'Benimaru,' Atsuhi whispered harshly, fingers slowly prying between the frame of the sliding door and the wall, 'Beni!'

He was sleeping, flat on his back with his head turned toward the far wall. She rolled her eyes, 'How do you sleep so deeply, come on,' she grumbled. She tip-toed into the room, carefully dodging the creaking board that had woken Hibachi up long ago when she first snuck in. She crouched down beside him. He didn't look so different when he was asleep, The biggest change was that he looked significantly less sad, his drooping hound-dog eyes shut loosely in peaceful sleep. She almost felt bad for waking him up.

'Beni,' she shook his shoulder, 'come on,' she whined.

Slowly one of his eyes cracked open, 'ugh again? Atsuhi,' he rolled suddenly tugging his arm from her. 'Go away. I'm tired.'

'No,' she said, leaning over him, her nose hovering close to his ear.

He squirmed, jabbing her with his elbow, 'I'm serious, Atsuhi. I'm tired and I want to

sleep I don't want to do whatever stupid shit you wanna do.'

She waited, staring down at him. Slowly he cracked his eye open and looked at her, making a smile break across her face. He shut his eye again, a long, resigned sigh escaping out of his mouth before he opened his eyes and stared at the wall, 'Fine.'

She laughed, 'There's the Beni, I know and love.'

His eyes suddenly shifted, staring up at her from the corners. Maybe it was his unique pupils or their red color but even with his casually bored expression his stares always sent a chill down her spine. She swallowed, shifting back to sit on her thighs. He rolled his eyes away, staring at the wall for a moment before grumbling as he sat up, 'I'm going to die in training just because you never let me sleep.'

'You slept last night!'

'Almost as if,' he said, looking at her flatly, 'I'm supposed to do it every night.'

'If you really want me to go-'

'No,' he said quickly, before tossing off his covers, 'I'm up now.'

She grinned, standing and watching as he re-tied his top. He always wore his uniform. Even in his sleep, a little gross in her opinion, but he was trained to be practical. Always ready for a fire, prepared to fight an infernal at any moment. It was the worst part of being a full-fledged member of the Hikeshi in Atsuhi's mind. She was glad it wasn't expected of her.

He turned toward her, eyebrow raised, 'Where are you dragging me to this time?'

'The Sumida!'

'...it's winter.'

'Mhm. Yes.'

He frowned, his stare hardening, 'Why would we go to the Sumida in the winter? Do you have a death wish?'

'I've heard cold water is good for you. It boosts your immunity and stuff. And I wanna see if I can stand the cold,' she grinned at him, rocking on her heels impatiently.

'Okay well have fun. Do it yourself,' he mumbled and moved as though he was going to get back into his bed. She reached out quickly, grabbing his hand. He stalled, looking at it and then looking at her face.

'What if I get all frozen and can't swim?' she puffed her lower lip out.

'Then die,' he grumbled, his hand flipping over and grabbing her wrist and twisting her making her gasp in discomfort before he shoved her toward the door, releasing her wrist just before discomfort became pain.

'Beni!' she whispered harshly, rubbing her slightly sore wrist. 'Hang out with me! Come on!'

Beni laid his head back, his mouth tightening, but then he dropped his head down and brushed past her, 'Fine. Come on.'

She smiled and followed after him, quietly sliding the door shut behind her. There was no way he was ever going to say no. He always tried to argue but he always went. He just liked to complain. She knew as much because when she would go a while without visiting because she was busy with school work or just tired herself he'd get grumpy and make passive-aggressive comments. He was just a difficult kind of person, but one she understood well.

He stood at the bottom of the steps back turned to her, looking down the street at the foggy Asakusa night. She grinned, hopping down the steps and launching herself onto his back. His arms instantly hooked under her knees, hefting her up on his back. She wrapped her arms loosely around his shoulders, chin resting on his head.

'You're heavy.'

'Eh, you're strong. Call it bonus training.'

She smiled, he could whine all he wanted. He'd been waiting for her to jump onto his back. She knew from the way he'd been holding himself, still and braced, and how his hands had caught her so easily. She'd only jumped because she knew he wanted to catch her. He always did.

"Fia?" Shinra's voice echoed softly outside her door.

Atsuhi blinked awake, frowning as she sat up, "I'm up. I'll be out in a minute."

"Oh okay! We'll meet in the garage, it's just down the hall to the right!" He said and then ran down the hall, the sound of her sandals slapping on the stone floor echoing down the empty hallway.

She rubbed her face, rocking forward. Her dream played back in quick flashes in her head. It was completely out of the blue, a memory from years ago; the freezing cold winter when she was sixteen. She sighed, climbing out of bed and tugged on her clothes. The hallway was cold and empty, soothing her rapidly developing headache. She walked quickly, "Down the hall and to the right, hmm?"

When she got into the garage it was a storm of activity; tools being loaded into the car, uniforms being dawned, plans being made. She wasn't really sure where to stand. She'd never been in a Fire Cathedral before yesterday, and the way Imperial Fire Soldiers operated was completely foreign to her.

Obi caught sight of her and came over, still strapping on his helmet, "Miss Fia, I just want to remind you, you don't have to come with us. I understand it's your work and your family but-"

"Ahhhh don't worry Captain Obi," she smiled at him, shrugging, "I've been in my share of firefights, I just don't have a very precise ability, and down there I couldn't do much alone. I'm sure I'll be able to help and won't be much of a burden. Besides," she grinned, "if things go wrong it'll be easier for me to find us a new route or doors locked."

"Why...would we need to lock doors?" Arthur spoke suddenly, pulling his hood up.

"If we breach a wall the only thing we can do is shut the closest doors. Sacrifice the breached section but save all the others from getting flooded."

"So don't...hit a wall," Arthur squinted.

"Mmm at least not an external one. But maybe just keep 'avoid walls' as a mantra. Any structural damage when there's already an insane amount of pressure from the ocean could bring the whole thing collapsing in. Of course, it's built crazy-sound, but it was also built with the expectation that if someone went infernal nine others wouldn't join them," Atsuhi folded her arms over her chest, "we also didn't expect all of the firelocks and safety systems to fail."

Hinawa turns from the van, "We're ready to go."

They all nodded and climbed inside, quickly filing into what Atsuhi assumed were their favorite seats. Shinra noticed Atsuhi, lingering awkwardly at the steps unsure of where to go, and scooted toward Arthur who tried to nudge him back, "Here, you can sit by me."

"Thanks," she climbed in, glancing around at the red-tinted machine, "you called this the-"

"Matchbox, yeah. Most companies have an engineer that works on it but we just have the Lieutenant," he nodded.

She saw Hinawa's sharp eyes glance up at the rearview, staring Shinra down, "Thank you, Shinra, for that glowing review."

"I-I didn't mean," Shinra blustered.

"I think he meant like, 'we just have the Lieutenant and it's still this nice,' right, Shinra?" Atsuhi offered, giving Shinra a teasing grin.

"Yes! Exactly."

The Lieutenant's eyes returned to the road and Shinra gave her a grateful look that made her smile. Then a silence set in, Atsuhi laid her head back against the cool metal, the vibrations of the car making her head shake gently. Her dream occurred to her again. It had been a long time since she actively dreamed about Asakusa, much less Benimaru himself. She thought about him every day, though she'd never admit it to anyone, at least not willingly. She wondered what he was doing. Then she found herself wondering if he would have come but she shook her head, of course, he would have. Complaining the whole time but still.

"Everything will be okay, Miss Fia," Iris suddenly spoke. Smiling gently across from her.

"I'm sure you're right," she smiled back to her. "I'm just thinking, that's all."

"Miss Fia, you mentioned your fire suppression systems failed, is there any way to get them back online?" Hinawa said, taking an unnecessarily sharp turn that threatened to toss her out of her seat entirely.

"Provided they didn't destroy the computer in the control room, yeah I can get them rebooted. But...no computer-"

"No fire suppression system."

"Right."

Then the car was quiet except for the sounds of the sister's soft prayers.

Fia's face was calm. Weirdly calm given they were dropping through the water. Shinra could feel her glancing at him through the corner of her eye.

"Okay. I've gotta ask. Why...are you grinning like that?"

"It's...it's a nervous tick. I'm sorry I don't mean to."

She smiled at him, teasing, "I know what nervous tick means. That's a nasty one to get, though. Hey, at least you don't laugh."

He chuckled slightly, laughing harder when she raised an eyebrow, "Yeah I guess."

"So…" Arthur mused, staring out of a small round window as they dropped, "How does this work?'

"The finer points of the science are a little beyond my understanding, but it's sort of like...a cable car and a submarine had a baby. Thick cables are less obtrusive in the ocean than building, say, an actual elevator shaft but this system is a little more ahhh user-friendly? Meaning we don't have to have a submarine captain on call," Atsuhi explained, calmly looking at gauges on the wall where she'd turned on the car.

"That's insane," Tamaki mumbled staring out of the window.

There were only two small windows but save the Lieutenant and the Captain, and Shinra himself all of the eight were looking out the windows, "It'll just be a couple of minutes now."

The Lieutenant cleared his throat, "Then we need to plan. As of now, we have no idea where the ten infernals are. The only information we have is what Fia told us earlier, the cafeteria was the source, her presence disturbed them and two crawled into the air vents, four chased her, and four others we have no information on. It's unlikely that they stayed stationary though. We have reason to believe Fia's mother was attacked in her office and we know that Fia was chased to the dock we're landing in soon."

Captain Obi nodded, "We're going into this situation essentially blind. It's only been a day but it's also been a whole day. We don't know what areas are damaged, where survivors are, or where the infernals are."

The two looked at the team, nodding calmly, a gesture Shinra long understood to be calm support. Shinra nodded firmly, "So what's our plan?"

"We need to get a lay of the land, once we know where the infernals are and the survivors are we can work on the actual rescue. In an ideal world, we would all advance to the control room Fia mentioned together and get the fire suppression systems online long enough to weaken the infernals, and then we would dispatch from there." Hinawa explained, calm as ever, as he loaded a gun.

"We've gotta be prepared for that to not succeed though. In that case, the goal is to make sure Fia gets to the control room no matter what." Obi continued, "All while knowing that since the chances of this being a sabotage are pretty high, getting to the control room might not do anything to improve our situation."

"Dollars to donuts," Fia spoke as a loud metal clang rang out above them and the car jolted to a stop, throwing Tamaki into Arthur's lap, "they'll probably attack us as soon as we get in."

"W-why do you think that?" Maki asked, an eyebrow raised in concern.

"Well I sealed the doors shut, so, we're gonna have to break them down to get in. Anybody left alive in there is probably pinned down and quiet. Doubt they're barreling through double-walled watertight doors."

And then a patient silence fell again. Fia opened the door to the car and hopped down into the docking bay without looking back.

The door in front of her was heavily marred. All the way around the edge was the lumpy twisted metal of her soldering job, some places gleaming silver white and others still licked with soot from the heat of her flames. In the middle were long scratch marks. Places where an infernal had successfully breached the door but hadn't been able to breakthrough.

She glanced back, "So...who's gonna?"

Arthur stepped confidently forward. He pulled a hilt from inside his coat, a light-blue saber forming as he drew it, "I will."

Atsuhi stepped aside. She looked back at the other's gathering behind him, all ready for a fight, save the sister who stood by calmly with her hands folded peacefully in front of her the prayer the Empire used already softly pouring from her mouth.

"All right, Arthur, do it," Obi spoke calmly.

"Right!" And he rushed forward, the light flashing as he cut through the metal, rending it apart with terrifying ease. Between the plasma's electric popping and the metal grating, it sounded as though the door was screaming. And then it fell, slow and incredibly loud the sound of its fall echoing all around them. Atsuhi couldn't help but flinch at the bang, her body jolting on instinct from the vibration through the floor and in her ears.

She looked up into the hall, horror-struck. Only the emergency lights were on, a wire was snapping sending jolts of electricity arcing around it halfway down the hall ahead. "Shit…" she whispered.

"Let's move out," Obi spoke, his strong voice betraying nothing. He took the lead, Hinawa leaning around him with his firearm up, checking the side hall before they walked. In their heavy uniforms, there was no way to sneak very quietly in the metal tube. So they all gently clunked down the hall, Hinawa, and Maki taking either side checking any door they passed.

Then they came on a body. A man slumped against the wall, a part of his chest charred black. Without a word, Iris kneeled beside him, her prayers a soft mumble. She ripped the very end of her skirt and delicately laid it over his face, "Latom," she whispered before looking back at Atsuhi.

"I…" she swallowed, "I didn't know him."

Obi's eyes met her own, he nodded and then turned forward walking calmly again. It was a small gesture. One she wasn't even sure she understood. But it made her feel better. She imagined that's why his crew was so dedicated to him. So focused on his orders and trusting of his calls.

They walked on for a while, Atsuhi subtly leading the way, "This room is going to be big," she said, stopping them just before they rounded the corner, "It's sort of a big hub, connecting all the different corridors."

They nodded and she turned, letting Obi lead the way into the room. For a moment and only a moment, everything was calm, the room seeming almost untouched in the chaos. Suspiciously untouched Atsuhi thought but before she could share there was a horrible scream. Crackling and rough from above them. Simultaneously all their eyes shot up to the grotesquely twisted body smoldering above them. It looked more like a spider made from coal and ash than it looked human. Its arms and legs had morphed into points, a spare limb seeming to grow out of every knee and elbow. It spat at them, more like ignited gas or lava than true fire. Obi's shield flew out to guard them. When it landed fire arched of it in all directions, but with a swift flick of her hands Maki sent the fire harmlessly back up to fizzle out around above them. Atsuhi was struck still, it wasn't one of the infernals she'd seen before. How many more could there be?

Hinawa was the first to react, taking a shot without even pausing to think but the infernal dodged the weakened shot easily. Hinawa grimaced, "Shinra, Tamaki," he spoke in a low growl, "get him down."

"Yes, sir," the duo spoke, their ignition abilities easily flinging them toward the sky.

Atsuhi snapped out of it just as Shinra lit up his heel launching toward the infernal's head, "Don't hit the ceiling!"

"Ah!" Shinra let out, twisting in the air and rerouting to a support beam not far off, running along it as the creature spat at him, Tamaki acting as a mirror on the other side.

Hinawa glanced at her, "The ceiling leads directly out to the ocean doesn't it?"

"Yeah...the only one of the four sides that does it's almost…"

"Like it knows."

Arthur gritting his teeth beside her, his fist clenching on the hilt of his sword. His weapon might have the best shot as far as control went to kill the infernal without killing them all in a hull breach but he was bound to the ground.

"So we get it down from there," Obi spoke calmly, pulling out a fire suppression grenade and launching it up to the ceiling with a terrifying amount of force. It hit the ceiling with a loud thud hard enough it almost looked like it had dented the metal above them. The gas came pouring out and the creature let out another shriek and ran at terrifying speed across the ceiling Shinra and Tamaki still flanking it cautiously.

"Tamaki!" Atsuhi screamed, "Grab it with your tails if you can."

Tamaki looked over her shoulder at Atsuhi and nodded firmly, arching swiftly around the infernal trying to ensnare it. But now the spider was moving defensively. It was swift and far more focused on Tamaki's actions than Shinra's attempts to engage and distract it. It was learning.

Hinawa was still taking shots which were giving Atsuhi terrible anxiety even though he clearly had intense control over his ability. Manipulating fire, that was it. "Maki," she called grabbing Maki's arm and yelling over the noise around them, "if I give you some fire to work with can you grab it?"

"I can try," she nodded, seeming to ready herself.

Atsuhi stepped back, breathing deep. She held her hands in front of her, turning her palms in and up toward her nose as she breathed as though she was guiding the air in. Then she opened her mouth and pushed, the strange warmth of breathing fire blasting out and toward Maki's waiting hands. She spun them, twisting the fire with invisible force into a ball, and then as easily as playing beach volleyball at vacation Maki lobbed the ball of fire up to the infernal who howled once more.

Atsuhi didn't see what happened next. She felt something behind her. A violent twinge. Something with his heart set on killing her. She twisted around and was met with a foot to her chest before she could do anything else. She flew through the air and then skidded over the table like a skipping stone landing hard on the other side and sliding over the floor until her back slammed into a support pillar. It knocked the air out of her body with a loud gasp, stunning her so badly her vision spun. She struggled to focus again blinking furiously as though it would do anything. She pushed up on her elbow and saw Arthur locked in combat with the tall infernal that had punted her across the room.

The metal above her clanged loudly, she twisted to see yet another infernal, this time impishly small clinging to the pilon above her, its long nails dug in to support itself. Her eyes widened and she slammed her foot hard into the pilon pushing off and sliding herself across the floor just in time to dodge the small infernal launching at her. It jumped side to side like a primate, trying to fake her out. Her head still spinning, Atsuhi pursed her lips together and blew a tidy stream of fire following the infernal as it moved. It didn't make contact but it warded it off as she climbed back to her feet the world around her still turning.

"Hey!" Hinawa barked and the impish infernal turned, teeth bared. It started to run toward him on all fours and then he shot, the loud bang of his firearm making Atsuhi's already dizzied head spin. When she refocused the infernal's body dropped and began to fizzle away.

She couldn't see any sign of the creature that had kicked her or Arthur though there was a hauntingly blue corridor back where it had come from. The light of Arthur's sword no doubt. The spider-like infernal had been caught in her and Maki's trap but now its movements were trashing and wild. Its long legs ripping up the bolted chairs and tables and sending them flying at anyone that neared them. Atsuhi felt a twinge behind her, something was going to attack. She turned, breathing in just in time to catch an incoming ball of fire, she swallowed it down, feeling the burn in the back of her throat and the heat spread through her stomach. She huffed, pushing the spoke from her nose forming a screen of black ash and soot between her and the coming infernals. Through the dark grey cloud she could see glowing red eyes, and then, another pair and another. She backed up in horror, the number of eyes ever-growing.