This is the next to last chapter. It's a long one so read at leisure and enjoy!


Stand By Me

Sei stood in front of his office window, looking down below to the crowded front of the building. While there were other large portions of various colors mixed in, it seemed the colors of red and green dominated the ranks. His non-twin associates had filled him in previously that these were the Rib teams of Ruff Rabbit and Beni-Shigure. From their intel, he knew they were rivals so when did they decide to join forces…?

His door opened at that moment without any sort of courtesy knock beforehand. He scowled in displeasure and was about to reprimand the person but stopped when he saw it was Virus. The man's glasses were slightly askew, his hair a bit ruffled and his clothes were wrinkled. Sei had never seen him looking anything short of perfection, every hair in its proper place, so at the sight of him he couldn't help but to raise an eyebrow.

"Considering the protests I'm seeing, I'm going to guess things didn't go quite as planned," Sei said.

Virus shrugged with a grin. "Never would've guessed they'd rally together. I find it rather hilariously sad that they'd organize together to legalize street fighting, of all things." He laughed with a headshake, walking further into the room to also look below out the window.

He gets way too comfortable in my space, Sei thought, watching how Virus looked completely at ease in the office. Once all of this is finished, I'm really going to need to have a talk with him about it. And Trip as well. Speaking of which…where is Trip? He hadn't seen him in the last few hours nor had he heard any reports from him. He was just about to use his Coil to call him when he saw a blonde head poke around the doorframe.

The look on Trip's face was intent. His gaze completely bypassed Sei, instead landing on the momentarily distracted figure of Virus. Without a word, Trip quickly strode into the room, breezing past their boss without even so much as a nod. As soon as he drew close to the other person, he grabbed their shoulder to spin them around and—

Sei figured he knew what was about to happen and prepared to turn away. Instead though…Trip hugged Virus. It wasn't the hug of buddies or family. It was deep and intense, nearly as intimate as if Trip had instead kissed him. Being ever so slightly taller, Trip wrapped his arms around Virus, one hand curled protectively around his waist and the other threading through the back of his hair.

Caught off guard, Virus was momentarily stunned but he forced himself to regain his composure. "Hey, I said I'd return soon, didn't I?" he chuckled, attempting humor. "It wasn't even one day, what's up with—"

"Shut up," Trip commanded. "It's not funny. I was worried about you." The arms tightened around the man. "I'm never going to let you leave my sight," he whispered fiercely into Virus's ear. "Never."

Unable to completely look away from the two, Sei felt a pang run through his chest. Whatever it was between these two, it was deep and special. He even knew enough to surmise that Clear shared something equally intense with his brother. But what did he have? An entire empire, so to speak, at his finger tips and nobody to share it with. How many people even knew he existed? How many people would cry if he were gone?

He felt himself getting choked up and used all of his will to force the emotions back down. Virus and Trip being there greatly helped; he didn't want to cry in front of them. Now wasn't the time for pity-parties. He had a company to run and quite the riot to deal with outside. He'd worry about his love life later.

"If you two have finished, I'd like a full status report," he said with as much authority as he could manage for the moment. "Virus, you were actually out there in the field and Trip, I had you monitoring security again but you never gave any status updates." A military persona? It helped to keep him calm for the moment.

The two had been murmuring quietly to one another but at his words, Virus tried to pull away. Trip wasn't having any of that and continued to keep one arm around his waist. Clearly annoyed but not wanting to squabble, Virus said, "Akushima surprisingly led the charge on arresting the Rib members. I say surprisingly as I figured his last act of service to us was the Black Needle incident. I suppose he did this pro bono."

It was actually Trip who snorted here and said, "Akushima doesn't do anything pro bono. He's gonna be looking for a check for this soon."

Sei shrugged. "I said I'd ensure he was compensated for his work and I'll include this with it. So I suppose after the arrests, that's when everyone started to protest the fliers I gave you."

Virus nodded. "Precisely."

Turning to Trip, Sei asked, "And any new developments on your end?"

Trip shrugged equally in nonchalance. "All of our security is outside, keeping the crowds at bay. I saw the Alpha and Beta units come in as well with Clear and that other guy. I think his name was Mink. Seems like they took the units out though and wiped out a group of guards before heading to an elevator. I wasn't able to track them any further but their destination number was B3 so looks like they went to the basement cells."

"And you didn't think I needed to know that?" Sei said tersely. "All of that is extremely important!"

Another shrug; Sei wished he could Scrap him and make him dislocate his own shoulder so he'd never have to see that careless shrug again. "Their timing is rather perfect what with no security to stop them. Short of using your powers on every one of them, there was nothing you could do either. You nearly died from over-using your powers. I'm sure you're not looking to repeat that."

Sei gritted his teeth but…he knew Trip was right. Usually this level of logic came from Virus, which made the blow doubly hurt. It would be nothing for Clear to free Aoba and Dry Juice. And their next stop…would be here. "We might as well start preparing ourselves for this," he said aloud. "They'll be coming through that door at any minute. So be it. It's time Aoba and I finish what we've started."

The two non-twins shared identical smiles as they nodded in eager agreement.

~.~.~

Outside in front of the building, the hoard of Rib and Rhyme members pushed against the human barricade of the guards, trying to shove their way inside. While the front was on offense, the majority of the back of the group had taken up chants and slogans. Drowning most everyone else out was a remix being led by Kou, using a very familiar stomp, stomp, clap! Stomp, stomp, clap! pattern. Mainly it was Beni-Shigure singing but Kou was thrilled to see other Rib teams join in, raising their song to a deafening pitch:

Tired of the Man tryna stick his hand

Down in our pockets and

Rhyme is nothin' but a greed scam

Kick Usui in the face, a big disgrace

Toue's not taking over this place!

Singing, we are, we are Ribsteez!

Sing it!

We are, we are Ribsteez!

Watching from the side, Koujaku noticed that the pushing began to follow the rhythm of the song, bolstering their army. More guards spilled out to contain the crowd, which was exactly their plan. Moving away from the chaos, he ran around to the back of the building where earlier, he'd witnessed the guards coming to the front to see what the commotion was about, leaving the entrance nearly without any defenses.

Noiz was already there, working on hacking the system to get in. Hearing Koujaku walking up, he glanced in his direction before going back to his work. "This is bullshit," he muttered, beads of sweat dotting his forehead. "It took me two minutes to get into this place last time. It's taken me already five. Every time I get close, I keep coming across some kind of foreign programming that stops me. I can't beat the damn thing."

Ordinarily, Koujaku would poke fun at his misfortune but he needed Noiz right now in order to get to Aoba. It hurt deeply to admit it but…Noiz's failure was his failure. Going through the front might work…but the likelihood was so small, it wasn't worth it. So instead, he put away his sarcastic remarks and took a deep breath. Putting a hand on Noiz's shoulder (which caused the boy to jerk away; Koujaku acted like he hadn't noticed), he told him, "Just take your time. I'm sure you can do it. This thing has to have a weakness and if anyone can expose it, it's you."

For a moment, Noiz's green eyes lost some of their hard frustration, softening in gratitude. But he caught himself a second later, turning away to hide his face. "Whatever. Shut up so I can concentrate."

"Sure thing," Koujaku said jovially, turning to hide the smile on his face. He walked a few feet away to keep guard but he knew his message had hit home.

Noiz took a deep breath and began again from the top with decoding the program. Most of it was run of the mill stuff he'd seen with other security systems but before long, he yet again came up against the foreign program. On his Coil, the program presented itself as a person, almost like seeing a virtual character in Rhyme. However, this person wore no unique costume like in the virtual game. Though the person was rather androgynous, he got the impression that they were male. The person wore a fedora with a white shirt and skeletal pants. While his Usagimodoki were with him in their rabbit form, he was always defeated with just a simple command from the program.

"Stop."

But after several failed runs, he thought he finally knew what this was. He always became powerless when those eyes locked on his. It wasn't his rabbits that were being stopped; it was him. Clear had mentioned back at Mink's hideout that Sei had revealed himself to also use Scrap, though he admitted to not knowing specifically how Sei used his Scrap powers.

Noiz remembered what it felt like to have those powers used on him last year. Aoba had Scrapped him, with the bitter sweet result of him now able to feel pain. But other than that command, the program seemed to have no other defenses.

Likely that was because that alone was enough. For someone that didn't know about Scrap, that one command was all that was needed. Now that he'd exposed its secret though, it was nothing to keep his eyes averted and to have his rabbits take the program out. Like a Rhyme battle, they pummeled their way through the coding of "Sei", until at last with a crack, the program shattered.

Since when did hacking look more like a video game? He didn't know nor care. Since games were his lifeblood, it made his job that much easier.

Within another thirty seconds, he heard the satisfying click of the door opening. He swiftly rolled up his tools and closed the windows on his Coil but Koujaku strode through the door first. Before continuing on though, he paused and gave him the thumbs-up. "I told you that you could do it," he winked before striding on.

Yet again, Noiz was left speechless. This was getting really tiring. Quickly packing up his tools, he chased after him inside the building and down one of the many spotless white walls. "So I see they must've hired the same people for Platinum Tower as they did for Oval Tower," he muttered, looking around at the familiar design.

"Yeah, but let's hope they at least did away with the dogs," Koujaku whispered, glancing in multiple directions before turning down another random hall.

And coming face to face with said dogs.

"Aw shit, I jinxed us," he muttered, backing up. These weren't the cute puppy-dog, Roomba security Allmates from last time either. These were Doberman in shape and size. And right before their eyes, the heads grotesquely split open like a banana to reveal the shiny barrel of a gun.

"I can hack them like last year, but it'll take time. I'll need you to cover me," Noiz said, already having scoped out the nearest security keypad.

Koujaku pulled his sword out its sheath. "That's fine, but make it fast. I'm not gonna be able to hold these guys off for long."

As though to prove that point, one of the dogs fired a hot beam right past his head, narrowly missing scraping his face. Koujaku gave an angry shout and charged headlong into the group, causing them to focus their sights on his body as a moving target. With several powerful swings, he began to decapitate them, also kicking any that jumped in the way.

However, while these Allmates couldn't zip along the walls like their predecessors, having four legs made them much more agile and many were able to dodge his swings. One of the Allmates that hadn't opened their heads clamped down on his arm with a vicious bite. "Gyaaa!" Koujaku hissed, swinging his arm into a wall as hard as he could. The force caused the back of the dog's head to hit the wall and he repeated the process until at last, it let go and fell to the floor as a mound of fur and sparks.

He wanted to assess the damage on his arm but just then, he heard a painful scream from behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Noiz was crouched, one arm around his side where blood was soaking his white shirt.

"Noiz!" Koujaku screamed. Considering the disintegrating power of those beams, they could easily eat a hole through a person. Noiz might need immediate medical attention. For all their banter, he certainly didn't want the damn bean sprout to die, not here, not on his watch. With a furious roar, he kicked it into overdrive. He dealt several fatal slashes to the Allmates closest to him, slowly advancing back towards the fallen boy.

He could feel the rage growing stronger and knew that if this continued, he'd completely lose control. He was certain he'd win against the Allmates at that point but it would also likely result in killing Noiz as well. Yet as it were right now, he wouldn't make it to him in time. He was scared, probably more scared than he'd ever been. He was both the only savior and the only obstacle in the way of Noiz living or dying.

He would have to take the chance. Maybe he could retain some of his sanity. He had to uncap his powers or else they both wouldn't make it. He was just about to call forth the power of his tattoos when a shadow passed over his face from above. A second later, another, much larger shadow also flew by and he was given a reprieve by the dog Allmates focusing their attention instead on the new arrivals.

Swooping from above were Beni and Tori. Beni's small size didn't allow for offensive attacks but he zipped around, causing the Allmates to fire their guns and miss. Instead, the bullets would hit the other dogs, wiping out their own ranks. Tori was much larger and able to physically deal damage, choosing opportune moments and swooping down to gouge out the Allmate eyes. The bird also quickly figured out how to land directly on top of the barrel of the gun, causing the dogs to fire pointlessly at the ceiling when they couldn't get a lock on him. With the much needed distraction, Koujaku regained control of himself to continue beheading the robots until at last, the area was cleared.

He hurried over to Noiz, who was lying on his side, groaning. "Noiz! Are you gonna be alright? Damnit, I'm sorry…I was supposed to be protecting you." He attempted to gently pull Noiz up, but the boy hissed sharply, causing him to let go. Instead though, Noiz grit his teeth and pulled himself into a sitting position. His shirt was soaked in even more blood, making Koujaku want to look away.

"It's fine," Noiz panted, putting a hand against the wall to slowly stand up. "It's actually just a flesh wound, looks worse than it really is." But as he said that, his legs buckled and he wobbled dangerously. Koujaku immediately put himself under one of his arms to hoist him back up. For all of the kid's bravado, he knew Noiz was in serious pain. He could feel that Noiz was nearly leaning all of his weight on him.

"It's times like these that I wish I still couldn't feel pain," he chuckled, causing him to wince again.

"Yeah, well, then you wouldn't know you were hurt this badly," Koujaku said. He pulled open the top of his kimono and tugged roughly at the bandages around his ribs, which were there only for modesty, not because he was actually injured. Leaning Noiz against the wall again, he lifted up one side of his shirt hem. He took it as a good sign that Noiz was able to protest, but the movements were feeble and pulling away hurt too much.

With the shirt up, Koujaku was able to see the extent of the damage. The boy was right, it was a flesh wound, but it was a nasty one. A horrible red burn had caught him going diagonally upwards, from nearly his hip to his rib cage. Looking at how far it stretched, Koujaku unwrapped more of his bandages and began to wind them around Noiz, having to pull a tiny bit so it didn't move.

"Sorry, I know that hurts," he told him as Noiz flinched for the second time when he pulled. "I'm trying to be as gentle as possible."

"Well try harder," Noiz grunted. He was standing against the wall with both hands on its surface, as though being frisked by the police. The stance allowed him to keep his balance and kept his arms out of the way as Koujaku spun the bandages around him.

However for his cheeky remark, Koujaku relished in another yelp as he purposely tugged a bit too hard. This resulted in a stream of curse words from the kid, but Koujaku was happy to hear them. So long as Noiz had the energy to spit crass remarks, he knew the boy was going to make it.

Once finished, he nodded at his handiwork, but frowned at Noiz's shirt. It was now more red than white, black or green. In a split second decision, he took off his entire kimono, leaving him in nothing but his jeans. Before Noiz could stop him, he pulled off his top shirt and his black under shirt, replacing them by draping the kimono over his body.

Noiz scowled at him, but gratefully slipped his arms into the sleeves, blushing and looking away. "You could've at least kissed me first before undressing me," he muttered.

"Heh," Koujaku snorted, loosely tying his obi around his waist. "Do you want me to kiss you?"

The babble of incoherent speech that came from Noiz afterwards was well worth the embarrassing comment. Koujaku patted him on the head, ruffling his hair to show he was joking. But now, a more immediate issue presented itself. Noiz was too injured to run around in search of Sei. However, with Clear and Mink having been captured, it was truly up to them to get to Aoba.

Suddenly though, Beni spoke up. "If you two would shut up for a moment, I have some news! I can contact Aoba's Coil when previously I wasn't able to. Something was jamming the signal."

"Really? Where is he?" Koujaku immediately asked.

"His signal seems to be moving further away," Beni said after a moment of concentrating. "But I can also now sense Mizuki's signal and his is much closer."

Tori added, "I don't have contact information on a 'Mizuki', but I too can connect to Aoba's Coil, which is moving further away. The signals of Mink and Clear's Coils are also close to Aoba's."

Looking sharply at him, Beni squawked, "Then why the hell didn't you contact them sooner?! You've had access to Mink and Clear's Coils this entire time!"

"I was instructed to find Koujaku and Noiz," Tori said with dignity. "Not only that, but calling Mink or Clear would remind the Alpha and Beta units that they still had their Coils on them, which likely would've resulted in them being compromised. I opted to stick to my instructions until I was certain I could safely send a message. As their signals are so close to Aoba's, it would seem they're already with him, beating us to his rescue. This said, I have completed my task. I will go rejoin Mink now."

"Wait, we're coming with you," Noiz said, pushing off of the wall. Now that he wasn't losing so much blood, his color had come back and he wasn't struggling so hard to remain standing. "I can make it. But first…"

He carefully knelt down again in front of the keypad he'd been working on earlier and attached a cord from his Coil into the panel. Like previously, his fingers flashed across the virtual keyboard until with a satisfactory nod, he stood up again. All down the halls, they could hear the sound of doors unlocking and several heavy thuds hitting the floor, which were probably other Allmates.

"I just infected their entire mainframe," he said proudly, following Tori in the direction of the signals. "They're not gonna be getting that back online anytime soon."

Koujaku followed him, openly gaping in amazement. "You're dangerous as fuck, you know that? Like seriously, you could probably bring governments to their knees."

"Don't think I haven't thought about it," Noiz shrugged, stepping into an elevator that Tori was hovering in front of. "But I don't relish the idea of having to live off the grid to ensure I'm never found out. Too much of a hassle."

"Aoba's going up but Mizuki's going down," Noiz's Allmate informed.

"Thanks, Midori," Noiz said, pressing the arrow to go up. "Aoba's our main target so we'll go to him."

"…Midori?" Koujaku asked him, looking down at the cube.

"Yeah, some time ago, Aoba told me to name them," Noiz said, devoid of any interest. "He came up with Midori since they're green."

"Are all of them Midori? You have about twenty of them…"

The boy gave a quiet grunt. "I guess. I dunno, I'm sure as hell not about to name each individual one. That one though I've had the longest and has a small chip in the corner, so I call it Midori."

"Pi!" The cube chirped happily at its name.

The elevator soon reached the top floor. There was little to nothing up there except for a pair of very large red doors. Clearly, this was Sei's office.

But for as much as the doors stood out, the first thing that caught Koujaku's attention was the group standing in front of that door. His vision specifically focused on the one dressed primarily in blue, wearing that ridiculous puffy coat. He'd never been so happy to see that marshmallow jacket in his entire life.

"Aoba!" He shouted, unable to contain himself. He broke into a run and to his delight, Aoba did the same. The two collided in a hug, him gently rubbing Aoba's sensitive hair.

"You guys made it!" Aoba smiled, looking from him to Noiz. But then he realized that Koujaku was shirtless…with Noiz wearing his top. "Um…do I want to know?" he asked cautiously,

"Whatever you're thinking, stop it," said Noiz. "One of those damn dogs nicked me; my shirt got bloody and he lent me his kimono. Speaking of which," he said to Koujaku, "How the hell can you stand these sleeves? They flap around all over the place."

The kimono fit fine for Koujaku but Noiz's smaller frame was drowned in the material, his hands completely hidden by the sleeves. He began to pull at them but Koujaku stopped him by yelling, "Don't do that! That's pure silk, you'll tear it!"

"Who the hell wears silk on a daily basis?" Noiz retorted. "Oh, right, pretty boys like you!"

In truth, his (now deceased) yakuza family allowed for him to have more than enough money to afford such finery but he kept that to himself. Instead, he pulled a thin fabric cord from his pocket, which when wearing the kimono properly, would be used to keep the obi in place. Spinning him around for the second time that day, he tied up the sleeves on Noiz so that his hands were freed.

"Japanese clothing is weird," Noiz huffed once he was finished. Koujaku said nothing else, accepting this as the closest form of a thank-you that Noiz would give.

"Koujaku-san! Noiz-san! I'm so happy you're okay!" Clear cried, clapping his hands together. "This calls for the Jellyfish Song!"

"NO!" Mink shouted, knocking him on the head. "This calls for us to get our asses through that door. Let's get this done and over with. I have shit to do….been getting slammed with messages all day from buyers asking where their merchandise is."

Aoba gave him a curious look, not understanding what he was talking about. However, he nodded in agreement. Tucked into his duffel bag (which thankfully had not been confiscated, likely because there was nothing else of value in it) was his Allmate's body. Through those doors was the key to getting the rest of his friend back.

It's now or never. Let's finish this, Sei.


Credit for the song parody goes to "We Will Rock You" by Queen. Also, Midori's name isn't my creation; Aoba indeed does name Noiz's Allmate (or at least one of them?) in one of Noiz's drama CD's.

And lastly, as mentioned earlier, this is the next to last chapter. Stay tuned for the final showdown!