A/N: Originally, this was going to start out with a nightmare involving Alex torturing, and then killing, Akitsu over and over again, but I figured it was too graphic, even for THIS story.
XXXXXX
Minato awoke slowly. He looked over to the other side of the room, and saw that Mercer wasn't there. The last anyone had seen or even heard from him was technically the blood-curling echo of a threat they had all clearly heard last night. He wasn't worried about Mercer at all. He was just curious as to what he was up to. Suddenly, something big came crashing through the wall, and when the debris settled, he was startled by what he saw. There was Mercer standing before him, and next to him was a giant block of ice with Benitsubasa inside. Her eyes were closed, and her expression said she was in pain when what happened to her occured. Both arms were wrapped tightly around her stomach.
"I'd hurry if I were you," Mercer said to Minato. "I don't remember what she charges." Confused, Minato looked over to his other side, and his face turned red when he saw Kazehana sitting up next to him. By the amount of skin that was showing, it was clear that she was naked from at least the waist up. She had a look of anger. "Maybe the Director can clear things up," Alex said with a slight smirk.
Kazehana prepared to launch an attack at him, but before she could, he was suddenly standing over her and pointing a very powerful revolver at her head.
"Alex don't!" Minato shouted out. Mercer looked at him for a second, and then walked away from the two of them and out of the room. Minato looked over to Kazehana, who was looking right back at him with glittering eyes. "Kazehana?"
"So protective and manly," she purred. "Even though you know you can't stop him, you still stand up to him to protect me."
"Well of course. I can't just let him harm you for no reason."
A warm sensation consumed her inside. She then knew that she was reacting to the man sitting up next to her. She placed her hands on her shoulders, and kissed him. An intense, but pleasuring heat consumed her. When she finally serperated herself from him, her wings of light manifested. She grinned at his look of amazement and shock. "Kazehana, Sekirei Number Three, the Wind Sekirei, pleadge my undying love to you now and forever."
Minato let out a nervous laugh.
XXXXXX
Mercer was pacing around the backyard twirling the reolver in hs hand. On his way down, Uzume had walked out of her room just as he passed it wearing nothing but panties. She gave him a warm smile and asked if he wanted to talk about nothing. He passed up the offer.
"Hey Alex." He turned to see Minato walking towards him. "Why are you here?"
"To watch you and sure you don't get flayed," he answered without stopping his pacing.
"Okay, well what are you getting in return?"
"An unstoppable strategy."
Minato didn't have a singal idea how his mother could possibly giver Mercer that, but he choose to lt it go for the time being. "okay, well what would you do if I went out into an Infected area?"
"I would go with you and kill everything in sight," he answered without hesitation.
Minato found that both comforting and disturbing. "What if Tsukiumi or Musubi went out into one? Would you follow them too?"
"No," he said. "Only if you followed suit."
"Why not?" Minato was surprised by the answered he had been given.
"Becuase they're your Sekirei. Thus they are your problem. You are my burden, so you are my problem. They are neither my Sekirei or burden, so they are of no concern of mine."
Minato then made a drastic choice. He wanted to be able to make sure his Sekirei, all of them, were as safe as they could be. And since Alex had just flatly stated that he would only help them out if Minato was in danger himself, that really didn't help. Another thing was even though Mercer was next to immortal and unstoppable, he was but one.
"Can you make me like you?" Minato asked.
Mercer stopped dead, and turned to him. "What?"
"Can you make me more like you? Fast, strong, bullet-proof?"
"Is that really what you want?"
"Yes. I want to be able to protect them, and since you won't, I don't really have a lot of other options do I?"
Mercer was amazed. He'd have never thought in a million years someone would actually want to be infected with Blacklight. But if that's what his burden wanted...
"Sure. But hold still..." He drobbed the gun to the ground and Clawed his now open hand. "I think this might hurt."
"You think? Shouldn't you know how this feels?!"
Alex simply shrugged his shoulders. "I was dead at the time." He then jammed his Claw into Minato's left ribcage and pumped a small portion of the virus inside of him. "How does it feel?" He was actually curious. He knew that being consumed felt like being burned with Hellfire, but he didn't know what being infected felt like.
"It feels like I'm freezing inside," he answered. "And I feel completely drained."
"That's to be expected."
"I thought you said you didn't know how this feels."
"I know what it does. I don't know how it actually feels."
Just after Alex pulled his Claw out of Minato, a very aggravated voice called out to him.
"What are you doing?!"
The two men looked over to see Tsukiumi with her fists clenched with immense fury staring at them. Standing next to her was a confused Musubi.
Minato put one hand over the part of his stomach Mercer had pumped his virus into him, and with the other, he motioned the two of them to stop and listen. Before he could tell them, Mercer answered for him.
"To put it simply..." Alex bent down, picked up the handgun, and brought himself back up. "I did this." He shot Minato in the gut and used his free hand to shove him hard enough to send him flying into the tree across the yard.
Instantly, the two Sekirei took action. Musubi sprinted over to her Ashikabi, and Tsukiumi came at Alex with her water blade at the ready. Rather than deciding to counter her assault, Alex formed his Shield on his forearm.
"TSUKIUMI STOP!" Minato shouted. She instantly halted herself and looked over in shock. She had expected him to be unconscious or half dead. He was feeling himself around his stomach, looking for the bullet hole or any wounds at all, and found none while Musubi looked at him with surprise. "See? I'm fine," he said to both of them with a smile. He then dropped to his knees.
"Minato!" Musubi exclaimed as she bent down next him.
"Yes, that's to be expected," Mercer said in a laid back voice. He walked over to them with Tsukiumi right behind him. She was now more concerend for her Ashikabi than angry at Mercer. "It takes its toll at first, but you'll adjust to it in about an hour."
"What's wrong with him?" Tsukiumi asked. She went over to Minato and kneeled down on his other side.
"To put it simply, he's hungry. He needs to eat."
"Oh okay," Musubi said with relief. "I want more breakfast anyway." She hoisted Minato up into a struggling standing position.
"Okay, maybe I said that wrong."
Minato looked at him with disturbed eyes. "You mean I need to...?"
Mercer nodded slowly. "Hold this." He handed the gun to Musubi. "Wait here." He leapt off, leaving the three of them alone.
After a few minutes of deafening silence, Minato felt extremely uncomfortable . He turned his head to the right, and saw Musubi gazing at him. He then looked over to his left, and saw Tsukiumi doing the same.
"What did he do?" the two women chorused.
"He..." Minato struggled to tell them. "He made me more like him."
As they looked at him in pure shock and partial terror, Mercer landed in the middle of the yard. In his arm was an Infected he had beaten in unconsciousness. He threw Minato's breakfast to the ground and turned to the trio. "Well? Go on."
Minato slowly stood up, as did his Sekirei. They slowly made their way over to Mercer.
"Is this truly necessary?" Tsukiumi asked.
"If he wants to continue being able to walk, yes." He motioned for Minato to step closer to the Infected. He approached the walking corpse and looked down at it.
"So what exactly do I do?" He asked Mercer without looking away from the hideous unmoving body.
"Easy, just stomp on it," Mercer said with an emotionless voice.
"It's really that easy?"
"Yes. With your newfound strength, you should be able to go right through him, and even possibly into the ground. At that point, the virus, which is now forming what I consider a partnership with your subconscious, will ask it if you want to simply leave a giant hole in him, or... eat him, basically."
"Is that really how it works?" Musubi asked.
"I don't know, that's how I think it does," he replied.
Minato let out a long nervous sigh. "I really don't want to do this."
Alex let out a sigh of his own. "Minato, he's an Infected. He has no sense of right and wrong or humanity. He lives only to eat people and spread Blacklight. If we went out and fetched his mother, and put her in front of him, he would eat her!" He then noticed that all three of them were staring at him in shock, and felt uncomfortable. "Or... he would TRY to. Because... we wouldn't just let him... go and eat... his own mother... I guess. Right?"
Tsukiumi shook her head in shock at him with her mouth agape.
"Who would make something so horrible?" Musubi asked on the verge of tears.
"Gentek," Mercer answered shrugging his shoulders.
Minato let out a defeated sigh. "Well... here goes nothing." He stepped next to the Infected's prone body, and raised his right foot in the air. He brought it down with moderate force, and just as Alex said he would, he drove his foot clear through the man's back. The other three watched as the body slowly became coated with thick black ooze, and then disintegrated into Minato.
"So how do you feel?" Mercer asked knowingly.
Minato first looked into the distance, and then turned his attention to Mercer. "Better," he said with a slight smile.
Mercer patted him on the shoulder. "Excellent. Now go and meet him outside the front door in about a minute."
"Why?" he asked raising an eyebrow.
"Because I suppose I should show you the ropes before you accidentally do something stupid and get yourself hurt. Or worse. Walk slowly. If you go too fast, you might find yourself going through a wall."
"Uuh, okay." He walked off into the house.
Mercer turned to the two Sekirei. "Could you two please check and see if my trophy is thawing or not? And if she is, DO NOT kill her."
"And what are we supposed to do if she is?" Musubi asked.
"That's your problem to solve." He tensed up his legs and jumped over the fence.
Tsukiumi looked over to Musubi with a look of pure confusion. "Trophy?"
XXXXXX
For a few hours, Mercer had been showing Minato what he was capable of now. Mercer had decided to have him learn on the job, and immediately made him run up the side of a skyscraper, which he managed to do. After that, Minato learned that he would probably never have to worry about falling after Mercer shoved him off the roof. Upon landing on his back, Minato created a small crater in the street he had landed in. Seconds later, Mercer created one right next to him, smiling and saying he would make a horrible cat.
After that, Minato asked him to merely EXPLAIN things. So they casually walked around town, careful and mindful to avoid wandering into an area where Minaka had unleashed a portion of his Blacklight supply.
"So will I ever be able to make Claws or that Blade you use?" Minato asked. He wanted to be able to protect his Sekirei as much as he could.
"Maybe," Mercer replied. "If we ever run into any Evolved. Their extremely mutated DNA is very powerful when consumed."
"What does an Evolved look like?"
"Believe me, you'll know when you see one."
Minato took his word for it.
"Why are you so weak?" The two of them turned their heads to look over and see a man in a dark green collared jacket staring down at a girl with short orange hair wearing a shirt and short skirt. She had a dark blue head band on as well. The gigantic hammer the girl was dragging behind her told Mercer and Minato she was a Sekirei.
"I'm sorry Tanegawa," the girl said in a submissive voice. "I thought I could beat her..."
"Don't think!" The man slapped her hard across the face.
Mercer didn't bat an eye to the Ashikabi's actions. If he DID feel concern, he would have been the world's biggest hypocrite.
Minato on the other hand, was deeply offended by the display of abuse. "Hey you can't do that to her!"
"You should worry about YOURSELF!" the Ashikabi called back. He prepared to say a threat, but his voice died instantly when he caught sight of Mercer. "Hey... you're Alex Mercer!" A wicked smile formed on his face.
"The one and only," Alex replied in a somewhat bored voice.
"I suggest you come with me and Yashima before you get hurt." His smile didn't waver when his Sekirei looked him in with a shocked and frightened face.
For the first time Minato had known him, he heard Mercer let out an actual laugh. "I think I'll pass."
"Bad choice, freak." He turned to his hammer-wielding Sekirei and pointed to Mercer. "Go teach him a lesson Yashima!"
"Bu-but-but," she had obvious fear in her tone. "I don't think I can-"
Her Ashikabi slapped her again. "I said DON'T THINK!"
She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. She then turned to Mercer and raised her hammer onto her shoulders. "Please do what he says. I don't want to fight you."
"I suppose that makes you the smart one of the two," Mercer said with amusement.
"What are you waiting for? ATTACK HIM!" her Ashikabi demanded. She then began running towards Mercer. Minato could only stand back and watch. He knew that even though he now had the same virus as him, he still wouldn't stand a chance against Mercer, so he couldn't be able to stop him from killing this miserable Sekirei.
Yashima charged at Mercer, who simply stood there, waiting for her. When she got close enough, she swung at him from the side, and he launched himself into the air. Yashima looked around desperately, trying to find him before he could get the drop on her.
"Is that the best you can do?" Mercer asked as he stood directly behind her. She yelped and jumped away in surprise. Mercer just stood there. "I'm waiting."
"Don't just stand there," her Ashikabi screamed. "Get him!"
Yashima raised her hammer above her head, and tried to swing down and crush Alex, who easily caught it in his open palm in mid-swing. "If you're trying to amuse me," he said to her in a bored voice. "You're failing miserably." He lifted the hammer higher into the air, and shook it violently to make Yashima let go of the handle. He then threw it into the air and caught by its handle. He then raised it and slammed it into the ground with a force comparable to his Hammerfists. He let go of the hammer that was now embedded into the ground, and looked up to see the Sekirei with tears of pure terror rolling down her face. "Thank you. I can't say it was fun, but it was... time killing I suppose."
"Alright, that's it!" The Ashikabi ran over and picked up his Sekirei.
"Please don't send me to my death," Yahima begged him. He then kissed her roughly and forcefully. When they separated, bright wings of light manifested on her back.
"Use your Norito," the abusive Ashikabi ordered. "And kill him."
She submissively ran over and tugged her hammer out of the ground. She then raised it over her shoulders, and ran towards Mercer with fearful tears still on her face.
"Hammer of my pledge, shatter the enemy of my Ashikabi!" Her hammer then began glowing with a bright blue aura. She jumped in the air with her weapon above her head. "GRAVITY HAMMER!"
As she swung down towards him, Mercer nonchalantly made his arm transform into his Blade, and raised it above his head. As the hammer came down onto his weaponized limb, it was sliced cleanly right down the middle, just like Moses and the Red Sea.
With her weapon destroyed, Yashima could only stand there, frozen terror as Mercer made his arm return to normal and began walking towards her with a straight face.
"I guess I was wrong," he said to her. "THAT was your best." He raised his right leg. "And it wasn't enough." He delivered a bone-shattering kick into her stomach. She went flying back, roughly scraping herself across the ground until rolling to a stop.
Her horrible Ashikabi began running towards Mercer. "Nobody does that to Yashima!"
"Nobody but you," Minato said under his breath.
Mercer decided to see how the man's suicide run would go. After he got close enough, he pulled out a knife and shoved it into Mercer's side.
"Nice knife," Mercer commented, looking down at the steel embedded below his ribcage. He held up his right arm and formed his Claws. "You like mine?"
After hacking and slashing the Ashikabi to pieces, he jumped over to the Sekirei, and picked her up by grabbing her by the neck with his still Clawed hand. Blood was flowing out of her mouth and she was weeping. He brought her up so that she was eye-level with him.
"Please Mr. Mercer, help me," she begged.
"Help you? After you tried to kill me?"
She began crying a little harder. "P-please... Please..."
He considered consuming her, but saw that she was next to worthless compared to Akitsu and Mutsu. "You're so... weak." He tossed her aside and walked off, fully aware that she would die along with her Ashikabi.
XXXXXX
The two of them were back home, and Alex was alone in their room circling the frozen Benitsubasa.
"I cannot help but wonder if she is still alive."
"Well I wish you would get rid of her." Alex turned to see Tskiumi standing in the huge hole in the wall he had made earilier.
"What do I owe to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance?"
"I'm... curious," she said in an unusually small voice.
"About what?" Alex asked in a rather indifferent voice.
"Will Minato ever become... even more similar to you?"
"No. Not unless he consumes a Sekirei or an Evolved Infected. Besides, he could never be as powerful as me."
"And makes you think that?" Tsukiumi regained some of her volume.
"Easy. You."
"Me?" She was very confused.
"Yes. Not just you, but all his Sekirei. He loves them, and looks out for them. That makes him both distracted and scatter-minded. He'll put his neck on the line for you, and someone will slit it without delay. See, I learned that the only way to grow stronger is to look out only for yourself."
"You're delirious. Haven't you ever loved someone?"
"The last woman I loved in the sense you're refering to sold me out to Blackwatch, and I wound up getting a parasite on my back which came VERY close to killing me."
Tsukiumi looked at him in shock for a moment. "So you believe that love only makes one weak."
"Correct my tsundere friend. It also makes you weak. Your concern for him will cost you, and I'm willing to bet that in the near future, Minato and I will watch the helicopters carry all of you away." He could see he was both scaring her, and making her angry. "If you want, I'd be more than happy to go and fetch your corpses for him..."
XXXXXX
Miya hoisted herself up from the kneeling position she was in in front of her husband's shrine. Looking down at his picture she thought about how he would react to the mess Minaka had created. "It's all just pure hell Takehito."
Suddenly, she heard crashing and yelling. She turned around to see Tsukiumi running towards her with Mercer right behind. The Water Sekirei turned around and sent a water arrow straight at him, which he easily avoided. When they got close to Miya, Mercer leapt at Tsukiumi, who ducked to dodge his charge, and he wound up having his Claws stuck in the wall right next to Miya. Tsukiumi then ran outside to a wider area where her attacks could do serious damage.
Mercer pulled his arms back, trying to free himself, but didn't succeed. "What the...? What's this made of?" He then turned his head to look at his landlady. "Hello Miya," he said casually. He then turned his attention back to his arms, and put his right foot on the wall to give even more force. After pulling himself away once more, he was freed from the wall, but took two big chunks with him. After staggering back a few steps and almost falling over, he regained his balance, and forced his individual Claws to fan out and shattered the pieces of wall around them. He then ran outside in pursuit of Tsukiumi.
Miya followed him, but at first she hesitated.
She wasn't sure she could maintain dominance over Mercer for much longer.