Thorny Path
Birds
Disclaimer: I do not own nor profit from any of the ideas, characters, names, etc that I have used from Until Death Do Us Part. Any original aspects of this fiction have spawned from my imagination, thus I'm rather attached to them, so would prefer if others don't nick off with them without referencing.
A/N: Well, Christmas and New Year are behind us now, so I have time to myself to write again. Yay! Hope you all enjoyed the festive season. :)
Well, it's been a while since the last update, eh? Hope I didn't keep you waiting too long! As always, thank you for your kind and encouraging words. Without further ado, please enjoy the chapter. :)
The door slid shut, closing with a resounding bang.
"Hey! Watch the freaking merchandise, man," Igawa spat at the man who had just entered the vehicle.
Callum slung himself into a seat in the rear of the van and sneered at the techie. "Shut it."
Igawa glared at the Scot from the driver's seat. What the hell had crawled into his pants? He was clutching his shoulder as he relaxed into the back of the chair. Was he injured? He hadn't noticed him taking a hit from his vantage point inside the modified vehicle.
He eyed the man for a few moments more before hesitantly opening his mouth.
"You... okay?"
Callum glanced up, his expression softening momentarily. "Just drive, Igawa."
He let out a sigh and swivelled to face the steering wheel. Sometimes it felt as if he was always being ordered around... and just why the hell did he simply take it? He groaned. It really wasn't worth the hassle.
Distractedly, he shoved the van into gear and pulled away from the side of the street. It was the dead of night, the roads were quiet with only a handful of vehicles passing by in the other direction as they made their way up a wide-laned, tree-lined avenue.
Igawa glanced occasionally in the rear view mirror, checking on Callum's condition. He didn't really like the man, yet he couldn't help but worry slightly if he was more injured than he seemed. He didn't look as if he was going to drop dead any time soon, though. His continued scowl and random muttering was proof of that.
Turning off of the main street and into a narrower road with several cars parked along the side of the pavement, he manoeuvred them steadily towards their safe house. It would take them another fifteen minutes to get there, but Igawa wasn't in any particular rush. The place was a little stifling and with just the two of them staying there for the moment, it felt empty. It wasn't somewhere he could call home.
He briefly went over the events of the evening, cataloguing every action, each piece of dialogue neatly in readiness for the report he would have to type and submit for the network. It hadn't been anything complicated that they'd had to accomplish. It was supposed to be a clean, in-and-out job. Mop up the scumbags and disappear. Callum shouldn't have been injured. The Scot was getting careless, Igawa groaned, and causing him more paperwork on top of that.
He found himself missing the days when he was assigned to Blade. He blinked. Why the hell did he miss working with Mamoru? He was more of a handful than Callum was. Always doing things his own way, not caring about the repercussions. At least his current pain in the ass knew how to follow orders.
Igawa floored the accelerator as the traffic lights ahead of him began to turn red, whipping through the junction at a speed that was not entirely safe.
Then he realised, it was the sense of belonging that he missed. With Haruka and even Mamoru and some of the others who had joined them briefly, the crap they had managed to crawl through together had brought them closer to each other, almost like some kind of highly dysfunctional family. He smirked a little as he slowed the van to a more legal speed. That brought to mind all sorts of strange images.
The next set of traffic lights were green, so he didn't bother to slow as he neared the crossroads. He threw a cursory glance to his right then left, in the remote chance someone would risk running a red light at this time of night. His gaze snapped back to his right as he caught a flash of metal in his peripheral vision.
In the moment it took for him to realise the flash was a street light reflecting off the side of a Land Rover, heading straight into his path, he was slamming his foot on the brake and pulling the steering wheel hard left. He heard the screech of tires as the van skidded along tarmac, flinging him into the door panel, knocking his breath from him. A surprised cry followed by a thud and a curse from behind him told him Callum hadn't bothered to buckle up.
He pulled the wheel back to the right, trying to steer into the near uncontrollable skid. His eyes widened as he struggled to bring the vehicle back under control. He didn't even have time to shout a warning back to the Scot as the van plunged headlong into the corner of the brick apartment building.
Haruka sat crossed-legged on her double bed, laptop to her side, open folder resting on her thighs. She had been scouring diligently through the file for hours now. Her eyes were beginning to get sore from staring at so much text for too long.
She shrugged off her thin cardigan, folding it and placing it next to her pillow. Straightening her sleeveless top, she stared down at the piece of paper again, blinking to stop the ink from blurring into the background.
She sighed. This really was getting her nowhere. Steadfast Security sure had collected a vast amount of information on the network, but it didn't tell her what they planned to do, nor what kind of timescale they had set out, which was exactly what Mamoru wanted to know. That left them only the names of their other 'agents' in Japan.
She flicked to the front of the sheaves of paper and began to read over the information on Dosedel and his three associates again. They were personnel records, apparently of their time in Steadfast Security's employ. There were photographs, names, personal information and work history, but no locations, recent activity, or even what their purpose in Japan was. Of course not. That would be too easy, wouldn't it?
She resisted the urge to sigh again. Why couldn't nefarious schemers be a little sloppy sometimes? It would make her life so much simpler.
"Well?"
Haruka jumped at the unexpected sound of Mamoru's voice. She hadn't heard him come in. She glanced over at him. He was leaning languidly against the doorframe, peering at her through his sunglasses, his short-sleeved t-shirt exposing arms that were crossed over his chest. How long had he been standing there?
She cleared her throat. "Uh, there's not a lot to go on here."
"Nothing?" he asked gruffly, uncrossing his arms and pushing himself away from the doorway.
She looked back down at the unhelpful folder as he crossed the room to her bed.
"There's information, sure, but nothing that can really point us in a solid direction. There's no aspect of the Elements Network that they've concentrated on, and there's nothing in the personnel files which tells us what the other three guys are doing in the country or where they are."
Mamoru stood to the side of the bed and tapped a finger idly against his jeans leg.
"You're sure?"
Haruka inhaled deeply and brushed stray strands of hair out of her face. "No, I'm not. I could've missed something. I'm no expert at this after all. I've read and re-read through these documents. I've tried my best, that's all I can offer."
Mamoru frowned slightly, before slipping his hand into his back pocket and pulling something out.
"That leaves this, then."
He held the small square object she had found in the car earlier that day.
"Tell me about this," he said, giving the item to her.
She peered at it while holding it between forefinger and thumb. It looked to be made of gold, or perhaps gold plated, though there weren't any visible seams. The surface was completely smooth to the touch, but when she flipped it over she saw an image imprinted on what she figured to be the top of the object. Imprinted probably wasn't a very accurate term. The swirling pattern within a square border wasn't etched into the surface, nor was it attached via a label or other means. As she brushed her thumb over it, she could feel no proof that it was actually there, other than what her eyes were telling her. It was almost as if the image was below the surface and the outer layer was transparent, allowing her to see it.
"It's a metal square, maybe gold, with some sort of strange symbol on one side," she replied after a moment.
"That's not what I asked."
Haruka glanced up at Mamoru in confusion. "What?"
One of his eyebrows twitched in what she could only read as impatience. "I want you to tell me what you know about it."
"But I just did!" she exclaimed, more than a little exasperated.
A sigh hissed out between his teeth, and it suddenly dawned on her what he was inferring. Damn his perceptiveness. She had been reluctant to give the object to him at first. It had looked familiar to her and the scene she had recognised it from wasn't a pleasing one.
"I..." she started, to cut off any scathing remark he was about to say. "I think I've seen it before. I can't be sure though."
She paused and took a deep breath, meeting his gaze.
"What I saw doesn't reveal anything about its purpose. I just know that it was in your possession and... it was important somehow."
He leaned forward and took the metal square from her grip, peering at it briefly before closing his fist around it.
"I see." He looked away from her, turning slightly to the side, appearing to be lost in thought.
After a moment, he spoke again. "So, to sum it up. We don't know Steadfast's plans, we don't know where their employees could be and we don't know what this chunk of metal is. That's a lot we don't know."
Haruka let out a sigh, her gaze dropping to the floor. She felt utterly useless. She thought she might have been able to scrounge at least a scrap of useful information from the documents they'd recovered earlier, yet the only thing she'd uncovered was more questions.
She looked up again as she heard Mamoru's footsteps. He walked to the door and paused in the doorframe, turning back towards her.
"We'd better go find some answers then." A smirk played on his lips. "Wrap up warm."
The tranquil darkness of unconsciousness receded slowly and along with it, the obliviousness of his injuries. Igawa burst into a fit of coughing as he breathed in a lungful of dust and smoke. It took him a moment to figure out why his head was pounding incessantly and what the hell was lying on top of him, making it exceedingly difficult to shift from his more than uncomfortable position.
He blinked several times, trying to make the little spots of light that were floating in front of him disappear, before realising that they were real and not a side effect of his return to consciousness. His eyes narrowed as he peered through what he now realised was a pile of bricks and rubble strewn across the bonnet and inside of the van. The lights he had seen belonged to a set of candles lined up along the mantle of a fireplace.
He sucked in a shocked breath and started coughing again. They'd ploughed right through the wall of the apartment building and into someone's home.
As his awareness returned to him, he looked around himself, cringing at the pain in his head. He was still in the driver's seat of the van, his seatbelt having saved him from being tossed out the crumpled windshield, but the interior hardly looked recognisable. The front of the vehicle had collapsed with the sheer force of the impact. The reinforced panelling the van had been modified with had saved his legs being crushed along with it.
He groaned as he tried to move his arm towards the seatbelt catch. Several bricks and what looked to be a wooden support beam had jammed themselves through the windshield, across his body and into the seat next to him. He was lucky that the beam hadn't fallen just a few inches closer and impaled him.
After a few moments of wriggling, he managed to free his arm and clumsily release the seatbelt from its fastening. He turned his attention to the driver side door. It was jammed up against the wall. There was no way he'd be able to get out that way.
With much difficulty and protesting from his aching body, he twisted around to his left to peer behind him. Half of the surveillance and reconnaissance equipment that had been fitted to various fixtures in the van had come loose and were now scattered across the floor, no doubt completely unsalvageable. Then, for the first time since waking, a thought struck him. Callum. Where the hell was the Scot?
His eyes darted around the interior of the van, but he couldn't see the man's body. If he was hurting this much, he couldn't imagine what might have happened to Callum, who hadn't been wearing his seatbelt.
Twisting further, he grabbed the side of his seat with his right hand and pulled, trying to free his lower body from the rubble. His breath left him in a rush as pain shot up his spine, causing him to hastily release his grip on the seat.
It took a few seconds for the needles that were racing up his back to subside and his accelerated breathing to return to normal. He hadn't thought he'd broken anything, but couldn't identify what had caused that kind of pain either. He was sure that if he'd broken his spine, he wouldn't have been able to move at all. He hoped it was just a caught nerve or twisted muscle.
Trying another approach, he started pushing away some of the rust coloured bricks. They dropped with a thud onto the floor of the van. There was no way he was going to be able to move the support beam, but perhaps if he dislodged some of the other rubble, he could make enough room to squirm out of the seat.
He resisted the urge to sneeze as two bricks clunking to the floor pushed another cloud of dust into the air. Finally! He had made enough room to free his right leg. He flexed it experimentally and was relieved to feel nothing more than a dull ache in the muscles.
Bending his leg, he managed to twist enough to place his heel on the seat. Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself for what was to come. Pushing against the seat as leverage, he grabbed a hold of the inside door handle and gear stick and heaved. For a moment his left leg didn't budge and he felt that intense pain in his back again. He bit back the cry that was threatening to spill out of his mouth and continued to push against the seat. Abruptly his leg tore free, causing him to fall to one side, jamming his ribs against several bricks. He coughed and spluttered as he was winded once again.
"I'm not cut out for this shit," he mumbled to himself as he crawled into the back of the van.
As he cleared the last pieces of rubble, he collapsed onto the hard floor and rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. Catching his breath, he tried to formulate what needed to be done now. He had to find Callum, but should he find a way of contacting the network first? The throbbing in his head was making it annoyingly difficult to focus.
He should probably check around the perimeter of the van for any signs of his partner first. It wouldn't be very prudent to mess around with the equipment inside if Callum happened to be lying around injured nearby.
Pushing himself onto his elbow on one side, he peered down at his feet. He scowled bitterly as he noticed the left leg of his baggy jeans was torn almost to shreds. Whoever had been driving that Land Rover, he would find them and make them pay. No way he was going to let this go unanswered, even if it had only been an accident.
Igawa looked up, startled at the scraping sound of the van's warped side door sliding open. Instinctively, he shuffled away from the opening, as a slender silhouette stepped into sight. That definitely wasn't Callum.
He felt blindly on the floor around him with one hand, searching for something to use as a weapon as he eyed the figure peering in at him. He couldn't make out any features, with the street light on the opposite side of the road directly behind his subject.
The van rocked slightly as the figure took one step inside, hunching over to avoid hitting their head on the ceiling. He could hear his pulse thundering in his ears as his fingers found a crumbled piece of brick. He was hoping he'd find something a little more deadly, but he was out of time.
As fast as he could manage, he rolled onto his knees and pushed forward, aiming to use the momentum to get to his feet and put enough force behind his swinging arm. As he moved, that needle-like pain shot up his spine again, causing him to stagger.
The next moment, his feet were out from under him and his back slammed into something solid. A forceful pressure weighed against his chest and the arm holding the brick was twisted away from his body. He let out a strangled yelp as his wrist was wrenched to near breaking point. He heard the thud of the brick as it dropped from his fingers.
As he looked up to spit a defiant curse into his assailant's face, he froze. The first thing he noticed was the blonde hair tied tightly behind her head. Her! He'd just been floored effortlessly by a woman! He blinked.
"You!"
Full lips curved into an elegant smile.
"Nice to see you again as well, Igawa."
"What th-"
His outraged question was cut off abruptly by a fist to his face.
"What a waste of time," Mamoru spat out the words as if they tasted bad.
Haruka murmured something behind him, but her voice was too subdued for him to hear it clearly. She had been especially quiet ever since they had left Yano's workplace. Or more appropriately, ex-workplace.
Yano, he hadn't known what the man's first name was, nor cared to know, had owned a small electronics store in a quiet section of the shopping district they were now walking through. Before he had reinitiated contact with Igawa, Mamoru had used Yano for his information gathering skills. The man was known, to some, to have his finger in many pies. Unfortunately, it seemed that had ultimately come back to bite him on the ass.
Mamoru had often visited the store during the night and had always been welcomed, or at least his money had. This night though, the shop had been shuttered tightly and it had been a huge inconvenience to break the lock and wake the occupants of the apartment above the store. They hadn't been all too pleased to see him either.
Still, after a little persuasion, they had answered his questions. Apparently, Yano had gone missing some months before. One day he had been working the shop, the next he was simply gone. He had turned up two weeks ago, or at least parts of him had. He had been identified through dental records. The timing was decidedly problematic. He could guess that he had probably rubbed some Yakuza big shot the wrong way, purely down to the description of his body and where he had been dumped. That ruled out that his death had been related to his association with Mamoru, but it didn't help to lighten his mood any.
It felt like they were running against a brick wall. They were making no headway whatsoever. It seemed that whenever they found something promising, be it information or something more solid, another obstacle would crop up, blocking their way.
He seriously needed some way of relieving his pent up frustration. As they walked out onto a wide plaza, centred by a trickling fountain, he was more than a little disappointed to see that the area was all but abandoned. It wasn't exactly surprising, considering the time of night, but he had hoped some seedy types would be hanging around, nonetheless.
The pitter-patter of the water being pushed up by the fountain's mechanism and dropping back into the circular pool grew louder as they neared the centre of the paved square. He almost missed the sudden absence of Haruka's footsteps under the noise of the water. He turned abruptly, startling a flock of pigeons which had alighted on the edge of the fountain. They beat their wings hastily as they flew away.
His eyebrows furrowed together as he spotted Haruka standing frozen in place, seemingly staring into space.
"Hey," he barked at her, trying to keep his voice as low as possible.
She didn't respond, which only succeeded in irritating him further.
"Haruka."
Again, it was as if the woman hadn't heard him at all. He cursed under his breath as he closed the distance between them. He stopped a step in front of her and stooped slightly to bring himself to her eye level.
"Haruka?" he asked, hesitantly. She hadn't reacted to his presence, and even though he couldn't see exact details of the look in her eyes, it felt as if she was staring straight through him.
Her breathing was shallow but she didn't seem to be in any distress. So, a vision then? It was unusual for her to be completely out of it like this, though. He placed a hand on her shoulder and shook gently.
"Haruka, snap out of it."
She tensed against his touch and her head titled to one side.
"Mamoru?" Her voice was tinged with confusion briefly before she inhaled suddenly in a brief gasp.
"Mamoru, we need to get home now."
He raised an eyebrow as he straightened, dropping his hand from her shoulder.
"Why?"
Her expression seemed to brighten as she spoke. "We have guests."
