
"I would have, if you had been completely honest with me or if she was who she said she was." Akane refused to say any more on that and Mamoru sighed.
"Perhaps I better go too." Mamoru started to pack up.
"But we haven't finished!" Akane realized he was acting like a little kid and he firmed, changing tones. "Gone to chase a skirt, boy?"
"I'm finished. Goodnight." Mamoru had just about enough of his grandfather's attitude and he slid the lid back into place and put it away before leaving. He stopped upstairs and heard one of his old CDs playing. He opened the door but Usagi was already sound asleep. He'd have to catch her before she confronted her grandfather again in the morning.
He went back down into the kitchen and laid down on his cot. He couldn't even say he was fuming after seeing Usagi peacefully asleep, she melted even his most dire anger. Yet it still took him awhile to get to sleep.
–
July 13, 2000
–
Usagi woke up and headed straight to the kitchen. It was past 10 and she was looking for a glass of water, her mouth felt fuzzy. She hadn't slept very well last night and she was sure she heard the door open. If that wasn't enough she could have sworn she saw someone drive up when the moon broke through the clouds and hadn't seen any headlights. But it was only in a moment of awareness and had plunged back to sleep once more.
Perhaps she was just imagining things, it was too quiet around here and she was stressed. It could have just been nightmares. Or Mamoru moved the car for some reason. She looked around the kitchen after her glass was filled and noticed that Mamoru was already up and ready for the day. His cot was impeccably neat and the clothes were put away.
She smiled slightly and went to look for him, she still hadn't gotten dressed though so she avoided Akane's room. She found Mamoru in a room that was clearly designed for a library type of study. He was surrounded by great big books of both classic and current literature. There were some she'd never heard of.
She came up from behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders.
Sometimes in the beginning especially, he'd react then catch himself from doing anything. Now he just sat there and let her do it. Sometimes he pulled her over his shoulder and into his lap. "How'd you sleep?" Her lips were right next to his ear so she kept her tone down.
"Aroused." He replied cheekily. "So horrible at first then marvelous."
"That's... good." Usagi took her arms away but he caught one and she tumbled onto his lap.
"Don't run away." He teased but his light mood disappeared. "You look tired."
"All those naps, kept me up so I didn't sleep very well." Usagi lied they both knew it but he didn't call her on it.
"Will a kiss make it better?" His hands rested on her hips distracting her from her thoughts that had brought her in here. But his words were exactly what she wanted the most right now.
"Much." He satisfied them both then at that moment. Or maybe more than a moment.
It was a few minutes later that Mamoru ran his hand down her back. "How are you feeling otherwise Usako?"
"Good." She yawned adding weight to her first assessment. "Mind if I take a nap?"
"Hold on." He shuffled her so he got his hands and book free. "Have at it."
Usagi gave him an amused look, she wasn't exactly thinking on him, but she'd accept that invite. "Thanks." She laid her head against his chest and promptly fell asleep. Mamoru went back to his book. He'd talk to her when she woke up.
–
July 13, 2000
–
Raphael had been awake since before 4 this morning. He drove behind the garage to the address he'd been given. He'd finally given in to the directions and found this strange little house situated in the middle of nowhere. Asking around had given him very little help, it was only the last person who had confirmed that they'd ever stepped foot onto the property. He'd bit the bullet and tried what he thought couldn't be right.
He was now sitting in a tree by the back of the house with the few vehicles that were parked out front in his sights. If they attempted to escape he could pin them down before they even got to the cars. He also had clear sight into the house and nobody was moving.
He'd sat there for hours now and he moved to let feeling back into his right leg. As he did so he spotted movement but couldn't see who it was. He had it on good authority there were three people inside this house. He didn't want to hit the wrong one and have the right one escape while he was working on making sure he'd hit the one he'd shot at.
The house was finally waking up and he pinned his scope onto the only window on the main floor that had a clear window. At least one of them would walk passed it and he could narrow the odds by marking off at least that one location.
He pulled his cellphone out as it appeared that just because one person was wondering around, it didn't mean the others were going to follow shortly. He had plenty of time to take his aim and his perfect shot. "You know, I have questions."
"You've never had questions before. Why start now?"
"Because before today I've never seen least likely candidates for what you want me to do. By my recollection we have a rather young woman and man and a man entering his what, early fifties? None of them seem much like a threat, or something you'd pull me out to take care of."
"We've been over this, the target looks deceptive but it has caused a lot of grief. We require your special skills."
"You must if you want me to deliver its head on a platter. Would you be all right with a bullet hole in the forehead?"
"We'd prefer it only having one thing, a nice cut along the neck."
"Since you want it that way, what should I do about the others?" He asked dryly. "It isn't going to look like a 'natural' death when there's a head missing."
"I want a bloody death for all of them. They chose to associate with the target, they get what they deserve."
A disgusted scowl crossed the man's features. "Why would it disappear and then when it was most hunted, it becomes stationary?"
"Who knows? But then again it's only a temporary stop." The other man cursed. "What does it matter? Just kill them!"
"How's my bounty?"
"Complete."
Raphael cut the connection and lifted the barrel of his gun. There was movement in there.
–
Usagi woke up and saw that Mamoru had zonked out as well. She let him sleep and she slid off his lap. "Where do you think you're going?" He woke with a start and a question, perhaps he hadn't been as soundly asleep as she'd thought.
"People are going to think we're all a bunch of old fuddy-duddies that sleep all the time."
"Who's going to care? Besides we've been busy, we've been stressing, this is more of a vacation, one from hell, but one none-the-less. We should catch up on sleep because when we get back it'll be a countdown to our wedding and we'll be busy with that, work, etc and you know that once we're married sleep's the last thing I want to do."
That elicited a smile from Usagi's lips. They opened to show a row of perfectly formed white teeth. "Me too." She straightened. "Are you going to sleep some more?" Her hands went to her hips in mock frustration. "Cause if you're not, I don't need to go grab you a blanket."
Mamoru chuckled and looked at his watch. That's how Usagi had so much energy at home, she slept from 2AM to 12PM everyday, some variance when school and worked interfered, but always 10 hours of sleep was definitely what kept her charged when all of her friends wanted to do was go and take a nap. It was almost 2 in the afternoon, they'd slept for 3 hours and he hadn't realized. Oh well, he'd been up since 8 AM and what he's said was true. Something had disturbed his sleep last night though, he hadn't felt this way at this place before. Maybe it was Usagi being here that set him off, he wasn't used to three people in this house.
He wasn't used to more than one person sleeping in the same house as him. But still it was his Usako and his grandfather, he should be more at ease with them under the same house, and it was safer for her here than it was in the city.
"We ought to be going soon if we want to find a hotel room and head out in the morning. No need to go tonight back to Tokyo, it doesn't make sense going so early in the morning tomorrow from here either." He was anxious to get out of this place.
"We spent a lot of time with him, yesterday and you were here at his bedside for the better part of a month, I missed you."
"Now you know how I felt when you used to impose a three month absence on me. You did everything in your power to avoid me at the time."
"I know, I felt awful about that and it wasn't like I wanted to, I hated it as much as you did. But I was just protecting you. And truthfully I was a little scared in liking you so instantly too. I tried to fill my time with everything else just so I wouldn't miss you as much. It didn't work so well and every day got harder. There was nothing as hard as that second summer. I'm sorry." She brought his face around to kiss him.
They'd made a promise to each other years ago that if they had an argument that they'd talk through facts, feelings and everything else before they moved on to a separation or stay together. Even if they weren't arguing they were very open with each other but they both had secrets that they wanted to say but couldn't, not yet, they were both waiting for the right moment when they could.
Mamoru slid his hand in Usagi's and they walked to his grandfather's room hand in hand and on the walk he told Usagi Akane's real last name. She laughed at her mistake. Usagi was determined not to let him bother her today. "Good morning Keno-san. How are you today?"
"Good." Akane looked at her weirdly.
"Do you need anything? An extra blanket, your pillow fluffed?" Usagi asked.
"You can give me a glass of water if you must do something." Akane grumbled.
"Did anybody ever tell you for being 58 you're kind of a grumpy old man?" Mamoru snapped. It surprised Usagi to hear Mamoru speak that way. After she put the glass on the table she accidentally knocked it off when she turned towards him to tell him not to talk that way to his grandfather.
– Raphael took his shot. –
All three bent to pick it up as it shattered into a million pieces on the carpet. Akane had started saying something at the same time Usagi did. Another shatter was almost not heard amongst all the other noises. The resounding sound as something burrowed first into a picture frame and then lodged into the wall behind it, did catch their attention. The picture was of Mamoru and Akane on a fishing trip when he was a teenager. That was the only one Akane had in the room.
Usagi noticed it in slow motion as it rocked off the wall and fell to the floor, the glass also shattering to add yet another pile of glass onto the small room's floor. She noticed from the corner of her eye that Akane had moved and looked towards the broken window cursing at the shooter. She felt Mamoru move closer behind her and the two men knew what Usagi didn't. Usagi reached up and grabbed Akane's collar as Mamoru dove towards her to get her onto the ground. Akane dived off the bed with Usagi's help. Akane covered Mamoru before he slid off. Mamoru was in all practical purposes, his kid.
Mamoru was protecting his love. Usagi after pulling Akane off the bed covered Mamoru's head with her hands. He was taking her hands away again as his face turned towards the opened window, a soft breeze blew in towards them. That's when everything sped up.
"What's going on?" Usagi shouted as Mamoru pulled her to her knees and pushed her out of the room, crawling behind her and away from the room with all the windows. Akane followed and closed the door.
"Shooter." Mamoru told her as he forced her down as another shot ricocheted through the room they'd just left.
"Assassin." Akane clarified as a hole pierced the door above their heads and they moved away from the weaker barrier.
Akane leaned against the wall next to the room and knocked on it when Mamoru growled at him to move, the idiot. "Bullet proof. We'll have a few minutes. I have a safe room we can move into temporarily."
"Then let's." Mamoru hissed as more holes formed into the door and while they weren't in the path, he didn't like the idea of it being so close.
"It's on the other side of that door." Akane pointed at the stairwell and the wood paneling that didn't look like it could hold anything, much less a safe room.
"We'll move when the bullets slow." Mamoru declared and it was a heart beat of a second before all three of them spoke even though it wasn't the right time to be discussing this.
Akane and Usagi said the same thing. "They're after you!" While Mamoru said something with a slight variation. "They're after me!" They all paused, looked between them then said the most logical thing, at least to them. "Why would they be after me?" Again Mamoru was the only one to say something else. "Why'd they be after you?" He was talking to both though it wasn't entirely obvious to either. They were more concerned by the other's accusation.
"It's your house!" Usagi pointed out.
"It didn't happen in the last 16 years and the moment you show up my house is suddenly being shot up." Akane reasoned.
"I'm not important enough, you obviously are." Usagi received an eye roll for that remark. "Wait, why'd they be after you?" She tossed at Mamoru though she wasn't really considering it.
Mamoru whistled to stop the argument between the two of them. "Hey, stop. Would someone please explain why they'd be after an old man or a young woman? No? Thank you, they're after me."
Both Akane and Usagi ignored him though it'd be the most logical solution.
"They followed you here so you could tip them off to where I was!"
"I didn't even know your real name, remember?" Usagi had a few things to point out. "I live in the city, they could have killed me whenever they wanted to."
"Unless they wanted to get away with it by killing you in the middle of nowhere where nobody knew where you'd be. Anybody know or care?"
Usagi would have retorted but she had to shake her head no, telling the truth. Nobody that could do anything, not even the one she was meeting in Osaka today knew exactly where she was. She hadn't even brought her big mouthed blabbering bodyguards with because of that very reason. She'd wanted to keep the stress level down for Akane this weekend. Great going with how well she'd pulled that off. Perhaps they had waited for her to be away from her guards.
Mamoru saw her giving into the idea that she was the one that had brought this all down on them and he cut in. "She's not the one they're after. It's either you or me. They could go after a 'bed ridden' old man or the young buck. They wouldn't track a Tsukino all the way out here because they are the Tokyo sector of the Yakuza. If they wanted to kill one, they'd do it in the public where it'd be giving a very clear message."
Akane acknowledged that fact. "However she's not a Tsukino." What a way to drop a bombshell! Nobody would have expected that slight of hand. "Perhaps being a Yakuza would explain some things though."
Mamoru scowled at that blatant lie. "All right, you're going to tell me what's the matter between you." The gun fire stopped. "Kuso." Mamoru swore and grabbed Usagi's elbow and pulled her in the direction of the stairs. "Later."
Akane beat them there, not bothering to stay low and opened the paneling with the side of his fist. The door slid open and inside was a computer consul and rows of weapons using the stairs smartly to house all the weapons in order. They slid in and landed a few feet below the level of the house they were previously on. The door slid shut behind them, the entire room was protected by layers of different metal types. Akane moved straight to the computer consul, it looked like something out of NASA or a top secret agency.
"Do you want to tell me why you're able to walk and having been lying to me the past month about being sick?" Mamoru demanded as he watched him stand in front of the keyboard and type before swiping his finger over a computer screen. The images changed as he watched, half remained on the outside, panning the grounds and switching cameras every second, looking it seemed for the assassin, the other half started going through data and words that went too quickly for Mamoru to read. It too seemed to be scanning for something important. One of the screens seemed to be deleting information and Mamoru frowned at that, it wasn't a good sign, none of this was. Usagi on the other hand just stared at everything around them either blankly or in awe, he couldn't decide which but either way it was beyond her imagining. It was too bad that it wasn't beyond his, he almost wished it was but it was all too familiar to him.
Akane wiped off his pasty make up and didn't rasp his voice anymore when he spoke. Usagi was surprised how tall and distinguished he was now that he wasn't hunching in on himself. He was only a few years older than her own father. The man didn't even look as old as he had been just moments ago. She was impressed by the good shape he was in, especially when he reached around his back and removed the soft pouch at his waist. The man was in shape! That gave Usagi hope for the future, thinking Mamoru might follow in his footsteps and she caught the laugh about to bubble up and out at that thought. He was damn good at disguises, wasn't he? She had been fooled, but that wasn't terribly hard, she thought the best of everyone until they proved otherwise.
"Later." He tossed Mamoru a gun and held one out for Usagi but with great reluctance. Mamoru took it for her and put it in the back of his jeans. "She's more than proficient. Why are you hiding your skills?" He demanded of the blond who was looking at the gun like it was a snake.
"She'll take it later." Mamoru cut in over him and before Usagi could respond. "I've got some questions that need answering." His eyes scanned the room pointedly. In all the years he'd lived here he'd never seen anything that pointed to such a room occupying this house.
"It was one of the first rooms built, before you were even born." Akane grumbled and moved to collect more weapons, but not too many to weigh him down. He grabbed Usagi's shoulder and spun her, putting one behind her back in the waist of her jeans. "Just keep it." He snapped when she looked like she was about to protest. "Until we know for sure who they're after, we'll all carry weapons." He tugged her shirt over it to hide it better and he was relieved that it was such a loose fitting shirt so it didn't outline the shape of the gun. It made sense in all but a Predator world to have one, no matter how proficient someone was with it. He strapped some knives to his legs while Mamoru grabbed a few other easy to conceal weapons, not letting the opportunity pass him up.
He strapped a bulletproof vest onto Usagi, letting her reach up under her shirt to hold the front up so he could Velcro the straps at her shoulders and then tightened it properly around her waist but neglected, like his grandfather to put one on himself. "It'll slow me down." He explained when she held out a vest to him. "I need my mobility."
"I'd rather you be slower than dead by a wayward bullet you'd never be able to out run or completely avoid." She argued and pushed it at him. He reluctantly slid it up under his shirt and latching all the straps while she helped hold up the back.
"Akane..." Mamoru warned tugging Usagi to him once they'd finished and slipping the gun out from her jeans. She looked at him with thanks and relief to be free from it. She might be able to convince them not to hurt her if she didn't appear threatening in anyway. Both she and Mamoru at least agreed that they weren't after her.
"Fine." Akane sighed and tapped another button, the cameras had found the man but he was good, he avoided getting his face caught on film and there were no distinguishing aspects of him as he dodged many of the other cameras altogether as he made his way towards the back of the house. "I'm an agent, have been since my early twenties. Your mother hated the fact, she thought it was unsafe when she found out. I'd hidden it from her for years but your grandmother, my ex-wife told her the truth on her death bed. I'd told the woman when we met that leading the life I lived that marriage was never going to work but it was an argument that I ended up winning in the end, but it was too late, she was already pregnant with our daughter, your mother." Akane scowled. "Kids are hard enough but between a split home and the life I have, it made it near impossible, even when the kids adore you and never question your disappearances or why they have to spend another week with their mother when its their father's turn. I tried, I really did but after learning the truth all those broken promises came back as hard memories to deal with. Seeing as how I was the last one left alive, you were never to know any of your grandparents. Such a joke that is, the one with the most 'dangerous' job survived the longest."
"That explains very little." Mamoru argued as Akane turned his back on his grandson and finished pressing buttons. Usagi looked at the set up and was amazed by how advanced all of it was, some of it she had never seen before and she was sure were prototypes that weren't even released to manufacturers yet. They were probably things that were in an experiment lab and stolen for his use.
"It explains far more than you realize." Akane sprayed a mist on the touch screens and over the keyboard, it hardened and then shattered and everything looked brand new. "We have to go. He's in the house."
"I thought this was a safe room." Usagi spoke finally since all of this was revealed. "Wouldn't we be better off in here?"
"No. They found us and this was only ever meant to be a short term thing. The longer we stay here the more people they can get to surround us. I'm only half surprised that they don't have a whole fleet coming to take either of us down. That amount of people moving in on us though would have set off alarms and we'd have been gone long before this. In time they can get in with that hand print on the door and if we wait they can just pick us off if we decided to leave later. But why am I explaining, you should know all this, especially if you're the one that brought them."
"I don't think I did. It's hard to know for sure without asking them. There's every possibility that you got word out to your agency that I was here and are only playing dumb now." Usagi thought that it was a serious possibility and it made a sad kind of sense.
"There's no way I'd do that." He seemed offended. "At the very least you're my grandson's fiancee, I'd rather discredit you than make you a martyr."
"Thanks." Usagi responded dryly.
"Anyway the main thing is that I'm retiring and bringing attention onto my location and health is the last thing I want to do, even if it means one last job and bringing you in." He glanced at Mamoru to include him in this explanation. "I was pretending to be sick so they'd think I'd died and was hanging low until I was sure enough time had passed before I could show my face even around town. I guess my agency decided to hurry things along." He glanced at the monitor and nodded, timing their exit. "Want to tell him why the agency would be upset to learn you're here and I haven't brought you in?" Usagi shrugged, not revealing anything, she didn't owe him any explanations and she couldn't be sure what he knew so she wouldn't give him anything he didn't already have. "Why don't you start with your real name?"
"Tsukino Usagi." She responded simply before she hesitated when he looked ready to call her on it. "Or at least that's my legal name. My birth name remains a mystery to me. I was stolen from my birth mother, but I hear its no big loss and I got the better end of the deal even living with the head of the Yakuza." She shrugged, they hadn't bothered to go through the legal channels of adopting and it had been easier to forge papers and make people agree that she was their child all along. Shingo was already there when she was brought to live with them. She didn't know but she suspected that he was nabbed too but didn't have the heart to suggest it to him. It had rocked her world when she found out and she couldn't do that to him. She had been given a fake birth-date whereas they knew his real one.
"I never knew you weren't his birth daughter." Mamoru reached down for her hand and she squeezed his in response.
"Nobody did. I hadn't questioned my birth situation, I found out the truth in high school."
Akane scowled and cut in this increasingly sappy moment at the worst possible time but truths needed to be shared before he let his grandson risk his life for such a criminal. "Oh just get to the main point and tell him who you really are. You're the Fox!"
"You're the Fox?" Mamoru turned wide eyes onto Usagi, not even upset by it, more in awe than anything else. "Seriously?"
Usagi's nose wrinkled and shook her head. "I was going to tell you all of this once we were married..."
"You're the Fox?" He asked again, his whole world seemed centered on this one point and wasn't even entirely worried about the fact that there was a shooter making his way into the house.
"No." Usagi said forcefully. "I'm not."
Akane snorted and tugged the collar of his shirt down revealing a round scar, no doubt from a bullet just under his collarbone. "I beg to differ. I saw you with my own eyes when you put this into me. Are you going to argue that I was going blind?"
"No but it wasn't me, it was my twin sister." She ignored Akane and turned to Mamoru. "Remember me saying that I didn't know the truth about my parents until High School? Well that's when she found me."
"We got to go now." Akane interrupted, his eyes spying the man now making his way through the bullet-ridden door and towards the stairs going up rather than towards them. It wouldn't take him long to realize they weren't up there and then come looking for them elsewhere.
Mamoru slid the gun he'd taken from her back into her jeans and shoved one into her hands as well. "If something shoots at you, you shoot back." He moved her thumb to a small lever. "The safety's on."
"But-"
"If they even think you're the Fox you'll be dead before you can try to charm them. Your sister knows way too many ways to kill someone without a weapon and she doesn't even have to touch them or be close to them at all. You're going to have protection." He nodded to Akane, and nobody questioned why he was able to do any of this or why he was issuing orders. "Remember what I told you when we got here about running in the woods?"
"Straight through the circle and two rights and a left?"
"Correct." He dragged her to his chest and held her as close as their slightly bulkier forms allowed and then released her with utmost reluctance.
"We run together." She declared and slipped her hand into his, he locked their fingers together.
"Oh, I'm an agent too by the way." He commented before the door opposite the one they'd come in opened and they were running towards the cover of the trees but they first had to get through the wide open field.
