(WOW long update wait much? if i've still got any of my old readers left.. haha wow, dedication. i love you so much. and if i somehow managed to get new readers... welcome. don't worry. i'm just slow. but i am determined to finish this story, so it WILL happen, i swear. just hang tight lovelies.
also, if it seems like this chapter has less happening than usual, yuh. it's only half of the originally planned chapter - it was just taking waaaay too long as it is. so the next one will have extra action, just to make up for it.)
Program Lovely
chapter one;Startup
checking systems... confirming password... logged in.
Ichigo had never run so fast in her life.
But maybe memory just wasn't serving her. She was sure avoiding Kishu and the aliens had been up there. Or chasing Chimera Anima through the streets of Tokyo. Or skittering around the Cafe day after day, taking orders. Or even just earlier today, when she'd practically bolted miles to the train station as if her life depended on it.
Though, quickly she realized it couldn't compare. Not now. Not when her entire body and being was seized by this flaring, gripping fear - when everything seemed to be spinning out of control and barreling beyond proportion - not now, not when she knew she could be chasing a sight she'd never want to see --
"We have to go, now."
You say that kind of thing at a coffee shop when you're late for an appointment, or when your kid won't co-operate and put his toys away, or when things get awkward on a double-date and you just want out of there. In itself, those words were nothing particularly traumatizing.
But when Mizuki said them, it was as if a shockwave had been sent through all of their minds. A perfect connection; a single message; a neon sign, magnificent and frightening, burning the same message into five unprepared brains.
Something happened to Ryou.
But now, when she could barely breath, or feel, or see, Ichigo certainly didn't want to think. So she ran. Kept running. Lost herself completely to her feet and her lungs and her heart - everything else just shut down, leaving barely enough time to send up a silent prayer and a fast-dying hope.
Mizuki was already leagues ahead of them. When it became clear they understood, she took off at unmatched speed, leaving them in the dust to follow behind, slow, exhaustable, and human. Now they were staggered down the streets, running through the dark and peaceful neighbourhoods with conflicting confusion, panic, desperation and fear.
Above all, fear.
And there it was, breaking on the horizon as they rounded a corner. The Cafe.
It was still standing; it wasn't in flames. It looked the same as it had this morning: pleasant, pink and in one piece.
So why didn't it settle any of their stomachs?
"He's not picking up," Zakuro concluded, breathless, stashing the phone she had been hitting 'redial' on over and over for the past five blocks, and picking up speed.
Don't think about it, Ichigo told herself, burning extra holes in her chest and blistering her feet faster for the home stretch, Don't think about what that means.
That had to be what Mizuki had meant - the phone. Just the same as she had kept track of Ichigo at the train station, she had been keeping tabs on Ryou, too. And something had broken that connection, quickly enough to throw Mizuki - calculating, grounded, logical Mizuki - into a full blown dash across the city.
But now, Ichigo was beginning to wonder if it had just been a mistake. As they approached, she could see all the doors and windows were still sealed; had his phone just died? Been turned off by mistake?
What should have been reasoning became hopes she was blindly and frantically clinging to. And she knew that, even when the others began to slow down, registering that nothing was out of the ordinary - she knew however logical and sane those hopes may have been, they weren't right. Even if she wanted them to be.
Please.
"W..." All breathless, dishevelled and bewildered, the girls slowed to a jog, taking in the too usual scenery, "..what happened, na no da? I don't see anything--"
Pudding cut herself off as they turned the corner to the back.
That hope Ichigo had been hanging off of snapped, cleanly and efficiently, in two.
The door, where rocks and camoflauge materials had been used as concealors, had been brutally kicked in. Splintered wood, dust, fragments of rock and torn fabrics littered the so-hoped 'secret' entrance - now just an ominous and disastrous pit of debris.
And that was it. The adrenaline that had been driving her and keeping her upright evaporated - Ichigo collapsed to her knees on the cold grass, and everything that had been spinning before went frightfully still.
"No," she mouthed, stomach churning at the sight.
"Ichigo-" Exhausted, Zakuro moved forward to help - but the red haired girl was already crawling forward, shaking, gasping for air, eyes going misty.
"Shirogane.." Coughing from the dirt and dust, Ichigo dragged herself to the destroyed door and tried, helplessly, pathetically, to stand - "W-what did you do now... breaking the door... you jerk, do you know how fast I ran..."
The others just watched in silence, frozen in uncertainty, as she yanked a block of wood and a torn sheet out of her way, raised her voice to barely above a whisper, and ducked down into what had once been a safe haven.
"You're lucky--" she warbled, before her voice died completely.
Mizuki stood there, back straight and turned to her.
In an empty room.
"He's gone."
At that point, Ichigo lost all sense of what was happening, all control of what she was doing. Her senses were swept away in a blackening swipe; everything stopped and started to rush at once, and when she came to again, she had bulldozed through the room and was already clambering her way up the broken, splintered stairway, struggling against whatever was holding her back.
"Stop," She yanked at the resistence, ignoring the voice, determined to barrel past. To break the door down. To find him. "Ichigo-san, stop!"
Lettuce stood there, pale-faced and fighting back tears. Ichigo, heaving for breath and aching from struggle, looked down to see the other girl was gripping her arm, white-knuckled and trembling.
"Please, calm down," the green-haired girl whispered, refusing to loosen her grip, "We don't know what's happened, whoever did this could still be here--"
Ichigo stared at her in wild desperation. "Then we need to find them! Let me go!"
"Ichigo-san, please just sit down, you can't do anything in this state--"
"I have scanned all the rooms and floors already," Mizuki spoke, crisp and even, staring straight ahead without moving a muscle, "There is no one else in the building."
At those words, her blind determination dissolved. Ichigo exhaled, falling limp, allowing Lettuce to gently guide her back down the stairway and to a chair, where she sat in a cold daze.
"Just rest for a moment," Lettuce said softly, but the redhead was suddenly unresponsive as Zakuro and the others came down slowly from the smashed-in trap door.
After a moment of surveying the scene, Zakuro closed her eyes and dusted her hands off. "Mint, Lettuce, go. Check every room."
At this, Mizuki finally turned her head. Weariness was etched across her artificial face. "My scans are one hundred percent accurate--"
"I said I would fight to protect you," Zakuro answered curtly with a grim, stoic expression, "Not that I would trust you. For all we know, you could be holding him hostage somewhere in this building. Go."
Mint and Lettuce obeyed immediately, hurrying away from the gathering tension and toward the main floor of the Cafe.
Mizuki simply cast the commanding woman a calculating glance, and turned away again. "I cannot argue if that is your decision."
Meanwhile, Pudding made her way into the room and stared fearfully at its leftover catastrophe; then, seeing Ichigo, she made her way over to her chair and collapsed on the floor beside her, completely spent.
All of them were; by this point, it was a struggle just to walk.
"Ichigo-oneechan," the youngest Mew tried to give her arm a shake, but Ichigo said nothing. She just sat, leaned over, hands clammy and cold against her head - her head that kept urging her to move, move, move!... but her body that just wouldn't. Couldn't.
All she could do was sit in this chair like a good girl, staring at an overturned chair just a few feet away. Quietly, she began to imagine him sitting there, in front of all those computers, his intense blue gaze fixed on the flickering screens...
Tears began to prick at her eyes.
Please be alive, she silently begged the universe as a knot twisted in her throat, Please.
"Would it be right," Zakuro began again, taking command despite the shambled state of the team, "to assume this was the work of SQUAD?"
"There is a ninety-eight percent chance," was Mizuki's quiet reply.
"And there is no way you can directly track them down at this point in time?"
The machine's definitive silence answered the question.
Zakuro sighed, but had expected nothing more; nothing was ever so simple. "Well, aside from all your statistics and collected data, did you happen to come with any deduction programming?"
Mizuki appeared neither amused nor bothered by the nature of this question - she only spared the woman a glance and made her way over to the broken-through door.
Sparks began to flash in her iced-over eyes.
"They broke in through the cellar entrance."
Now it was Zakuro's turn to be annoyed. "I think the rest of us can see that already," her reply was laden with snideness and sarcasm, but the machine simply gazed at the gaping hole above.
"With their feet," Mizuki finished.
Zakuro's eyes shot up. That, apparently, had been unexpected. She had assumed they would have used something heavy, much heavier - especially considering the door had been sturdy enough to hold up several weighted rocks and the occasional person on guard. As she looked at the door area now, she could see how the once solid block of wood had been reduced to splinters -
A breeze of fear tremored up her arms. "How can you be sure?"
Mizuki's head lifted, and her eyes flashed brighter - the girls could all hear that whir of her not-so-figurative gears beginning to turn again.
"Taking into consideration the angle at which the debris has been scattered, and the pattern at which the pieces landed, the destruction occured in one blow, and the approximate size of the offending weapon of force corresponds with that of an average--"
"Okay, I believe you," Cutting her off, an exasperated Zakuro approached the carnage as well, feeling a headache already coming on. They had their work cut out for them. "What else have you got?"
There was a moment of silent speculation. "There was a struggle. An infrared scan of this room indicates the presence of terrestial warmth faded in the last fifteen minutes. He would have been sitting there," She pointed to an area by the computers - "Until his own actions of defense relocated him to over there," Motioned towards the stair case area, "And from that point, the pattern of struggle ends. I suspect he was knocked out and carried, not dragged. Signs of struggle and signs of forceful exit end here."
Zakuro's mouth felt dry after hearing this account, as if she had seen the scene play out before her own eyes.
"How many of them were there?"
"Two."
So, that was it then. One human man against two super-strong Who-Knows-What.
Sorry Ryou, Zakuro thought, visually scanning the scene again, you barely stood a chance.
Then, she shut her eyes, attempting to fully digest it all.
"And what should our next move be?"
For once, Mizuki seemed to have no answer. The heaviness of the situation began to truly sink in.
It was at that point that Lettuce and Mint came in through the main room door. Ichigo, who had been half-zoned out, half listening, lifted her head suddenly, wide eyed and attentive. And hopeful. Too hopeful.
"We checked everywhere," Mint reported, breaking the silent spell.
Ichigo's hope quickly died and she slumped back down again. They didn't have to say anything else to make it clear.
"They wrecked this place entirely... Lord," Daintily, the ballerina made her way down the staircase, trying to sidestep a snapped-in-half table leg, "Nothing upstairs was touched, but they outdid themselves here. Why didn't Ryou call for help?"
"Outside," Mizuki's eyes flickered up toward the outdoor entrance again, posture stiffening, "The entire facility's wires have been dug up and cut up."
The others looked surprised; no one had noticed this in all the chaos and panic.
"Then, he really was completely cut off from everyone..." As she followed after Mint, Lettuce's eye caught on a familiar item. His phone. Kneeling down, she picked it up as if it were a delicate piece of china. Frowning, she carefully flipped it open.
"There's no signal," Mizuki noticed. Indeed, there were no bars at the screen's top corner; just as everything else, any means of communication had been intercepted.
Something terribly grim filled the room, then. Like a heavy fog, on all their shoulders - but none moreso than Mizuki, who appeared, despite logic, despite functionality, guilty. As if a sense of failed responsibility had invaded her heart of switches and numbers and codes.
"What now?" Mint asked, finally, uncomfortable. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ichigo, and could almost see her sink lower and lower into the floor with every passing second.
Silently, Mizuki moved forward and put her hand on one of the computer screens. It instantly flickered on.
"How - it wouldn't turn on when I tried," Lettuce cried, and the others turned to look in surprise.
"Built in power supply," With that simple explanation, Mizuki's eyes were already turned to the screen. A block of text, black on white, had flashed on; an article. Quickly, everyone (save Ichigo and Pudding) gathered around, concentrated.
"Mock labs" are theorized to account for the mass number of local kidnappings in the past six months.
Children and young adults appear to be the main victims of choice, ranging in gender and appearence.
Authorities advise that children are always supervised and avoid downtown areas altogether. Overall caution should be taken by the general population.
"Why would Ryou be reading something like this?" Mint asked, grabbing the mouse to scroll through, intrigued and puzzled, "My god, he must have pulled up twenty articles already! All on the same--"
"Wait!" Zakuro boomed, and Mint froze - both pairs of eyes fixed on one line.
Lately, mutilated corpses of house cats, dogs, wild rabbits, and on occasion, creatures stolen from zoos (such as baby bears and cougars) have been discovered at the labs.
"This sounds," Zakuro murmured, mesmerized, "a little familiar."
Lettuce blanched, horrified. "You don't think they've been using those animals for--!"
Mizuki merely appeared pensieve - but no less attentive. "Shirogane-sama must think this has something to do with SQUAD," she said, almost too quietly.
The three exchanged glances, having been thinking the same.
"Is that why they took him?" Ichigo spoke up for the first time in what had felt like forever. Pudding, who had been trying to snap her out of it, jumped a little in surprise.
"No," Mizuki's response, though blunt as usual, was tinged with something else. Zakuro wondered if, vaguely, it was guilt - or some form of it. The robot woman gave one sorrid glance to the screen before removing her hand, quickly extinguishing the light, "If this article is truly the case, they have no reason to target anyone. Information like this would encourage sympthasizing, not antagonizing."
Yes -- guilt. Zakuro couldn't be sure what it was about her tone, or her face - both were blank, drawn, inexpressible - but despite all that, despite the lack of any normal display of emotion, she was almost entirely sure there was faint regret in those artificial words.
"It's more than ninety percent likely they attacked Shirogane-sama in order to draw me out."
This should have come as more of a shock to the girls, but it somehow made all too much sense. This machine - this amazing, futuristic, potentially dangerous well-kept-secret - was like a national treasure. A rarity. A trophy.
And SQUAD, whoever they were, for whatever reason, craved it.
"B-but... what would they want with Mizuki-san?" Lettuce pondered in distress as she busied herself suddenly, trying to collect pieces of the mess around them, "If they're strong enough to break a door with... with their feet, and no one has been actively chasing them... aren't they free to do what they want?"
Mizuki wore a hard expression; after a moment of silent, her body gave a slight movement. A shrug of the shoulders. Or a shake of the head. But no words. No answer.
Ichigo watched and listened, mesmerized and horrified at the same time. "They'll do anything to get you."
Mizuki glanced up to see a change suddenly overcoming the redhead. Color was rushing to the girl's face, her before limp hands began to tremble, her eyes sparking back to life. "They're animals. Monsters. They'll do anything!"
"Ichigo-" Quickly recognizing the stress she was under, Zakuro moved to try and calm her down - but Ichigo had already steadied herself to her feet. Even Pudding reached up to tug worriedly at her arm.
"Ichigo-oneechan-"
"I've seen them!" Her newfound fervour seemed to spread like wildfire, infecting every inch of her body. It was as if she were truly a cat, back arching, fine hairs standing on end - her breathing seemed momentarily erratic, uneven, as panic flashed through her eyes, "You don't understand, I've seen them. Her face -- her eyes -- "
The memory itself sent a ripple of cold fear up and down her spine. Then, it crashed together in her mind, a morbid conclusion that seemed to drain every drop of boiling blood from her face as her voice cracked -
"She'll kill him."
"Ichigo, sit down," Mint demanded with only a hint of uneasiness,moving towards the frantic girl to calm her (and the others, who stood rigid, infected by her immediate fear) down.
Or try.
Ichigo, it seemed, would not be calmed.
"If they haven't already," And her voice, which had lost momentum for just a second, picked up again, reaching a crescendo in hysteria, "We have to go. Now. We can't just sit here, we have to find him, we have to go--!"
"He's not dead," Mizuki snapped, loudly, tearing the noise into a resentful silence. Ichigo's half-crazed eyes wandered to the speaker in shocked disbelief.
Standing very tall, and very still, Mizuki seemed to sigh through a clenched jaw in frustration before continuing. "They won't do anything to him - not until they've had a chance to bargain for whatever it is they're aiming for. Criminals don't kill the hostage until very last resort."
Ichigo's heart, still catching up to her sudden infuriated burst, choked a little at the word "kill".
"If we can assume they're attempting to draw me out, they wouldn't risk a bluff. A dead man would be useless."
Slowly, quietly, Ichigo's tense shoulders fell, her face left to express only a bewildered daze. Somehow - though there were still questions and more uncertainties than one could count on a single hand - the tension in the air seemed to ease, even just slightly, clearing the heavy smog that had settled in the room.
"He'll be alive. For now, at least," Was Mizuki's final promise. Though it was anything but comforting, it helped to lift one tiny, but hefty, worry from the shoulders of the heroines.
And so, it seemed, in the silence there was just one inevitable question begging to be asked --
"Then... what are we supposed to do now, na no da?" Pudding asked softly, looking around at the others with a puzzled face.
Zakuro just sighed.
"We search."
"They want us to find them," Was Mizuki's first instruction. The debriefing had begun. "So there will be a connection somewhere. Somewhere we've been, somewhere with significance."
"The park," Mint threw in.
"Airport."
"Train station?"
Mizuki brushed grains of rubble away with her foot, eyes scanning everything as she stood near the door - half of her involved in the here-and-now, the other half piecing together the scarce bits presented to them as clues.
"Those locations would be considered too public to hold a hostage."
"You can't discount that," Mint argued, "They were willing to provoke you to a fight in the middle of a populated place. If that's any indication, they wouldn't be put off by something like that."
Mizuki's jaw gave an unrehearsed twitch. "Correct," she seemed hesitant to reply, eyes wandering to the blank screen once more, "But all those are unnecessarily far away. Wherever they are keeping him will be easily accessible, but deserted."
"Those are the only places we've found them," Lettuce reminded her softly, sitting in one of the chairs and ringing her hands anxiously, "So it would at least be worth a try - "
"We'll run out of time." There was a self-imposed strength behind Ichigo's words, hoarse and shaky as they were, "If it's not somewhere we've been, maybe Mizuki knows of another place. If SQUAD really wants to be found, they would leave something here to get a response from her, wouldn't they?"
At the mention, a faint sandpaper scrape could be heard from below - barely audible to the human ear, but to a certain machine's receptors, it was clear as day. Mizuki halted motion completely, gaze instantly flickering to the floor.
"What?" Pudding hopped up from her chair and bounded to Mizuki's end of the room eagerly, the others migrating in the same direction curiously.
Kneeling, the robot gracefully lowered her hand to the ground, and with the most delicate touch of her fingers scooped up a small pinch of a strange, copper-coloured dust.
Ichigo was the last to reach the group, and when she did, she was quick to realize what she held wasn't dust. Not quite. Not sand, either, or crumbs, or pebbles - it was as if Mizuki had scraped up tiny fragments of jagged metal, some vaguely familiar material with a bizarre gold sheen.
"Kinet," Mizuki's whirring noises returned as she identified the substance, "A cheap but elusive metal with incredible conducting abilities." Her cold eyes seemed to flicker in silent recognition.
As she looked at it more closely, Ichigo realized why it was familiar. She had seen something like it before, hadn't she? Her mind briefly traced back to the violent incident at the construction site of the train station, and the metallic dust that had littered the ground after Mizuki had burst in to her rescue, transformed.
"You're made of this," She concluded. wondering if it sounded as strange as it felt to say it.
Mizuki almost seemed to flinch. As if the details of her own structure had gone unnoticed by her, even just for a moment.
"Yes," was her sturdy reply, "Kinet is an otherwise useless metal, but it was found to be exceptionally suited for the transfer of - thoughts," That word seemed wholly improper, and she backtracked accordingly, "- messages in the place of mammalian nerves."
Ichigo's eyebrows lifted. "Metal? Shouldn't it shatter when you transform-"
She simply shook her head in response, looking back to the pile of dull metallic dust resting in her cold palm, "Kinet was injected into my programming as a 'safe' metal. My transformation complex sends intense and active heat currents through all other metals, but is designed specifically to bypass Kinet."
"It would be fatal to you, otherwise," Zakuro reasoned, eyeing the machine almost cautiously, "Wouldn't it?"
The silence answered the affirmative.
"This is from Mizuki-oneechan then, na no da?"
"But you never transformed here," Ichigo murmured before Mizuki had a chance to point this out.
"The 'safe' metal setting causes a small amount to be repelled from the skin as opposed to melting or shattering," Gently, Mizuki stroked the rough dust, "But this is too unrefined. My creators struggled to get legal access to such a large quantity, but-"
Lettuce's eyes widened as it struck her. "So, this metal must be from..."
Mizuki nodded, just slightly. Enough to confirm the silent suspicions of everyone else in the room.
Ichigo found herself staring at the metal, and it's dull, unenthused glimmer - and somehow, some way, from the pit of her stomach, she felt a warmth bubble up from her chilled toes all the way up to her troubled eyes. Hope, albeit faintly, quivered at her tangled insides.
"This is the clue SQUAD left us," Mizuki said, closing her fist around the vital puzzle piece.
Dark, cold, looming, unwelcoming - the night sky flickered its gaze uneasily, beckoning the zipped-up-tight jacket clad group back to the safety, and warmth, of the cafe.
They wouldn't comply, though.
There were more important things to be following.
"Eck," And Mint, among the suspense and heavy air, could only pinch her nose in disdain, "Please tell me the place you're taking us isn't nearly this... shady."
Mizuki only continued her silent and brisk walk up ahead, deadpan and focused.
"Maybe we should be walking faster - " Lettuce gently suggested, her words half muffled from chattering teeth. Zakuro just shook her head alongside, hands stuffed in her thin coat pockets.
"No matter how fast we go, they're the ones with the element of surprise. We're running headfirst into their trap, after all, and we need time to consider it with a level head."
Ichigo, on the other hand, could not rid herself of that nagging sense of urgency. Every time she thought about where they were going, who would be waiting, who they would be holding captive,what could have or could be happening to him and what (or lack of what) she could actually do about it - and that made the very core of her want to wretch.
It was slow and blind torture.
So she tried not to think about it. Where they were going. Any of that.
Not, of course, that anyone actually knew.
"Is it a building, na no da?" gandered Pudding, already attempting to turn a dead-serious endeavor into a game of I Spy.
Only the sound of their own footsteps answered. All of them had come to be accustomed to Mizuki's formidible ignoring skills by now, and carried on.
She hadn't told them where they were going. Not even the general direction. In fact, all they really knew now was they, clueless and ill-prepared, were wandering through a slummy and sketchy part of the city, garbage cans and shifty eyed lurkers abound; in the face of Mizuki's forceful lead, the five girls behind remained in one moving clump. For safety, and self assurance.
Of course, despite the physical closeness, there was a gap that still needed to be bridged. Zakuro had pulled the human girls of the team aside (whether or not they were truly out of Mizuki's earshot was questionable, considering her senses seemed superhuman anyways) and gave them a blatant warning - "She could just as well be a part of SQUAD, or whoever it is that took Ryou. Just don't take everything she says to heart. Machines can lie too."
Whether or not they all shared that same distrust and uneasiness was unclear.
But Ichigo knew, machine or no, Mizuki was the only ticket to Ryou. What they were going to do when the found him - and his kidnappers - she hadn't the faintest; all she could think at this point was save him, save him.
Meanwhile, Mint and Lettuce followed just behind her, talking in low and quiet voices. She couldn't hear much, only the odd snippet - "Five on two..." "...should have an advantage, right?..." "...ah, if they've hidden him..." "...have to split. Two for two. Not the best, but..."
All these terrifying scenarious began to stir in her mind, flying in one ear two-dimensional and out the other a disfigured exaggeration. Possible terrors flashed almost pointlessly past a distracted consciousness.
Clammy hands twitched, dry throat swallowed, impatient eyes whirled from the looming brick walls to the uneasy shadows to the stoic, wordless expression of a certain robot.
"Tell me where he is," Ichigo's desperate face said, bold print, size twenty-nine, firetruck red --
Mizuki barely cast a glance. A silent glance, at that. Answerless. Expressionless.
But the message was clear enough.
You're an idiot.
Or,
You're a idiot in love.
Or, even better --
You're a selfish, ditz-faced idiot in love, and if I tell you where they're keeping him, you're going to bolt and dive head first into the loaded cannon and get us all killed.
Well. She would have been right.
Ichigo should have been thankful, really, that someone with sense - arranged and programmed sense, but sense all the same - was looking out for her. In a way.
But her anxious heart would rather have ripped that hard drive down and crack the damn data right out of her.
What if he was hurt?
Bleeding?
Lost?
Suffering...
Dead.
It made her chest ache.
No, scratch that. It made her entire body ache, sunburnt and bruised and left to chap to death in an ice bath filled with vinegar and salt. Worse yet, she didn't know what to expect. And Mizuki, with her arrogant silence and her confident onward stare and even stride, did.
Ichigo resented her for it.
Come to think of it - she resented her for a lot of things.
Beyond returning those same ill feelings.
Beyond that attitude, that haughty, know-it-all, clear as day superiority complex.
Beyond the rib-gnawing jealousy that some computer had somehow defied all science and structure and logic and fallen for the same boy she was now in love with.
This was, in the end, all Mizuki's fault.
For existing. For being so powerful. For being born - built, created, invented, whatever!
Ichigo's eyes burned holes into Mizuki's back.
Zakuro was right. They'd all been right. This had gone beyond resentment.
She. Hated. Her.
Mizuki was killing Ryou.
Thinking back, Ichigo wished that they'd left her. Left her to that SQUAD kid, left her to die or drown or be torn to shreds - it didn't matter. As long as she was gone.
This dark, bitter feeling crept through her bones, seized her, made her tremble from -- everything. Fear and adrenaline and anger and selfish refusal to lose something, someone, some piece of a life she'd left behind for her own self security.
It bit down, then. Cut her pure resolves in two.
Before she knew what was happening, Ichigo had her hands reaching outwards, stretched to push Mizuki down.
Only, of course, being her, she somehow ended up falling instead.
"Ung!" Thumpclattaclash.
"Ichigo!" And there she was, thoughts hitched by a thread, sprawled over an empty garbage can, knocked on its side almost as pathetically as she'd been.
Collapsed. Overexerted. Exhausted.
"Are you alright? Can you stand?" Lettuce stood above her, a little blurry, reaching out to help.
Reaching out to help.
Ichigo squeezed her eyes shut, trying to rid them of the tears that had pricked just a little at them. Maybe from pain, or surprise, or even just the sheer horror of the realization of what she'd almost done and no one else had seen.
How could she be so horrible?
"I'm.. okay," Ichigo's response was quick and jargled, and entirely unconvincing. As if she was seeking self-strength in this havock, she began to blindly wade her way through the junk and trash, trying desperately to find her own legs.
Things clattered, spilled, tumbled some more. But she kept at it, shaking limbs and all. Trying to get up. Up, and away from all that misplaced kindness, those too sincere words of "Let me help," "Just rest for a second!", "Don't push yourself--"
It was choking her.
All that warmth when she was so bitter and cold..
It made her feel even more awful. And suddenly she just wanted them all to go away. So she snapped something she knew she would regret -
"Just stop it, I'm fine-!"
But before she could unleash a spur-of-the-moment defence, a nearby movement gave her a slight jolt, searing at her tense skin.
And it was Mizuki, in the end, who had ignored her protesting yelps and movements and grabbed her by the wrist, fully prepared to drag her to her feet.
Forcefully, but not without the slightest touch of gentle - one that was all too human.
"Stand up," was her almost curt command.
Instead of finding her balance, Ichigo found another reason to hate Mizuki. Callous caring. Could such a thing even exist? Mizuki's face, though - it stopped her thought train mid-track. It was so young, taut, false - but there was some unusual spark in those cold, mechanical eyes that made her want to scream and jerk away. She didn't. Couldn't.
Ichigo could only stand, dumbly, with Mizuki's vice grip still locked on her small, human wrist, watching as those iced-over eyes scanned Ichigo's frantic face with a clinical calmness.
No, it wasn't calmness, Ichigo realized. Somewhere, behind the predisposition to pure logic and white-walled views, her own worst fears were reflected in Mizuki's gaze.
"Shirogane-sama needs you," she said, in a voice so low Ichigo was surprised she'd heard anything at all. But as the iron-grip was removed and she felt her own hand drop, she realized how stupid she'd been.
Of course. Of course. That's what this whole thing was about.
All those sticky, unpleasant feelings and thoughts flaked away, leaving her to see exactly what she needed to -
Shirogane Ryou.
Someone she owed everything to.
Her job, her lifelong friendships, her life -
Saving his was literally the least she could do.
"Well, before another one of us finds something to trip on - " Mint's usual condescendence was somehow tinged with a dark seriousness - "Can we know where we are and where we're supposed to be going?"
Mizuki hesitated, and looked, of course, to the frazzled redhead. Questionably.
Sucking in a shady breath, Ichigo mustered her courage and stood a little taller.
Ichigo nodded. I know, was her silent reply.
Mizuki seemed to understand.
"There's a black-market esque system in this area. Prominently for drugs and other such illegal items." That data-retrieval expression wound up on her again, as she no doubt whirred through all the documentation in her system.
"Distributors of these items are often found here. My creators encountered several difficulties with these goods being circulated, namely - "
"Kinet," Zakuro finished, able to put two and two together.
A nod. "There are several accounts of large quantities being confiscated from this area. Since Kinet is not illegal, there's little that can be done to prevent 'dealings' = te main course of action has been using this area's activities to track Mock Labs."
Obtaining illegal material - that's what this place was for? In spite of her temporary brave front, Ichigo shuddered. The shadows seems a lot more menacing when thoughts of what could be attached to them surfaced.
"How close are we?" Lettuce asked, the same nervous edge in her quiet voice.
Mizuki glanced over her shoulder. "Quite," But suddenly she stiffened, falling quiet as if she'd picked up on a presence. "The most frequent deal location is one of these alleys."
The clue. Kinet. It had lead her here.
"Be on guard," was her final warning to them as she turned toward the ominous shadows,
"They're waiting."
saving data... closing applications... system shut down.