OPENING THE WAY

CHAPTER NINE

Fire. It was a reflex in any wild animal – fear the Red Flower, run from the forest blaze. It was embedded in their reflexes, a permanent fear at the back of their minds.

But just as Shido knew himself to be more than human, so he also knew himself to be more than animal.

"Hundred Animal Forms – Steppe Eagle!" Shido roared, his voice like thunder over the rising crackle of flames, and he ripped his shirt from his body, throwing it in front of him in a billow of cloth as he dived across the floor. He swept up the lighter and the beginnings of flame in the speed of his rush, in front of Natsumi's startled doe-eyes, and flung them together through the glass of the window in a crash of sound and light.

Beyond the shattered window, there was the sound of a car vanishing in the distance, the stench of the car's engine perceptible even above the stink of alcohol.

"She -- she -- " Rena was gasping where he had deposited her in the corner, safely away from that gun she'd been waving around.

Natsumi didn't try to say anything, but concentrated her attention on Paul, who lay on the floor like a wounded lion.

"What's going on?" Shido demanded of Rena. He'd never got to know the girl well. He was aware that she'd been involved in that business with the cards, and that she'd been used just as much as Toshiki had by the man who'd been behind it all. If Natsumi had the eyes and grace of a doe, this girl had the sharpness of a trained hound, but one that had been beaten by its master and knew how to bare its throat in submission.

Rena shook her head numbly, but he could see the sense coming back to her eyes. "The negotiator woman attacked the Master," she said flatly. "I don't know why. We came in here to find him unconscious and the place soaked in alcohol, Shido-san. I -- I got the gun that the Master keeps behind the bar and I was telling her not to do anything and then you came in."

"That's right," Natsumi corroborated from next to Paul. "Shido-san, can you come and look at the Master, please? You know more about first aid than we do."

Shido walked across and went carefully down on his knees, the air cold on his bare torso, checking Paul's pulse and breathing. He could feel the beginnings of pain and slackness in his own chest and arms, the payment for his own quick actions of a minute ago. He still wasn't fully recovered from that business with Kabuto and the Maryudo

Neither was Madoka. But she, at least, could be kept out of this.

"Regular pulse," he said, finishing his checks. "Something on his breath. I think he was drugged." A pity Juubei wasn't here with his needles. "Natsumi, fetch me a bucket."

The girl scurried to obey, then stood well back. Clearly the months of working in a bar had taught her important lessons about bodily functions.

Shido hoisted Paul to his knees, opened the man's mouth, and induced vomiting. It was at least a more natural smell than the alcohol or petrol fumes. When the older man had cleared his stomach, he propped him up in a chair to recover.

Natsumi and Rena were wandering round the room with mops and buckets and brooms, clearing away the scattered glass and doing their best to wash away the alcohol. Shido decided it wouldn't help if he pointed out they'd need an industrial-level cleaner to really get the place clean. He pulled out the phone Madoka had given him, and tried dialling Ginji's number.

Engaged signal.

He frowned. Tried Kazuki's. Engaged, again. And Makubex. And even the snake bastard. "What the hell is going on?" he asked the room in general.

Paul coughed, spat into the bucket which Shido had thoughtfully left next to him, coughed again. "Shido-san. Can you check in the drawer under the till, please? There may be a computer disk there."

Shido strode across and tugged on the handle. The drawer slid open easily. "Only papers," he reported, after checking. "No disk."

Paul sighed. "She took it, then."

Natsumi gasped, her hand going to her mouth. "Master! Was that the disk which Teshimine-san left with you when he visited the last time that the GetBackers went into Mugenjou?"

It was impossible to see Paul's eyes behind his glasses, but the look which he shot at Natsumi had an annoyed air to it. "Just so."

Shido frowned. "What was on it?"

Paul shrugged. "A text file. I don't know. I only read the first part." He snorted at the look all three of them gave him. "There was a warning. It said that I might need at some point to be able to say truthfully that I'd never read the rest of the file."

Rena drew her breath in sharply. "Blackmail information, Master?"

"Old Gen was a computer expert," Shido said slowly. "And he dies, and now someone forces Hevn to try to steal this information from you . . . there has to be a connection."

"Right," Paul agreed. "So check the drawer two to the right, and look behind the false back at the end."

There was a silence in the room.

Paul smiled. "Just because I didn't read it doesn't mean that I couldn't make a copy of it. Just in case."


Ban flared his nostrils and sniffed hopefully.

Ginji sighed. "It's a pity we didn't get some food at the market, Ban-chan."

Ban shook his head. "No, not that. I can't even smell Himiko's Tracking Scent. No such luck." He looked around the bare corridor disconsolately. "I suppose it would just have made life too easy."

"But shouldn't we have caught up with them by now anyhow?" Ginji pointed out.

Ban sighed. "We should." He looked around. Plain corridors, plain doors, a patina of grime, a shading of despair. The faint hum of machinery somewhere in the distance. Mugenjou, half real, half virtual, and no way of knowing which.

He hated the damn place.

"Ban-chan, I'm worried," Ginji said, echoing Ban's own thoughts. "This isn't going the way it should. We'd actually got on the track of whoever it was behind this, but look at things now. We're separated from Himiko-chan and Akabane-san, and I don't like being lost in Mugenjou like this . . ." His voice trailed off. "We could phone Makubex again?" he suggested hopefully.

Several pieces came together in Ban's head, and he swore violently.

Ginji looked horrified. "He's not that bad, Ban-chan!"

"It's not that." Ban kicked the wall, hard, and sent a chunk of plaster rattling down the hall ahead of them. "We've been used, Ginji. We've been fucking led by our noses all the damn way."

"What do you mean?"

Ban turned to look back down the corridor behind them. It vanished into darkness. "Look, Ginji. Normally, if someone said to me or you, "Do you want to go to Mugenjou again and wander round it on your own and get lost in the middle of it?" we'd not only say, "No," we'd say, "Fuck no." But look where we are now. Lost in the middle of Mugenjou."

Ginji shook his head. "Yes, but, Ban-chan . . . it's not as if all this could have been predicted. Nobody could have expected that we'd get Akabane-san and Himiko-chan to talk to us and give us all that information . . ."

"Oh yes they could," Ban said gloomily. "These days, they could."

"Or that we'd manage to work out that the Miroku were down by the market here –"

"Yes they could," Ban said again. "You think it's coincidence that he just happened to smell of something which could let Himiko and you track him and bring us right to here?"

"Or that Makubex or one of the others wouldn't get in contact with us to tell us something was wrong?" Ginji persisted. "If this was being done by someone in Mugenjou, Makubex would know about it!" Then he hesitated. "Or is that part of the problem?"

Ban cast a meaningful eye at the ceiling. "Babylon City, Ginji. Brain Trust. Next thing you know, we'll have the bar host hanging round and -- whatever."

"You know," Ginji said, following Ban's train of thought remarkably well, "I think that guy deserves someone like Akabane-san fighting him, if he tries to mess with Himiko-chan."

"Yeah," Ban agreed, feeling cheered. "Me too." He set off down the corridor again. "C'mon. Let's see if we can get somewhere they don't expect us to go."


"Have they passed that corner?" Emishi whispered.

The sound of laser fire and shrieks filled the air.

"I think so," Sakura said, and wound a strip torn from her skirt around her left forearm. It wasn't a serious cut, but they both already had too many minor wounds. Threads could slice; threads could gash; threads could, in combination and in elegant patterns, bleed them to death.

"At least Makubex has still got those ones working," Emishi commented, resisting the urge to run across, go on his knees beside her, and assure her that her pearl-like skin was still beautiful to his eyes, that the Black Thread users were unfeeling scum to have damaged it, and that he was personally going to go and wipe them out for their crimes against beauty, humanity, and Mugenjou. On the one hand, Sakura might laugh; on the other hand, he might lose.

This would have been so much easier if Shido were here, or if Kazuki and his muscular minions were still around; even more so if Makubex's computer-operated defenses had been working reliably. Which was probably the point. There was something unfair about launching an attack when all the usual defenders were away. It was like having an elderly aunt come round early on Sunday morning to check that you'd cleaned the kitchen and finding it stacked high with sushi trays and sake bottles from the previous evening's party while you were still snoring in the bathtub and hadn't even taken your boots off. You didn't have a chance.

"No word from Kazuki-sama," Sakura said quietly. "We may have to assume that he will not reach here before they breach the main portals to the computer centre."

Emishi bit his lip and tasted blood. "We can hold them," he said firmly. "The virtuals took down three of them, didn't they? And we got at least two more earlier. And it sounds as if the lasers got another one or two then. That leaves five. Six at most. We'll roll them up and put them on the shelf." He paused, hoping for a laugh.

Sakura sighed. "We have to plan for the worst, Emishi. If they reach here and break the doors, Makubex must escape. While he is free, he can keep on working to get back control of the computer system. If they capture him, then we have much less chance of victory."

Emishi patted her arm. In Juubei's absence, this was safe and wouldn't result in compound fractures for him. "Sakura, honey, if they capture him, then victory won't be a concern for us, because they'll have done it over our dead bodies."

Her lips twitched. "That is true."

There was a crash and a cry of victory from round the bend of the corridor.

"I'll go and check," Emishi said, and he was on his feet and moving before Sakura could answer him. "You hold the fort." For he knew exactly what he had to do now. It was beautifully simple, like all the best tragedies were at root, and he wasn't going to give her the chance to get there first and tell him to go back and save Makubex.

He heard her saying, "Emishi, no!" as he turned the corner.

It was a wide intersection with several corridors leading to it. Makubex's lasers made it a beautiful killing field to lure opponents into, to say nothing of the "shooting gallery" effect you could get by luring them after you down the corridors. While Emishi preferred a proper fight, one against one (or one against several, if the one was him), he didn't deny strategy. Sometimes strategy trumped proper behaviour.

Six of them were still standing. Four men, two woman. Damn. And one of the ones still standing was the one who was the leader. Double damn.

"I am prepared to accept your surrender," he announced grandly.

The leader -- Saizou, that was his name -- fondled a length of black thread meaningfully. He laughed. His minions joined in. He stopped. They stopped too. He was a slender young man, dark-eyed and dark-haired, his leather jacket and trousers clinging tightly to his body, black threads wound around his neck and wrists like tattoos. "Foolish whipmaster. You almost tempt me to keep you as a personal servant."

"Sorry," Emishi said flippantly. Sakura should have reached cover by now. "Already taken."

Saizou hissed and gestured, and lengths of thread went spinning across towards Emishi. His followers spread out to spin their own nets, and Emishi found himself forced to parry faster and faster with his whip, twirling it to block, not having enough time or space to launch any aggressive moves himself, and then a length of thread sliced across his chest and brought the blood spilling out. And then another. And another. They were cutting him to pieces by inches.

That was it.

Saizou took a step forward. "I am prepared to accept your surrender," he purred. "If you crawl."

Close enough.

Emishi screamed, "Bloody Storm!" and ignited his blood. It went up in a halo of scarlet, ripping the oxygen from the air around him so that he couldn't breathe, scorching his skin and burning, burning, and he had to close his eyes because he could no longer endure the heat, and please let this be enough, they were close to me, how can threads fight fire, Shido, I am sorry, but you saved me once before, and that was enough, and I was saved for this, and let this be what makes the difference . . .

Gentle angel wings enfolded him and shielded him from the fire and lowered him softly to the ground. He blinked and looked up at the world through a mist of rosy dawn.

This must be Heaven, then. Yes, that was Sakura speaking, and her voice was quite distinct even though there seemed to be a lot of screaming and whimpers and sprinklers going on in the background.

Or perhaps it wasn't. He fought to move, to get past the folds of pink fabric and the screaming of his own body's pain, and he raised his head enough to see her standing between him and the four Black Thread users who were still upright, though one of them was swaying and trying to beat out flames.

"Kakei," Saizou was saying. "Kakei Sakura, your family is not without honour. If you wish to swear allegiance to me, as rightful heir to the Fuuchoin, then I can offer you a position of respect. You are the eldest child, and your support would strengthen my position. I might even consider sparing certain of your dependents, should you wish it."

Emishi was able to see Sakura's face freeze into an expression of perfect and absolute disdain. Her speech had the archaic formality of an old romance. "Saizou-san -- forgive this person, for she is unaware of any family name which he may claim -- is mistaken. This person has no wish to declare any sort of allegiance to him. Not only is she already sworn elsewhere, but there already is an heir to the Fuuchoin, and that person is not Saizou-san." She stood there, the scorched remains of her shawl between her hands, and looked at Saizou with a bland disdain.

Saizou spat to one side. "Very well. Kill her."

Threads pale as moonlight came from somewhere behind Emishi to cross around him and in front of Sakura, spinning a barrier between them and the Black Thread users, and Kazuki's voice said, "I think not."


There was a distant bellowing in the distance. It could have been a lion roaring. It could have been a maddened elephant trumpeting. It could have been a rampant ox preparing to gore.

It was getting closer.

"Um," Ginji said. "That sounds like someone yelling that his desire is itching."

"Crap," Ban muttered.