Rukia141 is jumping with joy.
Jennifer: Why are you so happy about?
Rukia141: Grandma has a computer at her house, now I can type my stories without having to wait a whole month to get back home!
Jennifer: That´s great!
Rukia141: I know! I´m so happy!
Starts dancing the conga.
Jennifer: Um…Rukia141?
Rukia141: Let the story begin!
Chapter 26: A Dumb Idiot Named Gozen
Ikuto awoke with a pillow to his face. He was somewhat asleep when he sat up. The pillow hit his face again. He rubbed his eyes and looked at a very angry Amu. She raised the pillow one more time and this time Ikuto caught it.
"You are in my bed!" She cried in fury. Ikuto wasn´t surprised, he was expecting this. He couldn´t help but tease her.
"You seemed very comfortable to me." He said. Amu flushed with embarrassment and tried to kick him off the bed. He dodged her kick and instead wrapped an arm around her. Amu struggled to get out of his grasp, but he held on tight.
"Can you let go of me?!" She cried. Ikuto yawned.
"I don´t really want to." He said. Amu gave a huff as she tried to pull away. Ikuto wasn´t in any hurry, so he made himself comfortable. Amu frowned.
"Stop playing around, you have to go to Easter, remember?" She asked. Ikuto had momentarily forgotten about that. He still didn´t budge though. "What are you doing in my bed anyway?" Amu asked. Ikuto opened his eyes and looked at her. So she didn´t remember.
"You weren´t feeling well last night, so I kept you warm. Like this." He said and then he wrapped both arms around her and clung on. Amu started to have a fit, and at last Ikuto decided to let go. Annoyed and blushing, Amu threw him his clothes.
"Hurry up and get dressed, we need to meet up in the park around 1:00pm to figure out where we´re going to go next." She explained. Ikuto shrugged as he pulled the shirt of Amu´s dad over his head.
"GAH! What are you doing?!" Amu cried blushing like crazy. Ikuto looked at her curiously.
"I´m changing my clothes." He said. Amu turned around, covering her eyes.
"Not in here!" She yelled at him. Ikuto smirked in spite of himself.
"Well I wasn´t going to walk around your house looking for a bathroom." He said. Amu didn´t turn to look at him. Ikuto quickly changed. He had to hurry, like Amu said. He needed to get into Easter, it was the only way. This was such a pain. How far will Easter go for that project anyway? Ikuto flicked Yoru on the nose, waking him up. The little chara yawned as it rubbed its eyes.
"Nya, just five more minutes." He said. Ikuto grabbed Yoru by the tail.
"No." He said bluntly. Yoru started to protest.
"Nya, no fair! I didn´t even eat yet!"
"We´ll eat when we´re done, but not now." Ikuto told him. He was holding Yoru upside down by his tail.
"We´ll have catnip, nya!" Yoru exclaimed.
"Fine, catnip seems good." Ikuto said. He heard a giggle coming from the bed. He turned to Amu who was lying on her stomach, while she kicked her legs in the air. She smiled at Ikuto.
"I was just wondering, Ikuto, do you purr?" She asked. Did he what? Purr? Out of all the questions she could have asked, it had to be that one? The way she asked made the heat go up his neck. Ikuto did a quick character change. His ears and tail popped out. Ikuto smirked at her.
"If you scratch my ears, I just might." He told her. Amu stopped smiling as she faintly blushed.
"Not funny." She said. "You better hurry, Ikuto, time is running out."
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Ikuto stared at the tall large building that was called Easter. It loomed over him and Yoru, casting an ominous shadow. Going in wasn´t going to be any trouble, but exploring the place was going to be difficult. Ikuto wasn´t allowed in different places of the building. He was after all the clean up crew, nothing special about his job. Also, Gozen ordered for him not to stray off anywhere. Gozen, he´s never really seen him, he was always sitting behind a curtain. Ikuto has heard his voice before, once actually, when he signed the contract. Now that he thought about it, he never should have signed the blasted thing. Regretting about it wasn´t going to change that. If he found the Embryo, maybe he can wish himself free. Then he´ll be able to go anywhere. America would be the first place to go. He shook his head slightly, now wasn´t the time to daydream.
"Let´s go Yoru." Ikuto said. He hopped down from the tree and started walking to the building he hated so much. Like he thought, it wasn´t hard to enter the building. Two guards were by the door and they didn´t give him a second glance as he casually walked past them. When he went to Easter, it was mainly to report about any current situation. Apart from that, he tried to stay away from Easter as much as he could. Ikuto made his way to the elevator. He looked over his shoulder at the guards who had their attention on something else. Ikuto took the chance and pressed the B1 button. It would be best to start in the basement. He waited patiently for the doors to open. Ikuto stepped into the elevator and watched as the doors closed. The elevator went down one floor and then opened the doors again. Ikuto stepped into the basement of Ikuto. It was dark, but his keen eyes could make out objects. The room was filled with machines, small and large machines of many kinds.
"Nya, what is this place Ikuto?" Yoru asked. Ikuto didn´t answer right away, he was still busy taking in what he saw. So Easter was secretly building machines for their own wicked needs. They wanted the Embryo this badly? Ikuto walked around, trying to see if there was any sign of anyone there. It was silent, no noise or anything else was visible. Ikuto cursed out loud, no sign of Yuki anywhere. At least he could scratch out the basement as one of the places to search around. If Yuki wasn´t in the basement, then she wasn´t in any of the lower levels.
"She´s with Gozen." Ikuto said suddenly. Of course she was with Gozen. Where else could she be? If someone as important as Katsuya´s daughter was kidnapped, it was only logical that she would be with Gozen. This only complicated things, one couldn´t just walk up to Gozen and have a friendly conversation. They had to get through Kazuomi Hoshina, his stepfather. After his father disappeared, his mother married Kazuomi. Actually, Ikuto was supposed to be the real owner of Easter, but that right was snatched away from him and his sister. Kazuomi made them sign the contract and thus chaining them to Easter. After doing a double check, Ikuto headed back to the elevator. He was going to have to take the risk and go to the higher levels.
"Nya, where are we going now Ikuto?" Yoru asked.
"Up." Ikuto answered. He was going to start on the fourth floor, since the second and third floor were mainly cubicles with employees. The doors opened and Ikuto looked around. He didn´t see anyone, but that didn´t mean he had to let his guard down. Ikuto walked down the hallways and past different doors. He didn´t bother to check, since Yuki would be well guarded. Nothing seemed to be off key on the fourth floor. He turned around and started to head back to the elevator.
"Hey! You! What are you doing here?" Someone called. Ikuto remained cool as he turned. Sure enough, one lone security guard was walking toward him.
"I got lost." Ikuto said sheepishly. The security guard gave him a doubtful look.
"Even so, you shouldn´t even be up here. I´ll let you off easy this time." He said.
"Thanks." Ikuto said heading back to the elevator. He needed to be more cautious as he headed up to the fifth floor. There were seven floors, and Gozen was on the top floor. Of course, Ikuto couldn´t help but check the other floors. Like on the fourth floor, the fifth floor was empty as well. He went up one more level. As the doors opened, Ikuto sensed other people on the floor. Sure enough, when he stepped out, guards were everywhere. Bingo. He wouldn´t be able to go anywhere. Ikuto side stepped two guards and silently walked down the hallways. He had to be quick, if not, he could be caught. Even if didn´t know that idiot Gozen well, Ikuto knew he wasn´t stupid. Gozen would probably be on his toes, knowing well that Yuki was friends with the Guardians. What would really be bad, though, is if Gozen found out that Ikuto was in on it as well. He couldn´t underestimate Gozen. Ikuto peeked around the corner and that´s when he saw them. There were three guards standing around one door, maybe Yuki was being held there.
"Yoru, create a distraction." Ikuto told his chara. Yoru nodded as he floated a different direction. It wasn´t long before there came a loud crash and people yelling. Ikuto hid as the three guards ran toward the direction of the noise. Ikuto approached the door and tried to open it. The door was locked, something he expected. Ikuto took a step back and kicked the door two times before it opened. The room was dark, but he saw a bed and a desk. There came a shuffle from a corner of the room.
"I-Ikuto?" Came a soft, tired voice. Ikuto saw Yuki lying on the floor.
"Yuki." He said. She couldn´t even lift up her head from the floor. She seemed fragile and hurt. Ikuto couldn´t believe what they did to her. He grabbed her small little form and tried to help her up. Yuki shook her head.
"It´s n-no use…t-they inject me with something…" Her voice trailed off as she pointed to one of her ankles. Ikuto followed her gaze and his eyes came upon a type of metal cylinder wrapped around her ankle. He then saw clearly that needles attached around the metal were injected into her ankle.
"What is this?" Ikuto asked. He took hold of the metal cylinder and tried to break it loose. He stopped when he heard Yuki whimper.
"It hurts…" She said softly. She sighed as she closed her eyes. "Get out of here…" She said softly. "I don´t have any strength…" She stopped moving and Ikuto saw that she had fallen asleep. He was going to get her out of there. He then froze as he looked up at the ceiling.
"Idiot…" Ikuto said to himself. There, in the far corner of the ceiling, was the blinking light of a camera. Ikuto stared straight at the camera and somehow knew that he was staring directly at Gozen.
"We knew that you would come here." A voice came from behind. Ikuto knew the voice all too well. He turned and came eye to eye with his stepfather, Kazuomi Hoshina. Kazuomi grinned wickedly. Ikuto felt a surge of hatred toward the man.
"I´m taking her with me…" Ikuto said. Ikuto then spotted his sister, Utau. She was staring at him with horror. He could see by the look on her face that she didn´t know anything about this. Utau came to the company often with her manager, and sometimes in hopes of seeing him.
"That´s not possible." Kazuomi said. Ikuto watched as the guards gathered. He could take them on easily, they weren´t a challenge to him at all. Ikuto then saw Kazuomi lift up a type of control.
"You see this? With this, I can inject two kinds of fluids in Miss Taske. One is a fluid that drains her energy completely, the other, a deadly poison. It can kill her off in seconds." Kazuomi explained. Ikuto saw that he had his finger on the button. Ikuto wouldn´t be fast enough to stop him or snatch the control away. He was trapped in a corner. Utau stared at him fearfully.
"You bastard…" Ikuto said. He spotted Yoru. His little chara was pointing at something from the hallway, they haven´t seen him yet. Ikuto had no choice but to leave her, they could kill her. He was caught, and he was seen. Ikuto was already labeled as the enemy, and his only chance of saving Yuki went up in smoke. He wasn´t expecting this, Kazuomi had the control, Yuki´s life was in his hands. Scowling, Ikuto jumped and flipped over the heads of the guards. He landed by Utau and whispered in her ear.
"Take care…" He said to his only sister. They both knew too well that they were on separate sides now. Ikuto ran with Yoru who was pointing at a window. Ikuto character changed and jumped out the window. He landed on the ground with ease and stared back up at the broken window. He saw his sister looking down at him with tears in her eyes. Ikuto jumped into the trees not looking back.
Ikuto saw the Guardians waiting for him at the park. By the looks of it, Amu had informed them that he was helping out.
"You got out safely." Amu said. He thought he noticed some relief in her voice. "Did you figure anything out?" She asked. He didn´t want to tell her, she would only get hurt. He didn´t want to keep it from her either.
"Things got complicated. Yuki is in a bad state, and they found out I´m trying to save her." He said. He told them of what had occurred and Amu became more and more worried. This made a major whole in their plan. So they quickly made up a new one. Ikuto helped in anyway he could, but he was becoming distracted. Tadase was getting to close to Amu. He helped her in many ways and often gave her an encouraging smile. She returned the smile whole heartedly, giving Ikuto a sickening feeling in his stomach. It was obvious of Tadase´s feelings for Amu and Ikuto couldn´t help but feel sorry for Yuki, and for himself.
"Why exactly do you want to help Yuki for?" Tadase asked suspiciously. Ikuto never really answered his question.
"I have a personal reason as to rescuing Yuki."
I´m doing it for Amu…
Rukia141: I would like to apologize to all of you who grew frustrated with me!
Jennifer: Um…Rukia141?
Rukia141: I´ve been so busy! I promise that I will update whenever I can! I love you my readers, I just hope you can wait for me!
Jennifer: Who are you talking to?
