Part 37 – Shields Down
The cacophony of sirens, engines, and megaphones was an odd accompaniment to the otherwise beautiful weather. Inside Hattori's van, the vet was fiddling with a slinky that had been in his glove compartment. He let it slide from hand to hand and gazed up at the sea-blue sky in absolute boredom, while Riku compulsively checked the windows and mirrors on a near-constant basis for signs of the others returning. The clock on the dashboard flashed 4:00 PM. It had already been too long. The thought that their friends might not make their rendezvous to the van was a difficult, but imposing possibility.
"I'm calling Risa," Riku muttered.
"You'll blow their cover," Hattori warned, dropping the slinky into the bench seat next to him. "Just give them time."
"Wait… I see them!" Riku finally gasped as she spotted the group approaching the car from outside.
Hattori dropped the slinky and leaned over to check the mirror and confirm for himself. He smirked. "And I'll be damned. Birdman Number Two is out there with them.
"What?" Riku looked back to take another look. The blonde angel wasn't moving with his usual supernatural grace, making him almost look ordinary amidst the others. She hadn't even noticed him at first. "What happened?" she whispered, scrambling to gather her crutches.
"Hey, you can stay put. I'll let them in," Hattori warned, putting a hand on one of the crutches.
"Thanks, but I need to see him," Riku insisted. She turned to open the door just as it was pulled wide from the opposite side.
"Riku," Daisuke said, taking deep breaths as he stared at his girlfriend. "Oh, thank God. I was so worried!" He took everything about her in as if he hadn't seen her in years. "Your ankle…"
Her eyes started to water. "I'm the one who was worrying! You idiot!"
Daisuke took a step forward as she threw her arms around his shoulders. He pulled her in tight and closed his eyes. "I'm sorry." They stood locked together, half in and half out of the van.
Riku focused on his warmth, convincing herself he was real. The comfort of his embrace pulled apart the careful composure she'd worn for the past week. It was easy to be strong when there was no other option, but now she was horrified to feel herself shaking with tears as she held onto him for dear life.
The door on the other side of the van slammed as Hattori got out to meet the others. Satoshi was walking up to him as he got out, with Risa close behind. "There's a lot of press lurking around. We need to get out of here quickly," the bluenette said. His mood seemed frayed.
The vet nodded as he slid open the door to the side of the van. "Was it a success?"
Satoshi paused before responding. His tone was uneasy as he answered "Yes."
Hattori turned a suspicious look on the boy, but decided he could wait for the details. "Is anyone hurt?"
"Yes," the boy confirmed again as he guided Risa inside. The girl didn't make eye contact with either of them as she climbed into the van.
"Who?"
"Mostly, Krad." Satoshi drew a tense breath and crossed his arms like he wasn't sure what to do with them.
Hattori cocked his head to the side at the bluenette's anxious demeanor. "Think you can drive?"
"Yeah."
The vet nodded and clapped a hand lightly on the boy's shoulder as he passed him the keys. "Alright. I'll see what I can do." He raised his voice to the other side of the van, where Daisuke and Riku were still hugging it out. "Alright, lovebirds, we need you both inside."
He turned his gaze straight ahead as the blonde stepped into view from behind the van. The vet's trained eyes gave a cursory inspection of the angel's injuries. Krad approached the vehicle as if he were facing a firing squad. His dull bronze eyes sized up the vet when he reached the door. Hattori couldn't tell if the look was a warning or just the product of exhaustion. He took a step back and gave the angel space as he stepped into the vehicle.
Krad navigated himself to the back corner of the van. Risa already happened to be in the adjacent corner, but it was the least populated spot available to him in the crowded vehicle. The girl's wide brown eyes followed him, but at least she was quiet. He sat down against the back wall and gathered his wings behind him in a stiff, slow movement. The van shifted as Hattori climbed in.
"What about the other one?" the vet asked, miming a pair of wings with his fingertips.
Krad frowned at him. Risa's gaze dropped back to the floor. The van was too quiet.
"We couldn't bring him," Satoshi said.
Riku and Hattori both turned to stare at the bluenette. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? Don't tell me you just left him-" Hattori cut off as a short sob finally escaped from Risa. The girl spread a hand over her face and held her breath tight. The vet looked at her and then back at the front of the vehicle. The redhead boy's composure didn't look too much better. "—Okay. Let's just go then." He slid the door shut behind him.
The engine turned. They were backing up. Then the van pulled forward and turned out into the sea of cars that were rubbernecking the chaos outside.
Risa's shoulders shook, but she managed to keep back her sobs as they slowly left the Gorudo Corporation behind. Hattori moved toward the back of the van and set a box of tissues next to her. She nodded, but didn't take them. The vet sighed. Considering that the mission had been successful, the atmosphere inside the van was positively morose.
"Alright. Krad, was it?" he directed his attention to the blonde. The angel's shoulder was gashed open and blood was trailing down his bare torso. The hand Hattori had bandaged just the night before, while the angel was out cold, also looked worse than when it started. By comparison, the other cuts and bruises seemed like a walk in the park. "How about letting me have a look at that?" He started rolling up his sleeves.
Krad's glare didn't frost the windows this time, but it was still enough to make the vet pause and consider him a moment.
"Look. I get it. You've got some control issues. However, I'd like to civilly point out that you are bleeding your creepy birdman blood all over my van."
Krad straightened a little and studied him as if he were the one who belonged to some alien species. "I do not require your… help."
"Like hell you don't," Hattori said, reaching for the angel's arm. Krad pulled back, and his dull eyes glowed for a moment, warning that he could still attack.
"Believe me, I understand. You're a precious unique snowflake and you have trust problems. But that won't change the fact that you're hemorrhaging on my upholstery."
Daisuke took this opportunity to glance back over the front seat at the vet. The boy looked astonished, or impressed. Or both. "Who are you?" he murmured.
"I'm a veterinarian who's going to go soccer-mom up in here, unless this feather-brain holds still!" the vet warned Krad. "Don't make me pull this van over. We can wait on the shoulder all day. Maybe sing some showtunes to kill time."
The thought of being in the van with them any longer than necessary provoked a wave of dizziness in the wounded angel. "Give me the bandage, and I will take care of it."
"It takes two hands to wind a bandage. Besides, you don't have my expertise," Hattori challenged.
"You're a veterinarian!" Krad corrected.
"Krad, you're really bleeding," Riku said very cautiously from the front seat. She and the redhead were staring at him.
Gold eyes dipped down to meet hers. "I… will be fine." He had no idea what to make of her concerned expression. "All of you can mind your own business.
Hattori cast the angel an impatient smirk. "Fine. Pull over, kid. We're having ourselves a sing along."
"Krad! Hold still!" Satoshi barked harshly from the driver's seat.
The angel went quiet. Risa glanced over at Krad and blinked her bleary eyes to focus on him. Why…? Because Satoshi said so? Come to think of it, why was Krad here at all? She managed to take her mind off Dark for a second as confusion took over.
Krad seemed frozen in place as he looked at the vet. "Do as you wish." He relaxed his aggressive stance and submitted the body he'd worked so hard to acquire to the stranger's touch.
Hattori smirked approvingly and crawled to the angel's side with a bottle of salve. "Trust me, I know what I'm doing. Fair warning, this will burn at first."
The angel didn't react as the fizzing liquid poured over his bleeding shoulder. He didn't meet the gaze of any of the humans watching him as Hattori took a closer inspection of the wound and put pressure on it with a gauze pad. He was very aware of the hard steel boundary between him and the outside world, and the fact that he probably couldn't overpower five humans if he needed to right now.
Unwanted hands supported his arm and spread open his sticky palm. He tried not to think about Midnight's basement. The wounds didn't bother him as much as the contact. It was becoming hard to focus. How could the boy wish this on him? Why was he obeying? Trying to think straight just made the ideas unravel more.
Krad's complexion gradually lost all of its color, but he was too drained to truly panic. If they wanted to attack him, they'd have done it already. He just breathed deeply and closed his eyes to calm his swirling vision. Hattori didn't miss the angel's disorientation. He made his touch lighter, but it didn't seem to help. "Is there anywhere else?" he asked Krad as he carefully washed the blonde's palm.
"No," the angel barely breathed.
"You're sure?" The vet glanced him over suspiciously while Krad seemed traumatized beyond response.
"Satoshi, what aren't you telling me?" Hattori asked as he finished wrapping the angel's hand. Krad didn't even look at him when he put a palm to the blonde's forehead. "He shouldn't be this out of it."
"He just used too much magic. He's burned out." Satoshi called back.
Hattori turned and looked toward the bluenette. "Yeah? How exactly do you recharge him? I have some IV bags left."
Satoshi peered at Krad in the rearview mirror and almost forgot to look back at the road. Something in his chest jumped as he recognized the way the angel had looked after his time with Midnight. Krad was just being stubborn, right? He couldn't actually be afraid? Protective fear knotted his throat. "No. Just give him some space."
"But he's-"
"Give him space."
Hattori knitted his brows as he caught the urgency in the boy's tone. He slowly backed away from his patient until he was watching the angel from just behind the driver's seat. Krad opened his eyes to look at him, and then glanced down to survey the neat wrapping on his hand. They were all still watching him, but at least they weren't so close. He leaned his head back against the wall of the van and tried to rebuild his composure. Thankfully, no one said anything else to him. Hattori eventually called Risa over so he could have a look at the bump on her head, and the humans quietly filled each other in on the details of what had just happened inside the building.
When the van finally pulled to a stop in the parking lot outside Satoshi's apartment, Satoshi and Daisuke immediately got out. Daisuke helped Riku with her crutches, while Satoshi went for the side door and slid it open. Hattori and Risa climbed out, taking supplies with them. Krad opened his eyes to find himself alone in the van. His former wing host was watching him quietly from the doorway, silhouetted by bright afternoon light. The two stared each other down.
"You don't want to be here, do you?" Satoshi asked.
It was as if the boy's voice had pinned him to the back of the van. "Of course not," he shot back. It took effort to finally move away from the wall and make his way to the door. With a stiff extension of limbs, he climbed out to stand facing Satoshi. The boy wasn't making eye contact.
"I won't force you. If you need to go, then go," Satoshi said.
The angel's eyes narrowed on him. That hadn't been what he expected to hear. He hesitated. What reason did he have to stay? He tilted his head upward to scan the open sky above him.
Satoshi watched Krad's longing expression, and then dropped his own gaze to the ground. Krad wasn't going to stay. And Satoshi wasn't willing to force him. Not like this. The boy shut the door to the van and locked it. He had absolutely no idea what to say in parting to the angel. Maybe it was better not to say anything. His nerves coiled with a surprising ache. No. Don't drag it out. He took a deep breath and turned toward his apartment.
"Did you not agree to keep me under house arrest?"
Krad's voice nailed the boy to the pavement. Satoshi didn't look back at him. "I have no desire to imprison you," he said. "I never did."
"Everything okay over there?" Hattori called from the doorway.
Satoshi focused on Hattori's confused expression and waited another moment or so. Just in case. The angel didn't argue any further.
"Just try not to draw attention to yourself," Satoshi finally murmured. He made his legs move and walked toward his door.
Hattori stood aside to let him in. "Birdbrain coming?"
Satoshi's expression was blank. "No."
The vet glanced back at the angel. "You okay with that, birdbrain?"
Krad glared at the man and the open door next to him. He squashed the frantic feeling rising inside him as Satoshi walked away. He could leave. This was what he wanted. Cold conviction replaced the doubt in his posture. He took a step back, wings raised for flight. Satoshi was already disappearing into the apartment as the angel turned away and burst into the air.
Hattori crossed his arms and watched Krad rise up above the line of rooftops and out of sight. "You sure it's okay to let him go off like that?" he asked the boy as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
"What? Krad's gone?" Riku asked from the couch.
Daisuke was holding her hand securely as he looked up at his friend. "He got away?"
Satoshi went straight for his cupboards and pulled out a large box of spaghetti. "I let him go."
"Is that safe?" the redhead asked.
The bluenette set a pair of tomato cans a little too hard on the counter. "He saved our lives. He can do as he chooses. New topic."
Riku and Daisuke looked at each other.
"There goes my only hope of getting a good look at those wings. Though I probably would have had to knock him out to keep him still enough to research," Hattori lamented.
"Hattori!" Riku scolded under her breath.
"What? I've had feral cats accept treatment more calmly than that dude."
"That's not the point," Riku sighed.
"Is he—you know—okay to just go off like that?" Risa asked quietly. It felt awkward to voice concern for the white angel, but it also felt like a lot of rules had changed in the last few hours.
"Pft. He'll be fine, as long as he doesn't get himself caught or fly into any huge shiny windows."
"We have other things to deal with. Hattori, loan me your cell phone," Satoshi interrupted. "And boil some water.
"Whoah, if you think that I can cook just because I'm in a caretaking profession, you're about to be terrifically disappointed," Hattori warned as he passed off his phone to the boy.
"Just start it," Satoshi said, barely breaking stride as he took the phone into the next room.
Silence filled the living room, punctuated by haphazard clashes and clangs as Hattori dug through the bluenette's cabinets for an appropriate pot. Daisuke looked especially confused as he turned to Riku and Risa for some sort of clarification. "Satoshi seems a little… off."
"It's been a stressful week for all of us. He'll talk when he's ready," Risa said. She frowned and thought about Satoshi's protective reaction in the car. Was Satoshi the only one who couldn't see it?
Daisuke nodded, not because the situation felt any better, but because she was right. None of them were really okay, and there was no immediate way to fix it. The redhead leaned back a little on the couch and felt something prick him. He reached his hand behind his back and pulled the object from between the cushions. A black feather, as soft as it was sharp, lay in his palm. He curled his fingers around it carefully. "He was here," he murmured.
"For a little while, while he was recovering," Risa said.
"Recovering?" Daisuke's eyes were full of shadows as he looked at his girlfriend.
Riku looked down at the feather in his hand and thought of the right words to use. "He never really explained it to us, but after he broke the seal, when he crossed back to earth, he was in pretty bad shape."
"Bad shape? Try 'dead'," Hattori remarked as he lit a burner.
"Tact!" Riku barked at him.
"You people are all about tact, aren't you?" he griped.
Daisuke looked at the feather and thought of the one he'd kept in that envelope for the past few years, and the note he'd written with it. Don't forget. "I forgot him. He was connected to me all this time, and I never even looked for a link to him. I assumed he was gone. I didn't try to reach him. I wanted to move on."
"Daisuke, it's only natural to want closure after somebody leaves. Sometimes you have to let go in order to focus on the present," Riku argued.
"He didn't let me go. He stayed behind that wall, where I put him, and when I got in trouble, he almost killed himself breaking through it to help me."
"No, Daisuke. The seal was his own doing. You didn't put him there, and you're not the thing that hurt him."
"Well, he's sure as hell hurting now."The redhead's voice shuddered against his thin composure. "I may have been uninhibited because of Trap's machines when I said it, but some part of me really believed it would be best for us to be separated. Even though I swore to him that I would remember him. The look in his eyes when I said those things to him… I'll never…"
"We'll fix it," Risa said firmly. "There were plenty of mistakes on multiple sides, but we'll fix it all."
Her resolute voice suddenly had everyone's attention. Riku looked cautiously hopeful as she said, "But how? Dark is stuck inside that creep's body, and even if we had one of those machines, we'd have no idea how to use it."
The door to the bedroom clicked open, and Satoshi walked back in to join them. "I've requested police protection for the night. Gorudo knows who we are. He may try to make a move amidst all the chaos."
"Police are staying in here?" Riku asked.
"They'll be in the parking lot. They'll only move if someone intrudes on the apartment from outside."
"Let me get this straight," Hattori leaned forward on the counter. "You're depending on the police as effective protection against Dark Mousy. I think I'll be safer in my condo."
"I think you should stay here. I don't know how much Gorudo's security will be able to put together as far as your van. We're safest together, at least for tonight," Satoshi said.
The vet raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you say that Dark's weak right now?"
"Gorudo won't care about that, and Dark doesn't have any control in that body. If Gorudo wants to attack, he will."
Daisuke's hand tightened around the feather he was holding. "He doesn't care how much strain his actions put on Dark, and all the normal safety mechanisms are gone. Dark has no way to fight back or take over if things get too serious. He's just going to be stuck at that bastard's mercy." The thought of the angel living like that made him sick. "We have to switch the link to the way it was."
"Again, exactly how are you supposed to do that?" Hattori reminded him.
The sound of the doorbell made all of them jolt. Satoshi froze, and slowly headed for the door. The thought of finding Krad on the other side raised a frustrating pang in his chest. "It's probably just the cops," he reminded them all as he turned the bolt and opened it.
His jaw gave up on what he'd been about to say. He stared at his visitors in tense confusion.
"Yo," a familiar female voice greeted him. "Make some room." Her companion, unsteady on his feet and leaning on her for balance, afforded Satoshi a wary look as she led him forward without waiting for the boy's invitation. The rest of the room fell into confused silence as the two figures crossed the threshold.
"—Trap?"
"I know this is a little sudden," Shira said. Her eyes sought out Risa like she was the only life raft on the Titanic. "You said to come here if I needed help."
"You," Risa said firmly. "Not him." She looked over the scientist with a critical stare. "What happened to him?" She didn't look sympathetic, nor did the rest of the room.
"He was shot when I broke him loose from HQ."
"You went back for him? After everything he did?" Risa scolded, not caring that they would have no idea why she had overheard everything Shira and Dark talked about.
"That place was crawling with police. How did you manage to get in?" Riku demanded.
"Are you kidding? With all those idiots running around, I practically walked right in. Then Trap wasn't in his office, so I did some snooping. Actually, I used a route Dark showed me. In the ceilings. I found where they were keeping him, but one of the SO's guarding him managed to get a shot off when I broke him out."
"So you got shot by your own team trying to save your own skin. We don't care," Riku said to Trap firmly, coming to her sister's side.
"No," Shira said. "You don't understand. The ass was shooting at me. Trap grabbed for the barrel." She shook her head. "Rookie mistake. Saved my life though."
Riku looked him over and took a better look at the way Trap's hand was hidden inside his lab coat.
"Wait just a second," Daisuke managed to interject, "You all know each other?"
"Barely," Satoshi asserted coldly. "And if you two haven't noticed, we're at full occupancy. Not to mention the fact that you caused this mess in the first place."
"Seriously," Riku confirmed. "You really thought this would be the best place to hide from Gorudo?"
"You clearly do," Shira challenged.
Daisuke stood up next to Riku. "Maybe we should help them," he said carefully.
"Look, Dai, I'm giving you a pass for everything else that's happened, but defending Trap is taking your Stockholm complex a little too far," Satoshi growled.
"I know…" Daisuke murmured, flushing as he remembered Dark again. "But weren't we just saying we needed to understand the science in order to bring Dark back?"
"He has a point," Riku conceded.
"Which brings me to my pitch," Shira said, shouldering the dizzy scientist's weight. "Look, it's true we did a lot of things, but neither of us wanted what happened in that room. If you'll help us, we can help you."
The girls and Daisuke looked to Satoshi uncertainly. The boy looked distracted, like he was literally returning from some other place in his mind as he checked back in to the conversation. They were all waiting for him to make the decision. He took a composing breath and studied the pair who had kidnapped his best friend. He felt no trust for these two, regardless of what Dark's opinion of them had been. And yet, they would need these people if they expected to get Dark away from Gorudo. Even that much seemed like a questionable move. Dark had played his cards, and it didn't seem wise to invite more danger by trying to re-deal. That was the obvious logic.
However, the others would never agree to leave things as they were, and even Satoshi found it difficult to stomach the idea of leaving Dark in that body. Daisuke was close with his angel. Even if the bluenette wasn't a fan of the thief, there was no reason to abandon Dark to that psychopath's cruelty if there was still another way.
There was no reason all of them had to be alone.
Satoshi took off his glasses and rubbed between his eyes mercilessly. "You can stay. No cell phones, no outside communications. And if you expect to use our vet, you'd better believe you're paying your own tab."
"Your what?" Trap asked, barely coherent.
"I'm expensive," Hattori informed them with a sinister smile as he approached the pair. "Sit him down, and let's have a looksee.
Risa and Daisuke stepped out of the way as Shira guided the scientist to the couch. Satoshi dropped his gaze and disappeared into his own room. Risa watched him leave, and followed a moment after. He was standing in front of his dresser with an aimless stare when she walked in behind him.
"Sato?" she said, closing the door behind her.
He glanced at her. "Yes?" He hooked his thumbs in his pockets, but his fingers fidgeted restlessly like they couldn't find where they were supposed to be.
"I just came to see if you were okay," she said, taking a few steps toward him.
Satoshi shook his head carefully. "Fine."
"You let Krad go."
"I told you, he saved our lives," the boy started up defensively. He flashed to the image of Krad's pain-bent body standing like a shield over him.
"No… I know that," she eased a step forward. "I'm just surprised you let him leave. I thought you might be upset—"
"Well, I'm not."
The coldness in his voice made her frown. "Satoshi, please don't be like this. It's okay to be hurt. I just want to help."
"I don't want help! I want to stop thinking about it."
"Are you ever going to learn that keeping problems secret doesn't make them go away?" Risa's arms straightened angrily at her sides.
"Are you sure you aren't trying to push your attention on to me in order to avoid coping with your own feelings?" Satoshi returned.
Her posture loosened, and she was very quiet. Satoshi was about to soften his words when she finally said "I might be." She walked up to him and sat on his bed, next to where he was standing. "I'm scared, Sato. When I think about the expression on his face when that machine fired up… I've never, ever seen him look like that."
Satoshi turned toward her. His expression thawed a little. Dark. "You still care about him," he acknowledged quietly.
Her lip trembled. She looked down at the carpet. "No! I mean, I don't want to. I mean I tried—it was okay when he was sealed and there was no—…Oh god, I'm so sorry!" Tears ran freely down her cheeks. "I can't believe myself."
It stung, but not in the way he'd expected. He'd known her feelings for Dark when he started dating her, and he'd known they never changed. He'd almost thought of it as a convenience, since he had his own boundaries about commitment also. But was that really a healthy relationship? Eventually, it had to come down to something like this. He sat down next to her and put an arm carefully around her shoulder. The contact didn't make him feel better, but it seemed appropriate. His thoughts kept racing between what was happening here in front of him and everything else that week. All the moments, all the warnings that had led up to this. No—It hadn't just been this week.
Satoshi gave them both some time to get their thoughts straight. "Do you want to be with him?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I don't know," she said. She meant it. "I don't know what I want. I just know I shouldn't be able to think these things, if I'm really where I'm supposed to be."
His chest felt thick. Things were changing. The lives they'd pursued for the last two years were changing, right in these few dense seconds. "What should we do, then," he proposed quietly.
She looked up at him. "Sato, I don't think either of us can really focus on this relationship any more."
He set his jaw and nodded carefully.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"It's fine," he said, squeezing her shoulder and dropping his hand to the mattress. "We'll be fine." It had been coming for a long time. Maybe he'd always known this was coming. He was no good at getting close to people. He was good at letting them go.
A knock came at the door. Riku poked her head in. "The spaghetti's ready, guys," she said. "Everything okay in here?"
Satoshi pushed to his feet. Reality was calling. "Fine," he confirmed. "We're coming." He looked down at Risa soberly. "Come whenever you're ready." He took a deep breath and headed to the open door. "And Risa," he looked over his shoulder as he reached the doorway, "We'll find a way to get him back."
The evening was busy, and awkward. By the time dinner was cleaned up and the chaotic reunion finally began to quiet down, it was already past 9:00. Risa wound up asleep on the couch, and Shira, without a real job to do, gave herself one by keeping watch outside the front door. Hattori was watching the news on TV, enjoying the highly confused coverage various stations were attempting for the day's events. No one had any clue how to interpret the chaos at Gorudo headquarters, or what the warning Krad had left really meant.
The hour left Daisuke, Riku, Satoshi, and Trap sitting at the kitchen island, debating strategy. The scientist was steadier now that his hand was wrapped up, but there was only so much that could be done without an emergency room and a pharmacy. It had to be agonizing, but it didn't seem to stop him from offering quiet, matter-of-fact answers to every direct question presented to him.
"So you would need the machines, no matter what?" Daisuke asked him.
"Yes. At the very least, I need the one that was next to you during the procedure."
"What about the big glass thing Dark was stuck in?"
"That was a restraint only. I am not saying you won't need to restrain Gorudo if you expect to do this, but the capsule is not necessary for the machine to work."
"Okay, so all we have to do is somehow get one of these machines, lure Gorudo out to us alone, subdue him, and reverse the process?"
Trap squinted uncertainly at the boy he'd imprisoned, but said "Yes."
"Okay!" Daisuke clapped his hands together. Then his expression fell. "How do we do that?"
Riku rolled her eyes. "Any ideas, Satoshi?"
The bluenette glanced up from the tabletop.
"Satoshi? Is everything okay? You seem really out of it tonight," Daisuke said worriedly. "And that's coming from me."
"It's fine. I'm fine," the boy said carelessly. He blocked off his anxious thoughts and recounted the last few things they'd been talking about. "If we can get hold of this machine we need, our best chance is to move while Gorudo is still weak. Does anyone other than Gorudo Corp own one of these things?"
"The University of Tokyo has a similar machine in the West wing of its neuroscience building… less sophisticated, but it could do the job," Trap said.
Daisuke blinked. "That's…specific information."
Trap didn't quite meet the eyes of the boy he'd experimented on for the past week. "I built it. When I was a student there."
"…Okay," Daisuke murmured. "So, you're saying you invented it?"
"Yes."
"If you had this machine, you could fix it?" Satoshi asked.
"Yes."
"Then I'm going after it," Daisuke said.
Trap frowned incredulously. "Don't tell me you think you can just walk in and ask for it?"
"No," Daisuke admitted with a cryptic smirk,
"—but I can steal it."
- oOoO O OoOo -
To be continued!
Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers! And I myself am very thankful for all of you who are reading! I wrote part of this chapter with an FBI agent sitting in the room with me, so I took advantage. Apparently trying to grab a gun really is the stupidest thing you could possibly do. YEEE there is a really good part coming up! Thank you so much for reading. Please let me know what you think!
Some shout outs:
Hawaiianbabidoll – Thank you for reviewing! I'm really glad you like how Krad is coming out. I never expected to have this much fun writing him!
Don – Hooray for shy readers! Thanks for coming out of the woodwork and for the kind review! It made my day : )
Kathy Ann – I'm sorry for making you cry (although it makes me feel like I did a good job)! Considering I originally wanted this to be about 12 chapters….I'm not sure my word is reliable, but I am thinking there will be about 4 more? Thank you for reading!
Stormshadow13 – Lol that is exactly the reaction I was hoping for! Thank you!
Corrie CrossBearer – Thanks for reading! I heart squeals!
Girru – Wow! I'm so flattered you took the time to read this crazy thing and leave me such fun and detailed feedback! I know what you mean about specific pictures inspiring a new way of looking at a character. That has happened to me as well. Back when I dared to try my hand at poetry, I used a picture of Dark as a muse for a poem (it's up here, but it's a little old and blah). And then the sentiment behind the poem became this monstrosity you're reading. I'm really happy that the story made you think of an "alternate" Krad, as I also found the Krad in the series to be needlessly flat and villainous. Thank you again, and I hope you continue reading!
Seylin – Thanks for reading and reviewing! I'm glad the suspense was there at the end!
Yuki Hikari – Thank you for finding the typo! I will have to get in there and fix it soon. As far as Dark's wings, I'd say that merging with Gorudo dissolved the body he had all to himself and recreated him, so there is a fresh start on the wings at this point. Thank you for reviewing!
Staidwaters – Thank you for your review! Yay for emotional rollercoasters!
Natsuki Chere – You're always so supportive with your feedback! Thank you as always for reading!
Tokonatsu24 – Your review made my day! Thank you for all your kind feedback! It means a lot to know the character progression is working as intended, since of course the only people who can verify that are the readers. Anyway, you're the best : )
Endra – I'm really glad the fight scene worked out, and especially that the control issues with Dark and Gorudo made sense! Thank you as always for reading and for the feedback!
Canzie – Thanks for reviewing! And I'm sorry for being so mean to Dark! (bows)
Bronze Andromeda Sun – -Dark steals keyboard- Dear Sympathetic Human: I am NOT okay! This crazy #!% keeps making things worse! This wasn't in my contract! I demand a new writer! Not even Shakespeare could fix this mess! I need to go call my lawyer.