Ch. 12

The door chimed for the fifth or sixth time, annoying in its persistence, frustrating Kubota in its timing. Crawling off of Tokito he threw on a pair of pants and stumbled to the door, throwing it open with the express purpose of horribly killing whoever was on the other side.

"What?!" he growled, sounding more like Tokito than he preferred.

"Ku..bo..ta..." his eyes went wide as Taki fell at his feet, a thick crimson trail smeared across his doorframe and his friend's shirt.

Taki was clutching at an obvious gunshot wound in his side, vainly trying to stop the gushing blood. Kubota hurriedly called over his shoulder for Tokito to call Kou, grunting softly as he hefted the fallen blonde up into his arms, his chest sticky with the oozing life. He laid Taki on the couch, trying to answer the questions he didn't know for Kou, Tokito shouting them in his ear as he hovered behind him, worry etched into his every move and line.

"I don't know! God damnit you stupid fucking quack, just get over here now!" Tokito spat into the phone before slamming it shut and tossing it onto the kitchen table.

At Kubota's urging he ran and got a towel and the med kit, the least they could do was get the bleeding to stop before Kou arrived. Taki tried to sit up and failed horribly, vainly struggling against Kubota's firm hands and gentle voice. He hadn't been afraid until that moment, until Kubota spoke so gently and he remembered the night before, the quiet voice that soothed while his eyes took on a steely hardness that belied the gravity of the situation.

"Kubo...ta...bag, tape...don't let them...Toki...can't go...." blood sputtered out of his mouth as he coughed, the ugly gurgling sound hidden behind Tokito's frantic calling of his friend's name, over and over and even after Kubota had slipped his eyes closed and laid his hands across his chest, pulling Tokito away from the couch as Kou raced to the boy's side, pressing long sterile fingers against the red, shaking his head and sitting back heavily on his heels.

Time flashed in odd bursts. Tokito sat on the floor, arms wrapped around himself rocking back and forth, disbelieving the sight of his friend being put on a gurney, Kasai shaking his head and pulling a white sheet over his face, Kou and Kubo-chan talking quietly with him, notes and pictures changing hands. The flash of crime scene cameras made him flinch and press his hands into his ears, trying to block out the screaming and then there was Kubo-chan holding him and rocking him back and forth and he realized he was the one who had been screaming, unable to comprehend such a pointless death.

Kubota sat there holding Tokito while the rest of the world kept moving around them, vainly trying to think of a way to make this better, to make it not hurt so much, but he couldn't, there was nothing he could do or say that could help, they could only keep moving forward. Saying it aloud didn't make it any better sounding and as Tokito swept cold eyes across the lot of them he knew that some part of his cat had died. And it killed him.

The ringing of Tokito's phone drew their attention. Kou answered being the closest and as Kubota watched his eyes took on a dangerous glint he'd never seen before.

His icy voice held no hint of his usual pleasantries as he spoke, "如果我是您,我不會。" He closed the phone with a soft click and turned to smile at the pair.

"Kubota-kun, I have some errands to run, please stay here until I call on you, yes?" he smiled again and inclined his head at the two, but there was a rigidity to his motions that alerted Kubota. Trying to extract himself from Tokito he made to follow the man, but Tokito clung fast and shook his head emphatically.

"Stay. Kubo-chan, stay." And all he could do was obey the defeated voice beside him.

"What the hell..." he murmured under his breath at the Chinese's departing back.

"Akira."

"What?"

"That was Akira, he did this to Taki, delivered him like a freaking present on our doorstep. Fucking lunatic."

"Tokito, you can't know that..."

"'I wouldn't if I were you.'"

"What?"

"The quack, that's what he said, 'I wouldn't if I were you.'" Tokito rubbed his eyes and tried to clear his head, not noticing the measured look Kubota was giving him.

"How do you..."

Sighing Tokito looked around the room, "Who knows, I just did, that's all. God this place is a mess."

Standing heavily he went around picking up the discarded towels and bandages, tried picking-up Taki's messenger bag dropped it, trembling hands betraying his floundering nerves.

There was a click as the bag fell and in the quiet room the dead spoke to them:

"Came across an old man at the carnival today. Got him talking about the Izumo and Toujou and Wild Adapter. He said a dozen years ago there was a rumor that the Toujou got mixed up with a Hong Kong syndicate called the Black Dragons. The Black Dragons were big into designer drugs, real nasty shit that was used on the military, something about 'super soldiers' and 'killing machines'."

"He said that everything went sideways when this one scientist came into the picture. He didn't know his name, but it sounds like he was some big hotshot geneticist. Brought all sorts of 'experiments' with him, rumor was he even used his own kid as a test subject. There was a name, he wasn't sure whose it was, but he had heard there was success with one subject, someone named 'Reiichi'."

"Two years ago he heard they were scrambling, one of their plants went up in fire and a lot of the experiments were killed. There wasn't much after that on the subject until the bodies started showing up. It wasn't said out loud, but everyone in the underworld was moving, looking for something; some said it was the scientist, some said it was the last batch of drugs, no one really knew, but everyone in the junior ranks was sent out, and those higher up were tight lipped and really secretive about the whole matter."

"*sigh* That's about all he knew, odd guy, didn't have a problem talking about it, but since he was already in a chair, guess he didn't think it mattered much if he talked. He said I reminded him of his nephew, I think it was the 'old man' comment, who knows. Anyways, I'll try and dig around a bit more, see what I can find out. There seems to be some activity in the Chinatown warehouse district, and there are rumors of the Black Dragons again, tomorrow I'll head over there and take a look around. Hopefully, by dinner I'll have good news for Toki. Hopefully."

The tape clicked itself off, leaving the two of them in stunned silence. Here it was, half the story spread out before them and all Tokito could do was stare dumbfounded at the little black box laying on their floor. He watched as Kubota leaned over and picked it up, hit the rewind button and then stuffed it in his pocket.

"Kubo-chan, what, what was all that?" his voice was shaky, even to him, but he knew he had to ask, had to find out the truth.

"Not sure. I'm going over to Kou's, see if he can make some sense out of this and try and get our bearings a bit. Do NOT leave until you hear from one of us, if they're willing to go this far who knows what they'd do if they caught you." He walked back into the living room, doing up the last few buttons and pulling on his coat.

"Seriously, Tokito, don't leave the house until I call for you or come home. We can't afford to get sloppy now." He placed a hand on his mate's shoulder, squeezing it for emphasis.

"I'm not a kid you know!" Tokito pulled out of his grasp and tightened his grip on the bloody towels.

"Hai, Hai." He ducked his head at the mock swipe, dancing out of Tokito's reach as he scooped up his keys and raised his hand in goodbye.

Tokito watched as the door closed with an odd sense of finality filling him. It was like he knew what was going to happen, knew his world was about to fall around his ears and as he reflected on the last ten minutes he felt the panic raising up within him, propelling him forward.

Grabbing his keys and wallet he was out the door and down the street before he realized it, tracing steps he didn't remember taking, weaving through alley ways and around buildings and the whole time the smell of blood and fire grew in his nose and every gasp of breath filled his mouth with the overwhelming coppery taste of blood and death.

It was like running in a fog, where all he could see was the slowly blinking light of some unseen lighthouse in the distance, drawing him ever forward. He stumbled to a stop in front of a burned out building on the waterfront. He snarled subconsciously, he really hated the look of water after their last little 'road trip' courtesy of the Izumo, the scent of salt water and gas fumes made him sick.

He crouched in the shadows of the building, inching around smashed and scorched containers, weary of the littlest noise, the slightest shifting of shadow. He wasn't prepared then for when they came at him straight on. There was a hand, he could smell the chemicals drenching the cloth it held, then the searing pain as the taser's electric charge ripped through his body, diminished his senses and then the world went sideways and monochrome, and as he fell to the ground the last thought through his mind was that Kubo-chan was going to be so pissed.