Secluded from the city and surrounded by nature. The lodge looks spacious and clean. A traditional style and light colours. It is a perfect hiding place for the Detective Agency staff. The perfect hostages.
"What a great lodge!" John comments. "If we plow the land, we can grow a nice hortiged here."
"It is favorable that we actually do the job." Ozumi spats.
"Shall I capture the girls?" mumbles Howard.
"No, you will just finish the job before it is even commenced. The same goes for me." Ozumi says. "Let's utilise John's ability for this."
From his overalls pocket, John retrieved a small, brown pouch and a sharp blade. He empties the pouch to his palm and half a dozen plant seeds fall from it. Promptly, he stabs himself on the neck. The smile fades from his face as the blade pierces his skin, but the corners of his lips tug upwards when he inserts one single seed into his flesh. The wound closes immediately. And opens again when a small weak branch grows from his skin. The branch grows into grape vine that towers over them. Besides the small root on John's neck and face, the larger roots curl on the concrete floor and flood the lodge area.
The sight is ungodly, but Ozumi doesn't turn away from it. Soon, they would find their prey.
John closes his eyes in concentration. Through the roots, he searches the targets.
In a matter of seconds, he opens his darkened eyes. His smile is cold.
"There you are." he whispers.
He gestures to his comrades to follow him. Ozumi accompanies his relaxed steady step, while Horward drags his feet behind them, but always close by.
They never got to escape very far. Just down the road, there is a car tangled on the grape vines roots. The metal bended under the pressure and the windows were cracked. The Detective Agency staff was inside.
"That must've been scary.," John speaks louder. "Apologies my ladies."
From inside the car, the same woman who served Francis a cup of tea at the meeting with the Agency and another woman with glasses peek at their capturers. The first one is obviously faking a tough act, but the second trembles with their presence.
"Tell me," John continues. "Do either of you know much about grape vines? What they do is, they seek out other plants to attach themselves to and then grave their shoots together. Allow me to demonstrate."
At that last sentence, he raises his arm towards the roots holding the car. The metal buckles from the higher pressure applied by the roots. The windows crack further, almost to a breaking point.
"If I'm urging my grape vines with the surrounding flora, I can use all the plants in this area as an extension of my own body. And because the senses of this vegetation are in tune with my own, I'm afraid that running away from me is simply an impossibility."
His explanations are taking too long. If Ozumi was by herself, she believes the targets would've been acquired, at least, ten minutes ago. She would already be on her way back and they could move on with the plan. However, Ozumi has to admit, his ability is quite the useful one. And also, incredibly flammable.
"C'mon now, don't look so upset!" John says with a cheery smile. "All I need is a favour."
"When a villain asks you for a favour," the woman at the driver's seat responds. "All they're going to do is take something from you and then throw you away."
John starts to speak, but gets interrupted by Ozumi.
"If this woman is already aware of who we are," Ozumi speaks, the heat of her presence rises. "We must get this show started without any other delays."
Her face breaks into a twisted smile, her eyes widened with anticipation as the palms of her hands raise from her sides.
"Lady Ozumi, what are you doing?" John inquired.
"There is no reason to retain the facade. I am done being nice." her smile grew sinister "Why waste any more time with useless explanations? Let's burn them down!"
"But-"
"Silence, John. I'm done listening to you talk too."
As fire sparkles from her palms, Ozumi steps closer to the roots that hold the car.
"We are supposed to take them alive." John warns.
"They will be alive, you must not worry." she inches her palm closer to the root. It only takes an instant for it to lit a flame of its own, right at the base, near the concrete. "They will happen to be mildly crispy. That is all."
Inside the car, the women cry in fright and hug each other tight as the heat starts to rise.
"You know, Lady Ozumi, when the fire spreads, I happen to feel it. It causes great pain to me."
Ozumi glares over her shoulder.
"And what do you wish for me to do about it?"
Unbeknownst to them, as the flames grow higher and climb the roots, they are being surrounded. Without warning, a shot is fired from behind and hits Horward's leg. John gasps with his friends tumbling down to the ground. Another shot is fired and John falls to his side Ozumi whirls to face the new enemy. The gun is pointed to her leg. However, before the blond man has time to fire, Ozumi propels herself in the air with the force of her flames shooting from the soles of her feet. Another pair of ruined sandals.
"While your staff incinerates, I will allow you to entertain me. What a wonderful way to save time!" Ozumi's voice gets higher with all the adrenaline in her blood.
She can barely hold the flames that so desperately want to come out and burn everything Ozumi can lay an eye on. To incinerate the city that disgusts her the most.
At the sound of voices behind her, Ozumi whirls her head to find another member of the Agency in an attempt to rescue his friends. Another shot is fired and almost grazes her left arm.
"You lot are so much fun!" Ozumi chuckles as she lands abruptly on the concrete. "But you will lose."
Her hand moves to the whip at her hip. Flames cover the leatherette, from the wrist of the whip all the way to the point. With one swing of her arm, the whip curls around the blond man's hand and the gun falls. He cries from the burns on his skin.
"Kunikida!" his peers calls.
"Don't worry about me. Rescue them!" he shouts.
With his free hand, he reaches inside of his jacket and retrieves a small, folded piece of paper.
"Doppo poetry!" he shouts.
In an instant, the paper turns into a similar handgun and he points it directly at Ozumi's head. In return, Ozumi tightens the grip and pushes the whip a little more. His flesh burns faster in the process. His face contorts in a mixture of anger and pain, but his aim does not falter and he holds Ozumi's gaze on his own.
Behind her, the roots continue to burn, however, the girls have escaped and the kid who freed them orders them to run.
By Ozumi's side, John slowly gets on his feet.
"I had a feeling this might happen." he sighs. "It seems my sources weren't as reliable as I thought."
The man doesn't answer. His jaw is clenched, as if he opens his mouth, he will scream from the pain and subside. The boy who came with him isn't moving either. It is far from over.
In those seconds of tense silence, John makes a move and whips one of his vines in the blond's direction. In one swift movement, Kunikida, as he was called, fires the grape vines but to no avail as the roots are stronger than the bullets and more persistent.
The same scenario happens. The roots curl around his forearm and the man is forced to let go of the gun.
"Kunikida!" his peers calls once again.
"Let me guess, your plan is to keep me away from the vegetation so I can't use my powers to stop those girls." John speaks calmly. A serene smile on his face. "Your over-simplified battle strategy becomes easy to predict."
"Not only that, you are trying to make feeble guesses about the uses of my ability. Assuming you saw the demonstration, up until now, you could only assume I have to touch something to burn it. Let me show you…" Ozumi's tone gets lower as she raises the palm of her left hand and directs it to the forest behind her. "By burning your friends to a crisp that you should never underestimate your enemies!"
"Tanizaki, do it now!" Kunikida manages to shout. "Doppo poetry!"
Ozumi glares over her shoulder, but the red-hair is no longer there. She turns her head to her right side to witness the exact same scene. A piece of paper in both of the man's hands turns into fire guns. And instead of aiming it at his enemies, he aims for the middle ground. No man's land. And he shot twice to break the restraints that held his peer.
With incredible speed, Kunikida advances in their direction. First putting John on the floor facing upwards. Then, leaving Ozumi no time to process, he trips her to fall the exact same way. Tanizaki runs to his side and delivers one of the guns to him.
Ozumi glares, not at the gun aimed at her, but at the man who holds it.
John's vine roots disappear and the car crashes into the road.
"If you over-simplify battle strategy," Kunikida starts. "You become easy to predict. You should heed your own works."
John sighs in frustration.
"And I assure you," he peers down on Ozumi through the lenses of his glasses. "I have learned that precious lesson long ago," a firm stand and grip on his gun, he continues. "What secret group from a super powerful organization goes abroad to abduct people?"
"Those are hurtful words." John pretends to be offended. "But as my boss once said, 'the purpose of the Guild isn't to be a force for good. It's to do what needs to be done'." he sneers.
A quote Ozumi herself had heard many times for the last few years.
From her peripheral and upside down vision, Ozumi perceives something that left a satisfied grin on her face. As stated before, it is far from over.
Behind the Agency members, Howard rises. He starts from the sole of his feet, firm on the road, then his body unfolds from the ground in quite a disturbing picture. At the sound of movement, they gasp and whirl their heads.
"Kunikida, behind!" Tanizaki warns.
The look of surprise wipes from his face as Kunikida turns his back on the fallen enemies and shoots a series of bullets towards Horward. All of them hit the target, but Horward remains unfazed as he wobbles towards the Agency member.
Both John and Ozumi change to comfortable seating positions in the meantime. Their part is mostly over.
"You're late, Lovecraft." John says, his flat cap lolls on the end of his finger.
"About time you made yourself useful." Ozumi agrees.
"I was sleeping." Howard answers.
"Oh, you…" John sighs.
"Sorry."
Howard opens the palms of his hands as begins to gather energy for his ability.
"Junichiro, use your ability to hide!" Kunizaki orders.
It is too late. Howard would take care of the rest. He barely has the time to finish the sentence as a series of tentacles grow from Howard's shoulders and attack the Agency members. In a single second, they were both trapped, high in the air.
He isn't one of their strongest for no reason.
"Are we supposed to kill them?" he asks in his slow speech.
"We should kill them for breaking my favourite whip." Ozumi snarls, moving the halves of her wip aside with her foot.
Howard tightens the grip on his tentacles.
"I'm not so sure," John says. "We could ask for orders after we catch the girls. Let's see where they are…"
With that, John pierces through the concrete with his root.
Ozumi furrows her brows and bites the inside of her lip.
"Goody-two shoes." she mutters under her breath.
If they have them trapped and they have no use, they should just kill them. They would get on their way sooner or later if they didn't. But John was one to like to waste his time with bed time stories.
"Alright!" John suddenly speaks. "That wraps up our story."
That meaning, he managed to catch the girls.
"We will take our leave, before the authorities decide to grace us with their presence." Ozumi says.
"Yes, my lady." John agrees, a hint of annoyance in his tone.
Ozumi took one last glance at the Agency faces. Their crestfallen expressions are amusing, and John decides to test how far they could go.
"I'm borrowing your sister for a bit!" he cups his hand next to his mouth to make sure the man could hear him.
Tanizaki's face changes. His expression becomes neutral and his voice lowers the tone.
"What are you going to do with Naomi?"
"She will be out of my hands, so I can't say." John responds. "If I had to guess, they will probably torture her."
Kunikida was the one to react to those words and squirm against the tentacle grip.
"You aren't getting away with this you bastard!" he shouts in despair.
The man that is supposedly the girl's sister has his lips in a straight line. His hair falls on his eyes and he does not try to move. Ozumi recognizes that state. The kid was about to snap and they gave little to no information to what he might be capable of. They either get out of there immediately or they dispose of them, there was no waiting now.
"Hey, John. If you aren't going to kill them, don't arouse them either." Ozumi reprimands.
But the sneer on his face only grew.
"This is just a job! But I realise that's something you moralists could never understand."
"Moralists?" Tanizaki whispers.
"Howard, end them!" Ozumi orders.
"But there's a truck." Howard responds.
By their right side, a truck is nearing. With that unexplainable scene, it is impossible to predict the drivers reaction and they could not be seen in such circumstances. Things were already out of hand.
"It is true that the Agency has a set of morals." Tanizaki continues, which catches Ozumi's and John's attention. "But when it comes to Naomi… It's a different thing altogether." his eyes are dead as he speaks, facing the concrete below him. "You can talk about justice or morality, but her life means more to me than all of those things combined."
The truck gets closer and closer to the scene. They had to leave promptly. Ozumi glares at the driver. The man inside looks bored with the road ahead. She furrows her brows. He ought to have noticed them already. Was he asleep?
At that point, the truck is barely ten meters away.
"No way!" John shouts. "Do we look like part of the road to you?"
"If it was for Naomi…" Tanizaki is still speaking, but his voice grows louder, rougher. "I would gladly burn this world to the ground!"
At the very last second, Ozumi grabs John's and Howard's collars and pushes them out of the way along with herself. Right before the truck hits the mass of tentacles and crashes into the brick wall.
Ozumi hates their guts, but they were still valuable assets to the Guild. And the mission is not over yet. The Detective Agency just proved themselves resourceful, and hence, dangerous enemies.
Smoke and dirt from the crash surrounds them. Howard stands neutral by Ozumi's side and John struggles to get on his feet.
"How unexpected." Howards speaks.
"Do you know where they went?" John groans.
"I can't sense them. It seems that they," he cracks his neck into place. "hid themselves."
"They caught the train after all." Ozumi sighs as she manages to get up, rubbing the back of her head.
"Dammit."
Sirenes ring behind them.
"Huh?" they mutter in unison.
Police cars gather around them. A group of policemen rushes out their patrol cars. Their guns aim towards the Guild members. Black helmets with blackned visors hide most of their facial features. All of them wear bulletproof vests over their shirts.
"Freeze!" they command.
"HQ," one of them speaks to the radio on his shoulder. "We located the suspects of the reported kidnappings."
Ozumi bites the inside of her lip hard enough for the taste of steel to fill her mouth.
With no fight, John lifts his arms in the air above his head. Howard imitates him, keeping his hands at chest level. Ozumi doesn't have an option but to comply for now.
"Seems like the agency called us in ahead of time." John sighs.
"It doesn't matter. The show is still on." Ozumi mumbles.
Francis is one cautious man. He pulls strings wherever necessary. If the Detective Agency or the Port Mafia were one step ahead, the Guild would be two or three. The police have no authority to hold the Guild members into custody. It would only take a few minutes for them to recognize their mistake and liberate them with an apology.
Ozumi smiles as they are escorted inside different patrol cars. From the mountain top, the view from the city extends towards the ocean. She would never turn her back now. Those were mere rocks and stones on the road. Her smile grows from ear to ear, but her eyes are dazed in revenge.
She could barely wait for the reunion of the century. It's exactly what she has been earning for. They ought to meet in this war. She could finally show him what he has been missing. What he could have if only he listened to her in the past.
Chuuya Nakahara.
A/N:
Didn't I say this chapter would be 3000 words long?
Ozumi and John clearly don't get along, but they make a good team when it counts. Francis teamed them up for a reason. But they will continue to have their disagreements and specially now after Ozumi tried to burn his grape vine? Oh boy.
And Chuuya is coming. Remember the fic is following the anime's pace. I personally can't wait to write their reunion.