Maguruma's warning wasn't unfounded. For the first time Ban got an up close and personal look at what his lover was like when he was truly clobbered by illness – and the experience left him vowing that if Akabane ever got sick again he'd drug the man unconscious to the gills for the duration of the plague.

"I'm not eating that." Akabane shoved the food tray back at Ban. "There's no point when I can't even taste it!" He sniffled loudly for emphasis.

"You're not supposed to enjoy it. You're sick, remember?" Ban suppressed another sigh. "The whole point of soup is to put a few nutrients in your stomach so you're not running on empty all the time. Look, I even threw in some of those nice little oyster crackers. Put a bit of butter on them, they're not bad."

Akabane cast a thinly veiled glare over the contents being proffered once more. "There's no knife for the butter. Why is there no knife?" he growled.

Ban frowned at him. "You know darn well why there's no knife. It doesn't matter anyway. Just use your fingers."

Akabane tossed the packet of crackers at his head. "I refuse to smear butter on food like some sort of heathen. Bring me a knife!"

"Forget it. One, you're acting like a heathen right now, and two, no way in hell am I giving you an easy shot at me with that pissy mood," Ban said, ducking and catching the packet. "Do you want the crackers or not?"

"Fine," Akabane grumbled as he plopped the spoon into the soup with a sour look. His eyes narrowed when he saw what else Ban had brought with him. "If you don't put that back in the cabinet this instant, you're going to lose a hand instead of a shirt this time."

Ban dropped the crackers next to the bowl of soup and shook the bottle of medicine before opening it. "You don't have your nasty little arsenal with you any more, remember?"

Akabane bared his teeth. "I have other ways."

"One tooth-mark from you, pal, and I'll put my own set of fangs into your hide and rip you an even bigger asshole than the one you were born with," Ban warned. "We've been through this before. We both know I'm going to win the battle, so shut up and drink your medicine like a good little Jackal so I don't have to tie you to the bed again and pour it down your throat."

"I hate you," Akabane spat. "You couldn't even be bothered to get something decent, you had to buy the foulest muck in existence just to torture me!"

"Look at it this way, you're so fond of death that you can have a reminder of what it tastes like every time," Ban said, and pointed the bottle's measuring cap at him.

Akabane glared death at the medicine. Then he slapped the dose out of Ban's hand and snarled an expletive that not coincidentally rhymed with his earlier description of its taste.

Ban cursed up a storm of his own as he wiped off the splatters from his shirt. "For Chrissakes, I've seen brats less than half my age behave better when they're sick!" He pulled out a vial from his jeans pocket. "That's it, you're taking that medicine and you're liking it if it's the last thing I do!"

"That can be arranged," Akabane snapped, curling his fingers into fists.

The fight was brief but devastating. Fisticuffs and broken furniture aside, Himiko's flame perfume packed a wallop on drapery and bedsheets. Ban finally got Akabane forced into a corner and yanked out the vial of sleep potion to use next; he almost didn't make it when Akabane plowed into him and struggled for control of the bottle. By either chance or good timing, the cork popped and the trigger mechanism spewed the brunt of the scent right into Akabane's face, and he was out like a light in two seconds.

Ban grabbed the medicine bottle and dumped what he hoped was a reasonable amount into the transporter's slack mouth, then threw it aside and hauled his unconscious patient back to bed. He stuffed Akabane into the covers and wiped the sweat from his own brow as he contemplated asking Himiko for another round of perfumes. He'd already used up half the stash, and it was only Saturday.

"If I have to keep doing this for the next week there's gonna be blood on the floor and not all of it'll be mine. Shit," he muttered to himself.

That bottle of hard liquor sounded really good about now.

XX

"Hello, Ginji-kun. I'm sick," Akabane droopily informed his visitors when they filed into the room. As congested as he was, most of his consonants all came out sounding more like b's and d's instead of the originals, resulting in a garble of words.

"Wow, that's a bad cold you have," Ginji said sympathetically. "I hope you feel better soon."

"Thank you. At least someone around here knows how to treat the suffering," Akabane replied with a baleful glare at Ban. Deep shadows beneath his eyes and an abnormally pale complexion offered proof of his ailing. "Do you know how mean Ban-kun is being to me right now?"

"Ignore him," Ban told Ginji bluntly. "He's just sucking up for sympathy."

"He won't even let me watch television or read in the other room," Akabane whined. "I have to stay in bed all day, being bored!"

Ginji looked from him to Ban, a frown settling on his normally happy features. "Ban-chan," he said with a hint of reproach. "You gotta let Akabane-san have something for entertainment…"

"No way. He'll watch old movies until the sun comes up instead of resting, he's such a stubborn weasel," Ban said.

Ginji grinned. "Kind of like you, huh, Ban-chan?"

"That's different," Ban snapped.

"Sure it is," Ginji said, covering a snicker behind his hand. He decided to examine the bounty of pharmaceuticals on the nightstand when Ban shot him an incendiary scowl. "Wow, Akabane-san. You sure have a lot of stuff here."

"And none of it tastes good!" Akabane sulked. "I hate that red one! It's positively awful! And Ban-kun makes me drink two capfuls of it three times a day! He didn't even buy me the fruit lozenges that he knows I like, he brought home these disgusting zinc things that make me even more nauseated than I already am!"

"I told you, the drugstore was out. Those were the only lozenges available; would you rather I left you to sandpaper your scratchy throat to bloody ribbons?"

Purple daggers impaled him from beneath the mop of dark hair. "You just didn't want to chance running into Fuyuki-san at the store the next block over, because you know he patronizes it so he won't have to run into you. Coward," Akabane taunted.

"Crybaby," Ban shot back.

"Only because you're being so mean to me right now!" Akabane snarled.

"Sucks to be you, sweetheart," Ban told him. "Seems to me I remember a certain physician crowing about how the grossest stuff is supposed to be the best while he was force-feeding me the same crap!"

Akabane peered at him through a curtain of messy unwashed hair. "When I get my knives back you are a dead man. Dead!"

Ginji gulped and lifted his hands, waving them at the two. "Now, Akabane-san, Ban-chan, let's not get too worked up here..."

"That reminds me." Ban strolled over to the bed and patted his mate's blanket-shrouded shoulders. "Your last bowl of soup was missing a utensil. I want it back."

Akabane shivered and pulled the covers tighter around himself as he hunched over in a sneeze. "What are you talking about?"

Ban looked at an inquisitive Ginji. "Declawed Jackal. Still as wild as ever, but easier to handle when you know he's not going to turn pincushion on you. As long as you don't give him any source materials to work with." He looked back at Akabane and spoke in a slightly sharper tone. "Now, Kuroudo."

Akabane could look remarkably childish when his face was curdled into a pout. "Go away. I'm tired."

"I will as soon as you fork over the metal," Ban said. "Are we gonna do this the easy way or the hard way?"

Akabane hissed at him. "Drop dead."

"Hard way it is then," Ban agreed, and lurched onto the bed over a scrambling transporter. Akabane pushed and kicked at him in an attempt to knock him off the mattress, but Ban latched onto the other man's ankle and dragged him back. He pinned Akabane on the bed and shoved off the covers he'd cocooned himself in.

"MIDOU-KUN!"

"Laugh it up, my prickly pet!"

Ginji stood slack-jawed while his partner began tickling his lover. Not that he'd never witnessed Ban's mercilessness in action – he knew firsthand how the B in Get Backers went straight for the tickle-kill – but he'd never have expected the tactic to work on a transporter, especially a homicidal one.

Ban noticed his rapt attention. "Yeah, Ginji? You might wanna duck out of the way there."

No sooner had he issued this warning than Akabane unleashed a shuddering wet sneeze explosive enough to blow down a small barn. Ginji flinched when he felt something zip by his cheek, and rubbed at his face, thinking he'd gotten splashed with stray snot globules – Akabane hadn't had time to grab for a tissue, after all. He spied a streak of red on his fingers and blanched when he realized he'd been cut. Ginji turned around and saw a lone scalpel, processed from the metal spoon Ban had provided with the soup, sticking straight out of the wall behind him.

"...I think I need to go change my shorts now..."

Ban released a squalling Akabane and got up with a mock bow to collect the knife. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, we'll be here all night."

"Killjoy," Akabane snarled at his lover, and sneezed once more as he fell over on the pillows.

XX

The missing silverware returned to its rightful place (albeit in a different form than it had previously occupied), Ban busied himself with cleaning up the latest batch of used tissue refuse, lozenge wrappers, and pill boxes that had perished miserably at the sick transporter's hands. Freed from the constraints of civility and indefinitely quarantined from public due to his illness, Akabane had dispensed with his usual good graces and was downright crotchety to deal with.

As he marveled at the delicate strips that plastic medicine bottles could be dissected into, Ban was glad he'd taken Himiko's advice and deprived his lover of his weapons while he'd had the opportunity.

On the way back from dumping the trash and picking up some necessary items from the pantry he found Ginji in the hallway cackling quietly to himself.

"What's so funny?"

Ginji had a conspiratorial gleam in his eye. He looked around to make sure it was just the two of them, and then leaned closer to Ban and spoke in a low voice. "I have the best idea ever. I'm gonna get back at Akabane-san for the time he came to see me when I was in the hospital!"

Ban raised a brow. "How's that? Going to hide an electric buzzer in the box of facial tissue?"

"Better!" Ginji paused for dramatic effect before making his announcement. "I'm sending him a fruit basket!"

Silence reigned for a full minute while Ban waited for further detail, expecting his partner to expound upon his 'revenge'. When Ginji didn't speak, he did. "That's it? That's your great amazing plan?"

"Yup!" Ginji rubbed his hands together. "Won't Akabane-san be surprised when it shows up!"

Ban stared at him. "Ginji, do me a favor," he said slowly.

"Sure, Ban-chan. What?"

"Stop sticking your fingers into the electrical sockets every time you need a quick juice fix. I think it's cooking what's left of your brain."

"Oh. Okay."

A creaking noise drew their attention. Akabane, clad in a pair of boxers and a half-buttoned pajama top that was slipping from one shoulder, toddled into the hall clutching a fistful of tissues. He looked skinnier than usual, no doubt because he hadn't had much to eat besides soup and a few crackers in the past couple of days. He shoved past Ban and Ginji without so much as an excusing of his passage.

Ginji tried to be helpful. "Aw, cheer up and smile, Akabane-san. You'll be better soon."

Akabane stopped in his slouch toward the kitchen. He turned halfway around and the razor slit of purple fury in his face could have laid waste to entire acres of solid rock. Without a word he turned away and continued on his lethal path.

Ginji's face had gone nearly as white as the Jackal's shorts. "He's going to kill me, isn't he, Ban-chan?" he whispered.

Ban shrugged. "Probably. Don't let it bug you. Few more days with the dream juice - " he held up a bottle of green medicine and jostled it around - "and he'll be back to his mellow murdering self in no time."

"Why don't I find that reassuring?" Ginji wondered aloud. He nudged his friend. "You're taking this all awfully well, Ban-chan. What's your secret?"

Ban's eyes half-closed in ripe satisfaction as he held up the other bottle, a considerably larger one, in his hand. "My gift for strategy and a whole helluva lot of Mr. Daniels' finest cooperation."

XX

Eventually, as everything in life did, illness ran its course with the denizens of Shinjuku and daily activities resumed their regular balance. Or so one retriever thought when he took up his latest moneymaking scheme...

"Why are we here?" Akabane asked when the Subaru pulled off the main road and plowed a path into the closest field.

"Undercover mission," Ban explained as he parked. They got out of the car. "Ginji and I nailed this sweet deal with a bigwig from Okinawa. Successful infiltration of our target requires a crash course in archery. Just enough to blend in so's we can get friendly with the item we're supposed to recover," he said as he pushed back the driver's seat and pulled out a bow and quiver containing a dozen arrows.

Akabane followed him towards the center of the field. "Oh, I could help you with that, Ban-kun! I took archery during my sophomore year of boarding school. I was one of the topmost ranked in my class."

"Why does that not surprise me," Ban half-muttered, half-chuckled as he unfolded and strung the bow. "Shooting arrows can't be that much different from flinging a few knives. Just pull back and let fly."

He tried to demonstrate by nocking an arrow on the bow, but instead of flying true the arrow took a nosedive into the ground. "Okay. Nobody ever gets their first try right. Just need a little practice, is all..."

A half-hour, dozens of bent or broken arrows, and a plethora of obscenities later Ban wasn't having much luck in honing his talents at archery. Finally a resigned Akabane went to him and stopped him from nearly snapping the bow in half from frustration.

"Here, Ban-kun. The secret to a perfect shot is to let the tension in the bowstring do the work for you. You're pushing too much with your arm." Akabane took the bow from him and prepared to nock an arrow. "See? Pull back as far as the tension permits you, and..." His fingertips released the arrow, which flew straight into the nearest tree with a solid thunk. "All you need to do is loose the arrow with your fingers."

"I know that," an irritable Ban grumbled. "Sheesh, a four-year-old could do it..." But once again he failed to heed his lover's advice, and the next arrow took a fast trip right into the bushes.

"You're still pushing," Akabane said. "Aesclepius isn't necessary for this type of strength. The only thing you need to do once you have your aim in sight is release." He demonstrated by raising his fingers, pinched together, and then popping them open as if freeing his catch, without ever moving his hand or arm.

"The wind messed me up," Ban snarled as he raked a hand through his hair, which was remarkably unruffled by the nonexistent breeze.

"Of course." Akabane smiled tolerance through the next several of his beloved's attempts, but when Ban threatened a swift Snakebite to the bow that was giving him such fits, the transporter saw fit to intervene once more.

"Ban-kun. Watch me," Akabane gently scolded as he took back the bow.

"Maybe Ginji and I can just fake being club staff instead of members..." Ban mused.

"Shh. Watch." Akabane nocked another arrow and pulled back on the string. As the bow, in full setup, was at least as tall as a man, the retracted string took quite a bit of pull, and in correct pose it pressed up against the underside of the brim of Akabane's hat, bending it upward. Ban would have laughed at the ridiculous sight but for the fact that the look on Kuroudo's face was quite solemn – he took anything involving weaponry and battle dead serious, pun intended – so he kept his amusement muffled and stood back to observe the lesson.

Akabane held his form a moment longer, squinting one eye at the tree that he'd already dealt a stab wound to, then flicked his fingers apart, the only part of him to move. An eyeblink later, the unfortunate tree was studded with a second decoration.

"Not bad. If that had been an enemy, he'd be gone before you had time to give him your autograph," Ban begrudgingly admitted. He was annoyed that Akabane seemed to handle these things with such disturbing ease. This was supposed to be his mission; he was the star retriever here, after all.

Akabane beamed at the praise. "I'll do one more for your benefit." He placed his weapon and struck his pose, but just before he could release the arrow Ban put out his foot and lightly jarred the bottom half of the bow. The instrument jerked in Akabane's hand and he aimed higher than he had intended, the arrow sailing overhead into the blue skies.

"Ban-kun, this is no time for practical jokes - " Akabane broke off and both men stared when a loud screech above heralded the impending crash of the now-dead passerby into the ground at their feet.

"Oh shit. Is that one of those nesting species from the endangered lists?" Ban hesitated, then made a face as he gingerly reached down and pulled the bloody missile out of the vanquished bird.

"Didn't they recently raise the fines for illegal poaching?" Akabane asked.

"Crap. Grab the junk and let's get the hell out of here before somebody spots us!"

An agreeable Akabane helped him gather together the rest of the archery equipment and tote it back to the Ladybug. "I thought those things were extinct," Ban muttered as they hustled inside the car for a fast getaway.

Akabane favored him with a smug smile. "They are now."

Ban whipped the car out onto the road. "Look, Fuyuki can never know about this, okay? I don't need monkeymania breathing a bunch of vengeful crows down my back."

Akabane's brow did a sensuous caterpillar arch and the hairs on the back of Ban's neck instantly shot up.

"That depends, Midou-kun."

Ban took his focus off the road long enough to drill him with a stare. "What do you mean, 'that depends?'"

The transporter's face took on a deliciously wicked cast. "I've gotten tired of the usual opposition lately," Akabane declared archly. "I would like something a little more challenging to play with soon." His eyes suddenly lit with feral glee. "Miroku Seven!"

"Forget it. We talked about that, remember? I'd sooner you poked sticks at Fudou if you want battle-time jollies."

The smile evaporated. The eyebrow did another sharp bend. Akabane said nothing, but raised his hand. A flash of silver gleamed against the white glove.

Ban glanced at the cell phone, then to Akabane. He waited.

Akabane flipped the phone open. "Miroku Seven," he purred, "or I call the Beastmaster right now and tell him what you just did."

"Hey, you were the one holding the bow!"

"Yes, but you were the one who disrupted my concentration knowing that my intended target was the tree instead of the bird. Therefore you are the one responsible for its passing."

Ban groaned. Jackal-logic might twist one's brain into knots, but the crazy had a certain truth to it anyway. He let his forehead bump the top of the steering wheel as he ground out a slow hiss. "Natsuhiko's not gonna let me off easy on this one, the son of a bitch."

Content now that he had gotten his way, Akabane put the phone away and patted his shoulder comfortingly. "I knew you'd see reason sooner or later, dearest. Don't look so gloomy. I'm sure that if you discuss it nicely with him, Natsuhiko-kun would be delighted to let you join in the fun."

"Sure he would," Ban muttered. "Only he likes to let his sword do the discussion!"

"What a coincidence," Akabane mused with a smile. "So do I."

XX

"I've got good news and bad news," Maguruma said as the transporters sat down to breakfast one Monday morning at the Honky Tonk. "Who wants to go first?"

Ever the practical one, Himiko said, "Bad news first, then I know how strong to order my coffee."

"Well that's hardly a sunny attitude," Akabane chided. He looked at Maguruma. "Surely it can't be that bad. But all just the same, let's start with the good news and work from there. Hmm?"

Himiko shrugged. She already had a feeling she was going to be taking her coffee straight from the pot anyway.

Maguruma rolled his own shoulders. "Well. It's more for your benefit than ours." At Akabane's raised brow, he continued, once Paul had taken their orders and poured them all fresh drinks. "Good news is that if you play your cards right you'll be able to tangle with an entire party this coming weekend. Rumor has it that a protection service called the Miroku Seven might be guarding the same item we're supposed to transport."

Himiko groaned, while Akabane's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. "Oh my. That is very good news indeed," he purred, smile curling like the quintessential Cheshire cat's. He took a sip of his tea. "And the bad news?"

"It's a bugger this time. Client's sending us some extra passengers. For protection, he says. To piss us off, I say."

Akabane shrugged. "I don't mind. We've partnered with other transporters in the past. Why should this one be any different?"

Maguruma gave him a sour smile. "You haven't heard who it is. I almost walked right after he told me, except that my kids are going to need new clothes soon and Suzume's thinking about expanding her restaurant." He spread his hands in a half-shrug. "Hell. Maybe I should walk. Other jobs come along, right? Better ones..."

Himiko sat up in her seat, dread withering her features into a ferocious scowl. "Don't string us along, Maguruma. Who's the client sending?"

Akabane went to take another sip of his tea, casting her a curious glance, before turning to Maguruma. "Yes, do tell."

"Varlou."

There was a muffled wet gasp of tea being spluttered and choked on. Akabane had frozen in his seat, cup still raised to his lips. He blinked several times, composing himself and ignoring the burn of accidentally inhaled liquid. After a moment, he cast a glance at his partner and said in icily polite tones, "Correct me if I'm wrong, Gouzou, but…did you mention that name? The one that we despise above all others? The one that we shall not speak aloud in polite company because it is pure blasphemy?"

In spite of himself the driver grinned at his cohort's display of temper. "Varlou?"

Akabane's eyes slipped shut. He slowly lowered his cup to the counter. When those purple eyes reopened they landed on Maguruma with deathly intent. "Why would he be involved? He ought to be roasting like a plucked chicken on the sands of St. Tropez, last I had heard."

Maguruma shrugged. "Client's paranoid. Told me he hired him and the rest of that riffraff he hangs with to 'help' us make the run."

Himiko slammed a fist on the table. "We can't do a run with the Party Crashers! Everyone who's anyone in the transport world knows it wouldn't work! They'll ruin everything like they always do and take all the credit. And the money!"

"Never mind the money," Akabane said waspishly. "They spoil any chance at fun!"

"They just spoil everything, period," Himiko grumbled. "This client must be out of the loop. What was he thinking, hiring both us and the Crashers!"

"Apparently he believes in overkill," Maguruma said.

"Oh, there will be overkill, with Varlou around," Akabane growled softly.

Nearby, Kazuki Fuuchouin was intrigued. He gave Maguruma a curious look, which then shifted to Himiko, and then to Akabane. How interesting that Doctor Jackal had shown a rare flash of emotion. Momentarily putting aside his concern about retaliation for his eavesdropping, he ventured entrance into the conversation. "I don't understand. Who's this Varlou and what's so bad about him?"

All three transporters looked at him, then spoke at once. "A double-crossing dirtbag - " Maguruma started to say.

"An insufferable jerk - " Himiko fumed.

"A disreputable agent!" sniffed Akabane. "He's extremely unprofessional, and he never allows others to have any fun on a mission."

Kazuki and Maguruma looked at each other.

The burly man shrugged. "Varlou has had something of a crush on Akabane for ages."

"Gouzou!" Akabane hissed, long fingers curving clawlike around his cup.

"I take it this infatuation is completely one-sided," Kazuki said dryly.

"That's putting it mildly," Himiko said. "Varlou gets this sick pleasure out of annoying every transporter between here and the Honshu mountains. Rumor has it there's a bounty on him but no one's ever been able to collect. The little rat-fink has a gift for running and hiding, or else his hide would've been nailed to a wall ages ago."

Kazuki raised a brow at the venom in her tone. "By you or Doctor Jackal?"

Akabane and Himiko looked at each other. "Take your pick," Himiko replied.

Kazuki managed to withhold the smile threatening to mar his curiosity. "Himiko-san, if you'll forgive my asking…don't transporters usually make a better living than, say, retrievers?"

She gave off a low chuckle of her own, sounding uncannily like Akabane. "Usually. But we're dependent on the whims of the client. It's a very fluid business, and like any business it has its periods of stagnancy. You're in information; I'm sure you experience slow stretches where there's no worthwhile chatter."

"Of course."

Kazuki left his booth and settled at the counter to watch as Paul returned with the food and prepared another batch of coffee. Himiko continued in between bites of her scrambled eggs, now that she had a ready audience to expend her vitriol upon. "The times that we do land a contract, we often have to contend with interferences like the retrievers themselves. Or rival transporters – the one we were discussing is notorious for trying to steal others' contracts so he can hoard the best-paying clients for himself. There's a lot of repeat business so yes, a good transporter can build up a small fortune in a short time, if he – or she – proves themselves to be reliable." Himiko's starch posture and tone indicated that she was clearly proud of her skills in this department.

"So there's a grudge match involved."

Maguruma nodded, a grimace washing over his face as he polished off his hash browns in short order. "The bum's a renegade. Once a contract's been issued, you don't butt in on it if it belongs to someone else. Doing that makes the original hire lose face in front of the client, and that person might as well be roadkill."

"A weak mark is something no transport agent can afford," Akabane nodded, along with Himiko's hum of agreement.

"Varlou would betray his own mother if he thought it paid well enough," Maguruma said.

"His mouth is almost as big as Ban's, and he's got the ability to back it up, unfortunately for us," Himiko added. "It's common knowledge among most of the hakobiya that if we ever corner him, Maguruma's taken bets as to how Akabane and I will split the difference." Her lips thinned in grim amusement. "Literally."

"You may have his hindquarters, but I still call dibs on his head," Akabane said, neatly finishing off his two pieces of toast as he cut them – with a fork – into precise little shapes. "I want to see the look on that scoundrel's face when I put a stop to his shenanigans once and for all."

"Not if I get there first," Himiko countered. "You'll be lucky if there's anything left to carve up once I fry him with my flame scent!"

"Tsk, tsk. Greed is most unbecoming, Himiko-san..."

Kazuki laughed quietly, finding an odd amusement in the ire with which the stranger was held, or perhaps he was entertained by the transporters' candor. "Well, other than greediness, what exactly did this Varlou do to land himself in hot water with you guys?"

"He stole one of my scalpels!" Akabane suddenly huffed before either of his cohorts could respond. He leveled Kazuki with a frigid glare, his voice streaming out in an arctic hiss. "I had precisely one hundred and ten source materials before that wretched man crossed my path one day! One hundred and ten! I detest uneven numbers. It's not proper," he groused, turning back to the table to sulk in his tea.

"I thought it was a hundred and eight," Kazuki ventured. "Or was that before your parental inheritance kicked in?" Like everyone else, he'd heard about the reconciliation between Akabane and his father, Alistair.

Akabane lifted a gloved hand and a glowing blue spire extended from between his index and middle fingers. "Valentine's Day gift from Midou-kun," he said curtly, before withdrawing the one hundred-and-ninth knife, his father's one hundred-and-tenth blade nestled cleanly next to it.

"Ahh."

"Before Himiko came along as Lady Poison, I worked a job once where Jackal and I were partnered with the Party Crashers," Maguruma said, taking pity on Kazuki's insatiable interest. "I wasn't happy when I heard about the addition because I'd already heard of their reputation. But I went along with it because the client was offering a lot of money and at the time, I was trying to help put my wife through a business management course."

The story was put on hold while Paul returned to take the coffeepot and teapot off their warmers and pour everyone a fresh serving; so long as the money kept flowing, he had little problem with dispensing his wares. Thus refreshed, Himiko picked up where Maguruma had left off.

"Varlou betrayed them – went behind their backs to the client ahead of time and picked up the payment to keep for himself. Said he'd done all the work and that No-Brakes and Jackal had never even shown up. By the time Maguruma found out, Varlou had vanished into thin air. No one's ever been able to track him; they don't even know where he comes from or what his real name is. 'Varlou' is just the alias he uses. But that's not uncommon for people in our line of work."

The big man across from her nodded. "I'll run that dirty-dealing son of a bitch over with my truck if I ever come across him again." He cast a furtive glance at Paul, expecting a rebuke. "Eh, pardon my French."

"I've heard a lot worse from Ban, trust me," the shopkeeper assured him.

"I can just imagine what kind of fit you probably threw," Kazuki dared to say to Akabane.

Maguruma answered for him. "Actually, Jackal wasn't that upset. He wasn't thrilled with the blight cast on his professional attributes, sure. But money's not his thing, so he didn't have as much stake in the mission as I did."

"Then why such animosity? Surely a missing scalpel can be easily replaced."

"It's the principle of the matter," Akabane coldly informed the other man. "Besides, I liked that scalpel. It cut very nicely through - " He noticed Kazuki staring at him, and frowned. "Melons. Really, Kazuki-san. What did you think I was going to say?"

The threadmaster coughed awkwardly. "You don't strike me as someone who stoops to petty feuding," Kazuki said, thinking with no small measure of regret of his own myriad clan, as thoughts of the Ura faction's enmity against the Omote's surfaced in the rear of his mind.

Himiko shook her head. "Kazuki-san, in case you hadn't noticed, Akabane has a very distinct signature. He's so fast that his J's never take more than three and a half moves to complete, and they're always done in a single long cut that arcs sharply as it forms the outline."

"Like this," Akabane said, and demonstrated by seamlessly tracing the letter in the air with a knife-free fingertip. "There have been copycats, of course, but no one can even come close to equaling my skill. It's a rare art form in its own unique category," he declared, ignoring the green looks of unease his announcement garnered.

Maguruma contemplated his remaining coffee while Paul discreetly removed their finished plates. "Varlou puts the J-mark on some of his own victims. It's a way to further tweak Jackal's nose so that those unfamiliar with his work will think he's responsible for the sloppiness."

"And he also likes to sign his name, his full name, on the bodies he does want to claim as his own," Himiko put in.

Kazuki needed a few seconds to ease the coffee in his mouth down his throat, lest he choke on it in a fit of sputtering disbelief. "Wait – wait a minute. You're telling me that Doctor Jackal has it in for a man who stole his signature killing protocol?" he finally gasped out.

"It's a point of honor!" Akabane growled, his nose in the air. "Just because it's a battle doesn't mean there are no rules to observe. Consistency in due course is a must. I refuse to allow some pampered upstart to believe he's exempt from those rules, if he's going to play in our territory." He downed the last of his tea and rose from his seat to pay Paul.

"Not gonna join us then, huh?" Maguruma prompted him.

Akabane concluded his transaction with Paul and shot his cohort a baleful look. "I would rather spend the weekend hooked up to an ice-cold catheter than dignify that vulgarian's insults with my presence!"

"Too bad. You'll miss all the fun," Gouzou teased.

"Hmph! You'll be spending the night parked on the street bored out of your skull. Meanwhile the Party Crashers will have snuck in the back way, stolen the item and made fools of us once more," Akabane said. "I'm sure Midou-kun and I can find better ways to waste the evening away."

Paul looked up from his newspaper. "I thought you were the best," he said.

Akabane paused in the doorway of the Honky Tonk. "I am," he said tartly. "But I do not quarrel with my fellow transport workers...without due cause," he finished, lowering his eyes momentarily before raising them to the others again. "It's most unbecoming to a gentleman. Good day, everyone."

"Don't even try to strain yourself attempting to figure him out," Maguruma advised Paul once Akabane was gone. "I gave up twisting my brain into bow ties a long time ago."

Paul just shook his head and went back to reading his paper. Sometimes it was better not to ask.

XX

TBC