Never Ever May You See The Light of Day

Minato frowned at Homura. "'He's a dead man'? What do you mean?"

"I mean," Homura snarled, the smoke about his body growing thicker, "the next time I see him, I'll kill him."

Uzume was clearly shocked, and those outside couldn't blame her. "Why?!"

A calming hand from Musubi cooled Homura down, though the brunette clearly looked more rattled than usual. "You should see," Musubi said worryingly. "Then you'll understand… Oh, I can't!"

Like a bolt of lightning went Musubi, zooming into Minato's arms and crushing him to herself.

"I was so worried about you!" she bawled. "I stayed up all night thinking! What if he'd gotten to you, too? Why couldn't you have been here? We needed you!"

Minato wasn't sure what this was all about, but he got the feeling his Sekirei, being intensely emotional beings by default, might've been overreacting to whatever this was. He would've known if Tsukiumi got herself deactivated, just like he did with Musubi. So, if it wasn't anything like that, it was probably nothing major. They could talk it out, resolve it, Minato would calm everyone down, and then he could figure out what Kagedansu's side was in all of this.

Kazehana in tow, with Uzume and Chiho following close behind, Musubi led everyone inside.

"What happened to Ku?" Kazehana asked.

Minato glanced back at her. "Something wrong?"

"I can hear her." The Wind Sekirei pointed upstairs. "She's crying."

Minato glared at the others, as if to say, And no one's comforting her?

Homura, who'd never taken his eyes off Minato, glared right back at him. Matsu caught his look and matched it with a bewildered, don't-you-put-this-on-me wrinkled lip.

Upstairs in Tsukiumi's room, they opened the door to find a terrible sight awaiting them.

"Oh..." Chiho's hands clasped together in despair. "This must be little Kusano."

Indeed, they'd found Ku, sobbing face-down into Tsukiumi's hip. An untouched plate of rice balls and fish sat, ignored, within arm's reach of Ku, not even a single detached granule of rice to suggest that any of the non-greens had been touched. Ku's hair was matted and unkempt, and her dress was marked by grass and mud stains. Her feet were likewise dirty, and red. They looked sore.

Tsukiumi herself lay still on the futon, the gentle rise and fall of her lovely bust pulling at the black folds of her night gown. Unlike Kusano, Tsukiumi was absolutely breathtaking. For how often she fell to wrath, that Tsukiumi's beauty always shone through was a testament to its potency. With the waves of her locks and their gold-spun color, the slender contours of her cheeks and jaw, she was the perfect portrait of a slumbering princess.

It was marred, however, by a pair of fading bruises on her temples, staining her fair complexion with purple filth. Not only that, but her cheek appeared swollen, just a little.

A dark shadow descended over Minato. "Who did this?"

Ku bolted upright and slowly, fearfully, turned around. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy; her nose was running, and her cheeks shimmered with tearful wetness.

"I'm sorry!" she wailed. "I didn't mean to! I didn't know! Waaah!"

"Know what?" Minato asked, striding up and kneeling in front of her.

"Big brother's mad at me!"

"Ku, just tell me what happened."

"Waaah!"

"Kusano."

The little girl just kept crying.

"Look at me."

She couldn't, not with her eyes scrunched up and tears blinding her.

"Fine," said Minato, "you can tell me after you calm down." Then he tried to pick her up.

Ku screamed and started pushing and shoving and kicking at him, her tiny appendages bouncing off of Minato's developed structure. She wasn't hurting him; even if she weren't a Sekirei, she simply lacked the power and know-how to inflict harm. That is, until one of her flailing hands almost poked Minato in the eye.

"KUSANO! THAT'S ENOUGH!" He nearly dropped her in anger. His grip on her wrist left her dangling down, kicking and screaming in the air. He set her down, grabbed her, and shook her shoulders.

"I WAS NOT ANGRY WITH YOU!" Minato bellowed. "NOW I AM! YOU AREN'T HELPING ANYONE BY ACTING OUT!"

He picked her up again, holding her out like a malodorous garbage bag, and plopped her down in front of the assembled women.

"Get her out of here," he snapped. "Someone, I don't care who."

Kazehana, though she wore the wide-eyed look of a frightened deer in the headlights, stepped up. "Come on, Ku."

Kusano screamed again, ran down the hall, darted into Kazehana's room, and slammed the door behind her.

"Poor girl," Chiho murmured mournfully.

Kazehana sighed. "Guess we'll just have to let her cool off."

There was still the matter at hand, and Minato was examining the marks on her pretty blonde head.

"That's not the problem," Homura stated.

Minato glared at him. "Not in the mood, Homura. Just tell me what happened."

Homura gestured to Tsukiumi. "Turn her over and find out."

Rolling his eyes, Minato levered a hand under Tsukiumi's (surprisingly dense) shoulder and gently rolled her on to her side. He tugged at the neck of her gown to see that, just like he knew it would be, her crest was still-

Black.

Minato blinked. No, his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, nor was the shadow of her dress affecting the light. Just like Kagedansu, just like Uzume, Tsukiumi's magical Sekirei tattoo had been filled with black ink.

A heavy sigh, a weary sigh, announced Matsu's approach. She sat down next to Minato. Her legs curling against her chest gave him the most awful sense of deja vu.

"Stick around," she told Chiho and Uzume. "This concerns you, too."

With a fearful look at each other, the reunited couple cautiously took a seat on the floor next to her. Kazehana found a spot next to Minato, unconsciously sliding her fingers around his forearm. Musubi and Homura remained standing, though Homura kept glowering at his Ashikabi, arms folded against the wall.

"It was just before dinner," Matsu began. "I'd just finished checking the path I got from Higa."

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Everything checked out. It was an MBI server with MBI encryption, and the codes and file paths she'd been given had proven legit. Even with this rinky-dink little laptop she'd been using, lest she endanger her more precious powerhouse processors, she'd been able to gain access to this backroom server no problem.

Now, she thought, cackling to herself, tell Matsu-obasan what you're hiding.

As it turned out, not much. There was a PDF file called "Report Card", a folder called "School Photos" containing images, and another folder called "Home Movies" filled with videos.

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"Then why bring it up?" Minato demanded impatiently.

"I was getting to that," Matsu said. "Its simplicity was a final layer of defense, to try and disappoint a hacker into leaving it alone. Believe me, Minaka was never one for code names."

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Clicking on "Report Card", Matsu was surprised to find a scan of an analog Sekirei file, the pen strokes dating the materials to about 4 years ago. Come to think of it, none of these files were older than that, save for the PDF's creation date of five days prior. These were old, yet someone had suddenly decided to archive them all in the same place.

The scan was for a much younger Kagedansu, his hair longer and shaggier than his half-centimeter butch cut. His face was also a bit rounder, and what neck could be seen in his profile pic was large but not the Pillar of Hercules it would become.

Also scanned was the scribble on the photo, "Atypical body development." So, even back then he didn't fit the Sekirei mold. There were a few other notes like "diminished testosterone," which utterly baffled Matsu given his development, until she saw his next profile picture. This Kagedansu was as stringy as his Ashikabi, with sunken-in cheeks and a twig-like neck that could snap from a loud fart. Sekirei were generally slim, but this seeming malnourishment bordered on ridiculous. How could a fist-type be so flimsy?

Matsu's eyes frantically scrolled down the PDF. Everything from this point looked like a standard Sekirei file, from the mug shot to the page design to the style of the calligraphy. The handwriting looked familiar; she knew she'd seen it somewhere before, on a Sekirei she'd studied with some regularity; questions for later. The question now was what did Higa want her to see so badly?

Name: "Kagedansu"

Even MBI didn't seem to know what to make of his name.

Number: 67

Alias: Shadow Sekirei

Sub-species:

"'Brain-type'?!"

Even as she spoke the words aloud, a million and one tiny pieces began falling into place. Why didn't he wear gloves like other fist-types? Why didn't he exhibit any kind of the flashy attacks Musubi and The Red Sekirei used? Why, with his giant muscles, was he only as strong as Musubi? Sure, he could crumple up steel girders with a single blow, but so could Matsu's inn-mate. If he'd been a fist-type, given the size of his pythons, he might've been strong enough to topple buildings. Musubi's arms were by no means extra-thick but they still packed one hell of a wallop.

Furthermore, it explained his early development. He wasn't meant to be a fighter, but a strategist like her. MBI had kept this information classified, both from Kagedansu and from their staff, because Matsu had seen his official file. He was listed as a fist-type, albeit with an unusual quirk.

And it all started to make a sickening amount of sense with what she read next.

Matsu nearly hit her thighs on her desk springing to her feet. She'd been right. Tsukiumi had been right, all those baths ago. She'd let such a powerful adversary into their midst and all the while, he could've very well torn them up. Already a sickening theory was forming in her brain as those million and one pieces formed a cohesive picture. No, wait…

This came from Higa. She shouldn't be so quick to take it at face value. All the same, maybe it was best if she kept looking.

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"I should've assumed," Matsu spat. "Would've saved me a lot of time and headache."

She sighed wearily. "Anyway, I kept going through everything until I heard Musubi announce dinner."

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Matsu emerged from her room when she heard someone else emerge from Minato's, where they'd left Ku to sleep off her trauma. That someone was Kagedansu, quietly easing the door shut behind himself.

"Kagedansu," Matsu said simply, her tablet in her hands with the scans on board.

"Yeah?" he replied.

Might as well get his side of all this, before she showed it to the others. So, she showed him first.

"Care to explain this?"

He saw everything she had: name, number, designation, sub-species, tuner,

And, finally, the line that tied it all together.

Primary power: psionic sensory manipulation

"Where'd you get all that from?" he asked, pointing to the screen.

"A top-secret MBI database. Very hard to break into, almost as hard as the rest of the Sekirei files, unplugged from the database until a few days ago," Matsu said. "Now start talking."

Kagedansu stroked his chin, yellow eyes still wandering up and down the data sheet. Finally, his hand fell to his pocket, which Matsu only now realized was bulging out.

"Well, lemme answer that with another question…" His fingers slipped into said pocket, and pulled out its contents. "What's this?"

It was the Jinki, No. 8. The one Matsu had stolen.

Matsu's breath silenced in her throat. How had he found that? Even with the strange file, there was nothing mentioned about his ability to read minds.

"Where did you get that?" she asked, trying very hard not to let her panic show.

"Soon as you tell me what it is," Kagedansu said, juggling it in his fingers, "and where you got it."

Matsu considered her options, and a thought sprang to mind. Given what she knew about him, what she'd just discovered, what he knew about the Third Stage, and how he seemed to be ignorant of the Jinki…

"It's nothing," she said casually. "Just a paperweight."

"Oh," he said, looking at its many jewel-like facets. "Can I have it?"

"No," she said. "You took that from my room, didn't you?"

"And you took it from MBI, didn't you?"

Now Matsu's eyes widened, despite herself.

"Because," he said, reaching into his other pocket, "it looks an awful lot..."

He pulled out Jinki #02.

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"What?!" Minato cried. "When? How?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Matsu asked, her expression turning more sour than a glass of bad lemonade. "Kagedansu was the one who took it in the First Match."

Kazehana glanced down at Tsukiumi. A theory of her own was forming, one most terrible, and she suspected Matsu had thought the same already.

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"...like mine," Kagedansu finished. "Why would you lie to me about something like this?"

Now Matsu lost control of herself. They'd accounted for every Jinki won in the Third Stage. Kagedansu had done it himself that very day, conveniently omitting that-

"It was you," Matsu said.

"And what if it was?!" Kagedansu exclaimed. "Is this why you've been sitting pretty while everyone else has been kicking and biting, trying to get their hands on one of these so they can have even a chance at making it through this god-damned game?!"

He clutched both Jinki in his fists and pointed at her. "That ain't fair," he glowered. "Why should I have to risk life and limb to get one of these while you just sit on one?"

Matsu felt her anger boil hotter than she could remember it being in a long time. "YOU THINK I JUST WALTZED THROUGH MBI AND TOOK IT?!"

She was… Wow. She was so angry that she came all the way around from hot back to cold again. It was like switching from a blowtorch to a liquid nitrogen valve: polar opposites, but both would still leave burn victims.

"I nearly died getting that out of MBI," she calmly seethed. "It's why I'm trapped in this house. It's why MBI has it out for me. It's why Uzume couldn't get help for her Ashikabi: because she helped me escape."

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Chiho looked to her Sekirei. "Is that true, Uzume?"

Hesitating, Uzume gave a slow nod. To wit, Chiho laid her head on Uzume's bust and hugged her waist.

"I wish you'd told me sooner," said Chiho softly. "I was afraid Higa had something on you, and was using that to keep me under his, ahem, 'care'."

Chuckling regretfully, Uzume returned the hug. "I wish I had, too, but then the thing with Hametsu happened."

At which, Matsu's head dipped and Homura looked like he was about to spit blood.

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"Maybe," said Kagedansu dismissively, his face growing more relaxed and passive, "but what gives you the right to advance and not someone else?"

"It's not. About. Advancing," Matsu growled. "It's. About. Keeping it. SSSafe. From MBI."

The Shadow Sekirei, surprisingly, nodded. "Which anyone could do, once they won it."

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"'It doesn't matter,'" Musubi said, quoting herself. "That's what I said when I heard what was going on, after I went upstairs to find out why no one came down for dinner yet. We were having chicken curry, too."

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"That's not yours," Musubi said, squaring up to the larger Sekirei. "Give it back to Matsu."

"It's not hers, either," Kagedansu countered.

"Give it back," repeated Musubi.

Kagedansu looked at her, then back at Matsu, then back at Musubi and folded his arms, hiding the Jinki. "No fighting in the house. What are you gonna do if I say no? Wait for Miya?"

Musubi's fierce smile remained as she bared her fists, then opened her fingers. "I don't have to fight, just take that from you."

"You can't beat me, Musubi," he said, shrugging. "You're not good enough."

Just then, the door to Minato's room opened. Kagedansu leaned to one side so he could see past Musubi.

"Ku, you're up already?" he said.

Ku, eyes still bloodshot from sleep deprivation, didn't reply with words. Instead, thick, dark green tendrils burst forth from Minato's room and caught Musubi and Matsu in their snake-like grip. Matsu was powerless against them, but even Musubi seemed to be having trouble breaking free. What's worse, the vines kept sliding across their mouths, gagging them and stopping them from crying out or catching her breath. It was a devious, calculated move, one that Matsu didn't think Ku capable of.

Kagedansu looked the situation over, eyeing each of the Sekirei in turn. Neither Matsu nor Musubi could tell what he was thinking, a frown on his brow the only signal he gave towards his inner thoughts. As his head swiveled back and forth, processing the scope of the status quo he was in, the frown began to relax along with his other features. All signals faded, replaced by the blank stare of an automaton. Even his shoulders relaxed into empty ease.

"I think I'll go for a walk," he stated in a low-class British accent, pivoting on his heel and ducking beneath the writhing foliage that held Musubi. As he passed her by, she saw the tiniest little shift in his eyes, widening from a blank stare to a bottled-up look of regret. She couldn't look for long, as the vines pulled at her hands now, trying to keep them from freeing her face with her returning Sekirei strength.

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"You really couldn't get out?" Kazehana asked.

Musubi shook her head. "I felt tired, like I'd just eaten too much cake. It was hard to concentrate."

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As Kagedansu passed Ku, the Green Girl stuck out her hand for Kagedansu to grasp. He led her down the stairs without complaint. As they stepped down, the shadow they cast from the hall lamp swiveled across behind them, as if some new light in the stairwell overwhelmed the hall lamp. The shadow grew longer, the two silhouettes merging together into a newer, less-defined outline, vaguely humanoid with a giant tumor atop its fridge-like shape. The line of a violet mouth split the tumor, opening to reveal two rows of imperfect teeth.

He's not fooling anyone, you know, it said. I think I'll join them.

The mouth closed and vanished, the body quickly losing form and drizzling down the stairs.

It was at this point that Musubi felt her tiredness fade in earnest, and she began to make progress against the vines. Oh, they were a slippery bunch, as good at sliding free of her grip as they were at holding her down. Every time she thought she had them, a new one would snap around her mouth. She finally realized that there wasn't any way to stop these things without hurting the plant, and with a muffled apology set about ripping the greenery apart with her bare hands.

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"They were outside when I heard Musubi yell," muttered Homura. "Ku got me with her plants, but Tsukiumi was able to cut her way free and go after them."

"Why didn't you just burn them?" Chiho asked.

Homura scowled. "First of all, I'd set fire to the fence and the lawn and the house. Second, I was having issues with my powers, too. You think I wouldn't have cut through the vines if I could? That's just insulting."

"Okay, okay!" Chiho said defensively.

The Fire Sekirei shook his head, glaring at Chiho. "I only broke free when the plants stopped moving. By the time I caught up, Kagedansu was gone and Tsukiumi was like... this."

"Cool off, Kagari," Uzume warned, interposing herself between him and Chiho. "We're all on edge here, but let's keep it civil, 'kay?"

Homura snorted. "'Civil.'" He gestured to Tsukiumi. "It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened."

"I know," Minato muttered, his jaw clenching up. "He got to him. The asshole finally got to him."

"...What?" Homura said it, but though Minato didn't know, he wasn't the only one thinking it.

"Hametsu practically told me what he was doing," Minato said, pulling at his neck-length black hair. "That nightmare he put us in, it ended with Hametsu taking over-"

"Minato," Homura stated, irritated, "Kagedansu is Hametsu."

All movement stopped, or so it seemed. The Ashikabi's features appeared frozen, but over the course of a moment that seemed to go on forever, The Fire Sekirei's words lit a fuse in his Ashikabi. The bridge of Minato's nose began to wrinkle. The sinews in his neck began to bulge. His lips clenched so hard that he could've cracked a peanut between them. The skin on his face began to slide up onto his cheeks, until the hollows of his jaw were visible from how thin the flesh was stretched. At any moment, surely his face would crack and reveal the bleached skull beneath.

"Get out."

Homura didn't take the hint. "Come on, even you can't deny it."

"I SAID GET OUT!"

Silence followed. Chiho looked to Uzume, who in turn looked to Kazehana, who looked to Matsu, who decided to grasp Homura and Musubi by the shoulder to tow them out. Those who were emotionally compromised yielded poorly to reason.

So, Minato was alone. He knew this, even though one of his Sekirei, his beautiful water goddess, lay before him. Alone with his thoughts, whirling around in his brain like a sea vortex, too many to grapple with at once, there wasn't much he could manage to do.

Nothing, that is, except buckle at the waist and weep.

It didn't matter if Kagedansu was the puppet or the puppetmaster, if Hametsu controlled him or if he controlled Hametsu. Minato couldn't be asked to care. He dared not dwell on it; the heartbreak would've broken more than just his heart.

So he didn't. Instead, he dwelt on the fact that Tsukiumi had been irrevocably taken from him just as Izanagi had been taken from Kagedansu. She lay before him, and yet he'd never felt further from her since they first met. He could reach out and touch her, yet it felt like touching a living corpse, warm enough to tantalize the fragile psyche by its illusion of life. He could run his fingers through her blonde hair and trace the bones in her cheek, yet it brought him no joy, knowing that she felt nothing of it.

It was too much. He sank into her exposed collar, his despair trailing down her elegant neck in glimmering lines. His hands found her again and clutched her to himself, cradling her head in the most intimate and yet most empty embrace he'd ever bestowed upon her. Without Tsukiumi, without her spark, there was no joy. It was like hugging a marble statue.

Minato lifted his head, looking upon her face, so uncharacteristically serene, naively and faithfully hoping some divine miracle of cosmic generosity would bring his precious wife back to him. He stroked a stray bang away from her forehead, though he knew he was desperately trying, gently, to force her eyes open. When they didn't, in moment after moment where he waited for them to stir, he finally had to concede that she was gone.

What failed? How could so many things have gone wrong so fast? His day had been a leap of joy, from the top of a skyscraper to the pavement below. First his Sekirei turned on him, then he found out Kagedansu turned on him, then Ku, and now this. If just one, just one thing could go his way, he'd want it to be her. Chiho had somehow come back from Hametsu or Kagedansu or whoever-was-responsible's black touch. Uzume had gotten her happy ending. Why not him? Why not Sahashi Minato?

What could he do? What was there left to do? Nothing, he thought, except wish his wife farewell, kiss her goodbye, and move to track down her murderer.

Running his thumb along her pristine lips, Minato leaned forward and chastely kissed her. Even now, he desperately tried to will her back to life by injecting a hint of hunger into his last gift, waiting for her tongue to respond in kind. But no: only her wings, tinted and shaded from their usual cyan splendor, provided his answer.

This was it. He was done fooling himself. The valiant knight he was, he stood from kneeling abasement before his queen and turned to carry out his self-appointed task.

However...