Bad Company

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Summary: Constantly on high alert, Genjo Sanzo, the egotistic president of Kinzan Publishing Co., had always derided the threats made on his life. Like hell he cared about that. Putting Son Goku, his ever-optimistic, ever-dogging assistant, in said harm's way, however, caused the pompous man to seek and spill blood for the first time in his solitary life.

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A/N: No matter how much I try to make Ukoku as evil as socked feet on a wet floor, I just can't seem to fully hate the guy. Dammit. Also. Happy 2019!

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The pain that Sanzo had from his restraints to the headboard when he woke up was nothing to the pain he felt when remembered that someone was ripped from him.

Sanzo remembered the sounds of screaming and pained cries, and when he felt a tear slide down his temple, he realized that he was the one who had been screaming and crying in sleep.

Gulping lungfuls of air, he wheezed and winced from his dry and sore throat. He felt heaviness weighing in on his chest with each breath, felt his blood pumping throughout his body, every inch of him wanting to move through the ties that bound him—

For a moment, he had forgotten why he was in such a position—the sudden tears, the cold sweat, his inability to process even a single word, the feeling of something being torn from his chest, leaving him breathless and heavy-hearted with every loll of his head to the familiar walls of his room—

—and all came rushing back to him.

The smile. The impatience. The silence. The havoc brought upon Goku's room. The blood.

The possibility that he might be in harm or possibly even dead.

Sanzo felt his heart stop as all the hairs in his body stood on end and felt his blood run cold at the mere thought.

A hiccup slipped past his lips as he looked at his bedside clock.

It was night. And he had yet to know where Goku was.

Growling, he struggled against his confines, ignoring the fabric tearing at his wrists and the lack of blood circulation to his hands—

The ticking of the clock felt like mockery to his ears—every second a growing gnawing at his being, every tick a ruthless stab to his gut—

He yelled Goku's name and screamed until he went hoarse and felt blood seeping through his vocal chords. He pulled on his heavy restraints—a string of curses frothed from his mouth with each forceful tug, and when he heard the crack of the wood above him, he pulled harder.

.

The deafening cursing and screaming and ceaseless banging on the door made a bruised, yet stern-faced Goujun straighten his stance in front of it even more. In Sanzo's living room, Kanzeon clutched onto her stomach as she fiddled with her laptop, and tracked down Goku's phone—

"Hag, let me out! Where's my fucking gun!?" The unending thuds on the door made Goujun twitch, but he took no step back as the banging became more and more hurried—

"Let him be," Kanzeon hollered as she kneaded her stomach. Beside her, Tama curled close to her thigh, her claws digging at the couch, and her green eyes narrowing at the laptop screen. With a tut, Kanzeon removed her earpiece, "He'll end up killing everyone here if we let him loose. Bah, and to think he suspected everyone here as mental—"

The sound of something crashing against the door startled Goujun, followed by the sound of a gun cocking—

—he ducked, just in time for the door and the opposite wall to be peppered with bullets.

Gojyo, who had been lying prone on one of the sofas, craned his aching neck to see Goujun crouching away from the door leading to Sanzo's room. He tried to get up until a peeved Hakkai pulled him back to his lap, and eyed Gojyo with a silent reprimand.

"I'm still tending to your bruises, Gojyo. Stay still, please—"

The sound of screamed curses, followed by the doorknob splitting and lolling to uselessness under Sanzo's relentless assault, made Goujun reach for his P226 and raised it against the raging man.

The door slammed open, and cold, purple eyes slid over to guarded, scarlet ones—and the glimmer of gnashing teeth behind a scowl made Goujun almost falter.

Sanzo scoffed as he held tighter onto his PS90, its muzzle directed at the floor, his finger itching to pull the trigger at anyone who dared to stop him. "You—you... dare to point your gun and stop me?"

"My apologies, President. But I am only following Miss Kanzeon's orders. You are not to leave the premises if you are incapacitated and are currently lacking in good judgment."

Sanzo's eye twitched, and he quivered in bubbling ire. Pointing his gun at Goujun's forehead, he spat, "Say that again to my face, I fucking dare you." Goujun went silent, but kept his gun pointed at Sanzo. The blond growled, "Do I look like I'm fucking incapacitated to you?"

Goujun's finger trembled on the trigger, his arm wanting to be freed from being raised against the very man that he should obey.

But—

"You knocked your bodyguard unconscious earlier, sir. You went on a rampage and threatened to kill Zakuro when you asked him about Goku's whereabouts. And when he said he didn't know anything, you punched him in the eyes and almost shot his ear, sir. You also punched Miss Kanzeon when she came over and tried to talk to you. You had to be knocked out so you couldn't harm anyone, sir."

Sanzo's eyes narrowed, and he couldn't recall anything as such. Sure, he had punched Gojyo earlier for neglecting his duty, but—

"Konzen, you're not leaving this place until you get you head back on your shoulders."

Sanzo snarled as he turned around to where Kanzeon leaned against the wall, her one hand still patting her stomach. "You're the one who tied me down?"

"It's necessary, Konzen. You maimed two of our men on your way out of the building. You couldn't even see who was enemy and ally! How could you even think you can get to Goku if you're like that!"

"Shut up and let me go!"

"I won't let you harm yourself and others. Homura and his men are already tracking him down, so stay put and let them do the rest." Kanzeon glowered at her nephew, and stared him down despite being taller than her.

He growled and opened his mouth to retort, a string of curses ready to spew forth—

"That is my order, Sanzo," she breathed, her words a whispered plea to the suddenly stunned blond.

She rarely called him by his name—it had been so long since she had done it.

Kanzeon caressed her nephew's cheek with a forced and sad smile, her droopy eyes mirroring Sanzo's own. She bit her lip and nodded to herself, blinking away unshed tears—and she turned around, only for Sanzo to halt her with a firm and resolute no.

"I refuse to accept your order, Aunt. You can't stop me. Not this time, at least. Let me go."

Sanzo's demand was quiet, yet firm, and it made Kanzeon stop in her tracks, and she almost mustered a smile and a cry from joy.

She faced him and his weary form, truly noticing his resignation for the first time—the shoulders drooping, the frown deepening, the eyes mirroring a silent want to be freed from the very place he had always called home—

Ah.

Her little nephew had truly changed.

"Sanzo," she whispered, caressing his cheek once more, "have you found the meaning of 'having nothing'? Is this truly what you want?"

The hand holding Kanzeon was surprisingly warm, gentle, and steady as Sanzo pulled it away from his face; and she realized—

—her sheltered and cold-hearted nephew was now gone, and it was all because of the child she raised as her own.

"Do I even have to answer that?" came his quiet reply, and Kanzeon shook her head, tears filling her eyes—

"Then go, Sanzo," she mustered with a smile, and handed him his trusty M26. She noticed the slight quirk of a smile when the gun was placed in his hand. "Bring him back safely. I'll be watching you."

.

It had been ten hours since Goku went missing, and the sun had long set by the time Sanzo and his company arrived at the highway that the kidnappers took. There was already a plethora of officers scurrying about, all of them searching for clues around the large, toppled trucks in the middle of the highway, their contents filled with large and empty cardboard boxes. Looking below the bridge, there were more officers taking pictures of whatever clues they might find—

And inside one of the toppled trucks was Homura, frowning as he kicked some of the boxes aside and knelt beside a limp arm with blood pooling from the elbow.

Sanzo feared the worst, yet marched over to the man, ignoring the greetings from a man with scars and an eye patch over his right eye. "Did you find him?" he asked with a clipped tone, glaring at the arm hanging from the edge of the truck.

Homura glanced at Sanzo, and noted the deep lines permeating onto his brows. He sighed, readjusted his latex gloves, and shoved one of the boxes aside, revealing a man donned in a blue cap and jacket. He noticed Sanzo clenching his fist, and averted his gaze, and tutted. He rummaged inside his pocket, and handed Sanzo a ziplock bag with a phone inside.

"Check it. That's his, isn't it?"

Sanzo turned on the phone, and saw the familiar picture of Goku smiling while holding up Tama the calico cat, and on the left side was a badly, half-cropped face of a frowning Sanzo glaring at the camera—

"Anything else?" Sanzo muttered, his voice strangely calm as he opened the lock and fiddled with the phone's contents, checking for any recordings and photos—a sliver of a clue about the kidnapper's identity.

"None," Homura breathed, and he gulped at the intensity of what he said. None. The leads seemed to be thinning out before his eyes, but—

"Zenon," Sanzo muttered to the man he ignored a few minutes ago. The aforementioned man glanced at him, his one good eye reflecting amusement as he regarded the CEO with a laugh.

The skin around the man's right eye wrinkled as he grinned and patted Sanzo on the back, "Finally noticing me, eh, Kinzan's boss? Ah, if you're asking for leads, it's best to ask her. She knows everything."

Snarling, Sanzo's eye twitched at the grinning Zenon. He glanced at Homura, who looked away with his eyebrows raised and his lips clamped shut. The blond man's jaw tensed as he looked around, and his sights landed on Goujun, who also looked away with guilt on his face. "Is there something else my dear old aunt isn't telling me?"

"I think it's better if Miss Kanzeon herself would explain it to you," Goujun asked, still not looking at the glaring man. "She wanted to tell it to you when you were done being… hostile. Earlier, that is."

Sanzo scoffed, and stared at Goujun in disbelief. He looked from him, to Zenon, and to Homura, whose gazes all avoided him. "Why the fuck am I the only one who's kept in the dark from all of this?" He darted his glare at his bodyguard, who seemed to fixate himself on whistling the dark sky away. "Undine, don't tell me even you know about this?"

Gojyo glanced at Sanzo for the briefest of moments before looking away again, and took in a deep breath. "She told me not to tell you about it for now, boss. Not until you have calmed yourself down."

Sanzo's nostrils flared in anger, and wanted to scream at all of them. His grip on Goku's phone tightened, his knuckles turning white as he felt a bead of sweat drip down his nape. Pinning his violet eyes at Zakuro, who seemed to be quiet throughout the whole ordeal, Sanzo approached him, and raised Goku's phone to the tanned blond.

"Last chance to tell me while I'm still 'level-headed'—do you have any knowledge about Goku's kidnappers, lest of all his whereabouts?"

Chartreuse met amethyst, and Zakuro shook his head, his expression mirroring the same bubbling fury behind Sanzo's eyes. "That young boy has been nothing but kind to me in my days of feeling worthless. Why would I take part in putting him in danger unless I'm insane?"

Sanzo searched any trace of betrayal behind Zakuro's eyes, and found none. The tired, yellow-green eyes were bruised from Sanzo's punches earlier. The man's right ear sported a bandage, the gauze stained with the slightest hue of red from where Sanzo's bullet had grazed him. The pale man clicked his tongue and looked away, to where a smiling Hakkai met his snarl.

"Sanzo, I have taken an indefinite time of leave until this mess is cleared up. Someone has to keep you in check while Goku is away. Ah, and don't worry. Kanan is in charge for the meantime. She'll do just as good as I would if I were there, maybe even better. She is my sister, after all."

Gojyo's shoulders stiffened at the mention of the name. Hakkai's twin sister could be quite the devil when scorned. "Please don't remind me. Your sister almost maimed me."

"That's because you tried to make a pass on her, Gojyo—in front of me. And I'll have you know I don't appreciate that," Hakkai huffed, giving Gojyo a sidelong glance and a frown. Gojyo, sensing the mood change in the doctor, held his hands up in defense—

"Okay, okay, sorry, 'Kai! ...um—right. Give me a kiss...?"

The sudden smack of Goku's phone hitting Gojyo square in the nose made the redhead spew curses. "Geh—what the fuck's your problem, asshole—!?"

"You're not going to fucking make out and start your shit in front of me, you shithead."

Hakkai cleared his throat as Sanzo whipped out his gun to Gojyo's head. "Please, we're on a mission. Try to stay focused—this is why we went with you. Can't have you harming yourself when you haven't seen Goku yet."

Sanzo fell silent, glared at Hakkai, and swallowed a rumbling growl in his throat as he tucked his gun away.

Homura cleared his throat, fighting back a smile as he regarded Sanzo with amusement. He faced Zenon with a grin that didn't quite reached his eyes, "Right. So now, Zenon, you're in charge of the investigation. What are we to do now?"

.

Muffled growling could be heard from inside a cramped, bright cell. Inside, the sound of laughter bounced off the walls, yet failing to drown the sound of the snarling and growling from the sacked figure chained down to a metal chair.

The sack was ripped from the figure thrashing about, revealing a growling Goku, with his lip swollen as a faint trace of blood dripped to his chin.

The laughter continued when a hand came up to touch Goku on the face, only for the mirth to stop when Goku chomped on the man's finger, and didn't stop until he heard and felt it crack under his teeth. The man tried to tear his hand away, and Goku grinned as he ground his teeth deeper into the flesh and bone—

"Aah, that's what you get for trying to rile up the little assistant."

Goku glared at another man by the cell door, yet didn't stop gnawing at the hand in his mouth, even when the owner of the said hand kept hitting him on the head.

"You," the man pointed at the guard standing by, "stop that racket. And by racket, I mean make him stop screaming. It hurts my ears."

The guard bowed and obeyed, and seemed to look apathetic when he pointed a rifle at the screaming man, and shot him in the head—

—Goku released the mangled hand on instinct, and watched, wide-eyed with horror, as the man's brains spilled to the floor and to his bloodied feet—

"You killed your own guard? What kind of a sick bastard are you?" spat Goku, and he suppressed a shiver as he was met with a narrow-eyed stare and a glib smile—all from the man that Goku had once known—

"…No way. Aren't you—?"

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Sanzo glared down at Kanzeon's computer screen, his piercing stare met with a collected smile and amused eyes that rivalled Sanzo's own purple eyes. From behind him, Homura stood with a grin held back.

"You mean to tell me," Sanzo started, pointing a finger at a little red dot on the screen, "that the thing that had been hanging around Goku's neck for how many years now… is a fucking tracking device? Is that why you know where I am all the time?"

Kanzeon hid her laugh behind manicured fingers, and regarded her nephew with a trace of pride, "Yes, Konzen, that's how I know. Handy, isn't it? Be grateful it's a tracking device, and not a tapping device. Or else I would've heard a ton of juicy information between you and my child."

Sanzo glowered at her, his hands balling into fists as she beamed wide—

Kanzeon dismissed her nephew's bubbling ire with a wave of a hand, and leaned back on her chair. "But then I figured it'd be better if it were a normal tracking device, instead of a wiretapping one. It was a custom-made gift originally meant for you—so I can locate you and give you my sagely advice about Kinzan when needed, but you didn't take it, and—"

"—I gave it to Goku instead… wait." Sanzo whirled around, and glared at a beaming Homura, "You knew about this and didn't even tell me?"

This time, Homura showed him his wide grin, and mockingly bowed, "I tried telling you once, but you cut me off, Konzen. But never you mind, what's important now is that we know Son Goku's alive. I initially thought we were out of leads, but… Never mind that. The question now is, how those trucks all turned over, with only one man dead."

Sanzo looked peeved, with lips clamped shut, and brows curled downwards, and turned to face his aunt, "And how can we be sure he's alive? You just said that it's not a listening device, so how can we know he's still alive?"

"It responds with body heat—it adjusts to the temperature of the wearer," Kanzeon said with a coy smile. Sanzo's brow rose in both confusion and sudden interest, and she laughed. "There's a reason why I always tell him to never take it off, you know. If there's even the slightest chance that it's taken off, I'll know. It'll notify me immediately, and therefore, I'll send backup to wherever he was last seen."

"Well, you should have told me that in the first place that he's alive!"

At this, she tutted, and spoke in deadpan, "Konzen, please. That's why I called you so many times before your supposed meeting in Keiun. You didn't answer my calls. And when I came over to you, you immediately started punching my gut. I had to make sure those trucks that came in earlier were the ones who took Goku, so I had Homura pull his strings on Zenon. Turns out I was right. Plus, you got Goku's phone back, right? Homura can be quite useful, no?"

Sanzo threw the smiling Homura a dirty glare, and snorted as he averted his gaze.

She glanced at her computer with a calm smile, an expression far different than Sanzo's grim one. "Our cameras got footage of it—men in blue caps and jackets pulling boxes in carts. And among them were two, suspicious men pushing a cart of boxes tied down and around the cart. One of the men kept looking around while the other kept a firm hand on top of the boxes. I wonder why…?"

"Must be our targets, then. Tell me where he is," Sanzo rumbled low, his right hand already reaching out to the gun in his coat.

Kanzeon eyed her nephew with a lilting smile, and nodded towards her monitor, "We must keep caution at all times, Konzen. Now, the location may be nearer than we think…"

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Goku struggled to huff through his bloodied nose as a rough hand picked him up from the floor. From around the cramped cell, men who towered over him in both physique and stature loomed over his heaving form. In front of him, a burly man leered at his swollen face.

"Quite resilient, this little one. Been punching him for hours and is still conscious!"

A quiet laughter rang in the air as Goku heaved and prepared himself for another blow, when a man—sitting on a chair next to Goku—spoke.

"That's enough. Let's allow him to breathe for a bit. And you can leave for now."

The large, stalwart man glanced at the smiling man sitting on the chair, then at Goku. "Be grateful, punk," he said, and plopped Goku back on the floor. He nudged Goku's foot one last time, and left the cell with a sharp glare at the heaving lump.

Once the heavy footsteps faded, the smiling man nudged Goku's chin with his shoe, and his smile widened into that of a grin. "Does it hurt? How does it feel to be trampled on? You know that's nothing compared to what you did. You killed one of my men while you were tied up, and caused all ten trucks to turn into tossed kebabs. What do you have to say for that, huh?" the man dug his foot a tad harder to Goku's skull, causing him to look up at the man with mirth on his eyes as he mustered a toothy grin—

"Heh. Don't talk about kebabs right now. I'm getting hungry."

The man grew flustered at the words, and the bizarre reaction from the brunet had taken him aback, "What the—"

He looked at the wide, unsettling leer on the swollen and bloodied face, and the gleeful, yet almost maniacal look in those golden eyes sent shivers down his spine—

—the chair that the man sat on toppled backwards with a loud thud as he stood up, and stepped away from the bloodied mess laughing quietly on the floor, shoulders shaking with giggles even as the man delivered a kick to Goku's ribs.

The man exited the jail cell, his jaw tensing up as he ordered a man standing outside to lock Goku up.

He came up to the end of the bright hallway, where Dr. Ni leaned against the wall, smiling the seconds away as he puffed on a cigarette. "Got a hard time dealing with the kid?" Dr. Ni asked, grinning as he tucked his glasses back to his eyes. "You can call it quits if you can't do it, you know. From the looks of it, he has more experience in this area than—"

Sharp, taupe gray eyes slid to dark brown ones, and Dr. Ni laughed at the man's grim face.

"Oh my. Did I hit a nerve? Haha…! …ah, it's okay, it's okay. Do your own thing," Dr. Ni said with a nonchalant shrug. He leaned away from the wall, aware of the eyes that followed his every move—and swooped his face in front of the man's. "But don't forget I am the reason you're still alive. Not your boss, not the kid in that cell—but me. Look at me that way again and I'll gauge your eyes out, got it?"

The man swallowed the bile eating up at his throat, and took a deep breath before he replied with a breathless, "Yes, sir."

Dr. Ni gave the man a crooked smile, and spat out his cigarette stub at his feet, crushing it with the sole of his shoe. "Good. Genjo Sanzo is not the only one capable of torturing people, you know. Then again, I won't be surprised if you haven't been in the loops. He never trusted you in the first place, anyway, with the way you went about—"

He grabbed at the man's unkempt hair that reached past his shoulders, and yanked the black strands back. "—am I right?"

.

Once the sun rose, the usually open company of Kinzan stood surrounded by a plethora of men armed with shields and helmets and guns tucked in their holsters. Nearby, several armored cars were parked near the entrance, its drivers standing just outside the vehicles, their guns at the ready in their gloved hands. The employees of the general class, all whose demeanors were usually of the friendlier kind, entered Kinzan today with stone-cold faces, all whose gestures and conversations seemed clipped and abrupt and tense. The usual throng of clients and agents who flocked the building on the early hours of office stood outside the building as they were all denied entry for the first time, and they went stock-still upon hearing the news—that a trusted Kinzan employee had been taken away from under the president of Kinzan's nose.

The news traveled far within a few hours, spreading to the nearby bookstores and the cafés and restaurants, with a number of Kinzan's supporters coming to the building to show their support to the company, bringing in letters to any Kinzan employee. Its adversaries, too, came to inquire in silence, dissecting any piece of information they could get.

Inside the building, the high-strung gentry formed in rows in front of the office of the 23rd floor, and bowed low to a weary and seething Genjo Sanzo, who paid no attention to anyone that dared to look at him. Behind him, an expressionless Homura followed suit, his blue and golden eyes unblinking as he stared at the back of Sanzo's head.

From the corner of Sanzo's eye, he saw a few male employees with brown hair. He closed his eyes, and thought he had heard a familiar voice calling to him, and for a split second, he thought everything had been a bad dream—but then, when he noticed that their skin held whiteness to that of his own, and were a tad taller than him, he gritted his teeth and strode away from the bowing rows of people.

He didn't know who to trust anymore.

Outside the door to Sanzo's office, Yaone stood with her hands faced down against her lap, smiling as she moved to the side and bowed in greeting to the blond despite the apparent lack of joy reflected in her eyes. Homura hummed when he noticed two pistols hanging from her waist, both tucked in their holsters, and when he took a quick whiff as he passed her by, he smelled a strong scent of gunpowder from her clothes and hair—things that the usually meek woman never did. Sanzo, however, paid her no attention, and went inside the office without a word. Homura, though, smiled at her.

"Thank you for your hard work with the armory," he said with a nod, and Yaone looked up, and finally mustered a smile that reached her ears.

"Thank you, too, Mr. Homura. For taking care of the president when…" she glanced at the office, where Sanzo stood with his back turned to them, glaring at the outside of the window. She didn't finish her sentence, and Homura nodded in silence, and gave her a tight-lipped smile as he patted her on the shoulder.

"We'll find him. We have to. Or that man will go insane."

Yaone nodded, and wiped an unshed tear from the corner of her eye. He bade her a curt bow, and went inside, shutting the door behind him.

"You've gathered quite a stir outside, Konzen. Some even gave you letters," Homura let out with a hollow laugh. "Want me to read them?"

"Burn them, if you want," Sanzo huffed as he took puff after puff of cigarette, each drag getting deeper with each passing second. He turned around, letting a cloud of smoke from his lips, its silvery wisps wafting over to where Homura stood in front of the desk, his nose scrunched up at the smell. "What are your thoughts in blowing up Houtou?"

"As much as I want every bone of my body to go there and rip all of them a new one, we still have no tangible evidence that they did it—"

"Fuck you and your thoughts."

"Hey, you asked for my opinion, and I gave it to you—"

"Shut up."

Homura wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and held back a string of brash thoughts against the blond. Try as he might to prod on Sanzo's wounds, he knew his words would also stab him back. "You're not the only one who's hurting in all of this, Konzen," he muttered, looking away when the purple eyes darted to him.

"If you're talking about your unprofessed love for the monkey, then I say you should say it to someone else. I won't hand him over to anyone."

Homura scoffed, a rush of coldness washing over his body as he heard the words, and before he knew it, his ugly thoughts spilled into even uglier words—

"Well, I see how well you handled that one."

It took him a moment to recover before he realized the swiftness of the fist that slammed straight to his jaw, throwing him on the floor with a loud thud.

From the outside, a few of the editors glanced at the clear panes beside the office door, and looked away when Sanzo glared at them. He returned his attention to a laughing Homura, and clicked his tongue at the sight of the bloodied lip. "You sick fucker."

Homura's heaving laughs rang louder as he laid flat on the floor, and looked up at Sanzo, who remained looking down at him with a scowl. "Look at you, Konzen. Look at the man you have become."

"What are you—"

"Two years ago, you told me not to drag Kinzan down with something as petty as revenge. And now—now you seek to blow an entire company down even if we have no shred of concrete evidence, and you're taking out your anger at people for your own, sick liking—"

Homura grinned, and ignored the blood dripping from his lip to his cheek as Sanzo lifted him up by the collar, their noses close as he gave those boiling, violet eyes an amused smile and raised brows—

"Tell me, Konzen. Who is blinded by a fucking revenge plot now?"

.

Goku creaked his eye open, and saw nothing but blinding light from outside of his cell. He closed his eyes once more, and rolled over to his side, and faced the wall, and noticed that he was lying on the floor. Huffing, he muttered to himself, "They didn't even put me in the bed while I was out cold. Those jerks." He turned around, and squinted through the light, and noticed a man guarding his cell, sitting on a chair with his head lolling to one side.

He didn't know how many hours or days it had been since he slept, but for his stomach, it felt like an eternity.

He checked his hands, and noticed heavy shackles chained on his wrists. He waved his hand around, trying to gauge how heavy it was, and smiled at the heavy weight. He nudged his toes to his other foot, and felt similar shackles attached around his ankles. He hummed, and touched his face, and winced when his fingertip grazed his left cheekbone. Fighting back a curse, Goku then inspected the faint red stains and the small tears on his clothes. His favorite yellow necktie was askew, a few of the buttons of his shirt were missing, his cufflinks were gone—

—he patted his neck, and felt the golden chain still wrapped around his neck, its weight a strange comfort despite the aches from his body.

Goku swallowed back a cough as he touched a sore spot on his neck, and shook his head slowly a few times, checking if there were any shots of pain when he moved, and felt none. Nodding to himself, he scanned the cell he was in, and noticed that yes—

—he had been moved to another cell while he was out cold.

He had been in a cell with a floor of roughened cement when he first came in, but now, there was none. Instead of hard, cold concrete, he was met with a more forgiving floor with tatami. At the corner of the wall was a camera that stood out, following Goku's every move, and at the far side of the wall was a laid out futon. Upon the small entry laid his shoes.

The lack of windows in his cell didn't serve much help.

Goku huffed as he struggled to sit, and immediately patted for his phone, his face paling when he realized it wasn't in any of his pockets. He turned to give the sleeping guard a dirty glare, and wanted to break his neck, but fought against it.

The figure of a man decked in a white suit walked by, and stopped in front of Goku. The brunet noticed him immediately, with those wayward, black locks, that scruffy beard, and that permeating stink of cigarettes. Goku tensed up when Ni Jien Yi held the cell bars with his calloused fingers, and gave the man a stern glare.

"Enjoying your stay so far?" asked Dr. Ni, grinning at the scowl etched on Goku's face.

"You're the one who had me kidnapped? What did I even do to you?" Goku spat out, growling when Dr. Ni flattened his forehead against the bars, grinning madly still. His blood ran cold, however, when Dr. Ni took out a set of keys from his suit pocket, and opened the cell, whistling as he ventured into Goku's small space. When Dr. Ni took off his shoes and stepped onto the tatami, Goku dragged himself on his elbows, fighting back a wince as he felt a stab of pain in his ribs when he took a sudden gasp.

The man tutted, shook his head, and bent low, facing Goku with the same smug grin. He eyed the teen's form—from the swollen lips, to the bobbing throat, to the exposed sternum and ridges of his ribcage—all of that that was Goku, Dr. Ni took in.

And a shiver ran down Goku's spine when a rough fingertip tilted his chin upwards, and met Ukoku's malicious gaze.

"So, this is who the great Genjo Sanzo dotes on? Hm," he raised his brow, nudged Goku's head this way and that, and laughed. "Gotta admit, you do look somewhat childlike. Say, boy—" He leered down at the unmoving teen as he leaned to the shell of Goku's ear, "—are you that desperate not to get kicked out of your only home that you resort to sucking your boss's cock and his aunt's jugs every night?"

The response was immediate.

With growl and a yell, Goku laid out his palm to the floor, and whipped a swift kick to Dr. Ni's chin, making sure that the chain around his ankle smacked hard against the side of the man's jaw. He then launched himself on all fours, fingertips clawed and ready to attack. The blood pumped in his ears. Gone was his physical pain as he felt all of his senses heightened. His eyes darted around, looking for a chance to escape from the cell. His ears were on alert for any sound of distant footsteps or weapons being carried around. He hunched his back and stretched out his left leg, ready to strike once more. Ukoku moved to take his glasses that have been knocked to the floor from the kick. The sound of laughter—scratchy and grating on Goku's sensitive ears—made him gnash his teeth as the man stood up, and looked down at him with an amused, tight-lipped smile.

"Haha—you're good. Really good. You know, not many people have done that and lived to tell the tale. But," he paused, took a step forward as Goku drew his feet and hands back, and bared his teeth as Dr. Ni rubbed his glasses on his suit, and slid them back to his face. "Will you still be alive, I wonder, if you get to have a fellow inmate?"

"What are you—"

The distant sound of footsteps fell on Goku's ears, and his skin prickled as Ukoku took a step back and another man entered the cell. This man was different from the one who gave him his injuries, although they had the same, black hair, this man had a stubble, and a cocky grin.

Goku had a hard time pinning down the face of the man before him. This new man had yet to speak, opting to make a quiet groan in his throat as he smiled at Goku.

"Hey there, Kyuu. Remember me?"

The tension on Goku's shoulders eased up the slightest as he squinted, and ended up parting his lips, at a loss for words.

"Godworks, remember? You were the newbie, and I needed help with the door."

Goku frowned, and tensed up all the same. The memories of when he had once entered Godworks in search of Kami resurfaced in his mind, and he felt bile blooming anew in his throat.

Goku thought that him being recognized was impossible. He had thought his disguise was flawless—no one would ever remember him once he left.

"Shuuei," he breathed, his hairs standing on end and feeling the blood drain from his face as he heard Ukoku muffling his laugh.

The doors to the cell were closed once more, and Dr. Ni leaned on the bars, his grin wide and toothy as Shuuei took out a silk rope from the pockets of his slacks, and shook off his suit in a few seconds, causing Goku to attack Shuuei, only for the brunet to be grabbed by the ankle and thrown against the wall.

"Please don't be too reckless," came the voice to Goku's ear—

—and Goku raised his head to Shuuei's neck, and gnawed on the man's shoulder, the canines tearing at the fabric of the shirt he wore.

Ukoku watched the scene, chortling as Shuuei swallowed a pained cry as he ripped Goku away from his flesh, and tossed him to the floor. Letting out a low whistle as Shuuei towered over the heaving teen, Dr. Ni backed away from the cell, tapped the guard on the shoulder, and left Shuuei and Goku alone.

.

Kanzeon felt a strange cold come over her the following morning, on the second day of Goku's disappearance. Something felt amiss when she woke up in her too spacious of a bed. She felt suddenly detached of her surroundings, felt the air caving in around herself as she clutched her chest, and felt it beat against her cold and sweaty palm. She gulped, and felt her throat parched. She called for Jiroushin, who arrived immediately to her room at the sound of the bell. She asked for a glass of water, and a trip to her nephew.

She strode straight to her office in a sheer, white babydoll as Jiroushin made the preparations, and checked to see her laptops, which haven't been taking a rest since Goku's disappearance.

In the screens were maps of streets and several screens of camera footage in Kinzan, and she felt her heart stop at the sight of something that should have been there.

Once the preparations were set, Kanzeon and Jiroushin headed out to Kinzan in a hurry. Her aide opted not to speak the whole time during the ride, sensing the dread in his mistress's usually bubbly façade.

They made their way to Kinzan, its vicinity still surrounded by people armed and alert, keeping some of its supporters at bay. Jiroushin alerted some of the guards of the vice president's presence, and made enough space for the car to go through the people and past the gates.

Quick in her strides as soon as she got out of the car, Kanzeon, for once, didn't stop to smile and return her subordinates' greetings to her as she passed them by, and went to the elevator. Pressing the button straight to the 23rd floor, Jiroushin finally asked his mistress about the matter—

"Is it about Son Goku?" he asked with a nervous glance at her furrow-browed countenance. He gulped when she didn't reply, and opted to bite her lip as she crossed her arms instead of answering. Jiroushin nodded to himself, and looked straight at the doors—for once, she looked exactly like her nephew, with her rage bubbling to burst any minute.

He felt sweat beading on his temples, and he patted them dry as Kanzeon tapped her foot in impatience. The doors opened, and Jiroushin had to keep his pace behind Kanzeon's long strides. Bowing in return to some of the visibly armed editors they passed by, he huffed as they reached the president's office.

Upon opening the door unannounced, however, they expected to hear the escalating arguments between Sanzo and Homura, and occasional interruptions from Gojyo, sure, but they were not expecting to see Dr. Cho, of all people, to be in the building, also arguing with the two.

"It's not him!"

"Sanzo, I know it's hard to accept now, but—"

"Hakkai, if you say one more word, I'll throw you out of the fucking window. Even if it means dragging Gojyo down with you."

"What?! Hey!"

"Dr. Cho, did you even check any potential marks that might identify him as—"

"Homura, shut the fuck up. It's not Goku!"

"But the signs—!"

"The signs show nothing, Hakkai. You're mistaken. It's not him."

This time, Kanzeon cleared her throat and knocked at the door. The arguing stopped, and the tension in the room fell to a temporary halt as all eyes fell on her. She didn't act with her usual flamboyance as she crossed the room and stood in front of her distraught nephew. "Goku's necklace is not responding. It disappeared on the—huh? What's this?"

Blinking at the pile of pictures on the desk, Kanzeon frowned as she took one, and upon immediately covered her mouth and gagged as she released it from her hand. Jiroushin and Hakkai were quick to comfort her, patting her on the back and giving her a glass of water. Sanzo, on the other hand, slid the picture of the body with a smashed skull back to her line of vision as soon as she recovered.

"Tell me. Do you think this is Goku? Because I know for the fact that it's not."

She heaved as she steadied herself on her feet, and upon hearing Goku's name, she went still and paled—

"Sanzo—my child—Goku's necklace had been removed. And this thing around his neck—"

The sound of Sanzo slamming his hands on his desk stopped her from speaking, and he glared at his aunt as he quivered in his stance, and struggled with words to say, but found none. He looked down, and noticed out that, yes, there was a golden necklace around the body's neck, but it could be similar, and then—

"Sanzo," Hakkai started, his voice leveled and quiet as he gauged Sanzo's reaction, "the tattoo on the body's stomach is like that of Goku's."

"Not him," the blond gritted out, fighting back the urge to punch everyone in the face. "I know him when I see him even from afar. That's not Goku. The hands are not his, the placement of the ink is off, a curve on one of the sun's rays above his navel is not right, the scar under his rib is not there—everything's not right."

Hakkai blinked, then looked down at the picture—the autopsy showed that the body was that of a male in his twenties based on the dental records and—

"Sanzo, how do you—"

"I know his body inside and out, Hakkai. Let's leave it at that." Sanzo averted his gaze from everyone, harrumphed, and walked out of the office, feeling disturbed at having his private life exposed with a few words. But he also felt relieved at letting it all out, convinced that the dead person lying in the morgue was not Goku.

A few of the editors met his eyes, and they bowed. Returning the greeting with a slow blink, he then turned to Yaone and his other secretaries.

"Rally the gentry. Houtou dared to pick a fight with us."

Yaone looked at the other secretaries, a quiet fright falling upon their eyes. "President, what exactly do you mean?"

The door opened and Kanzeon was quick to interfere before Sanzo could even speak. The quiet rage that had been building up inside her since this morning fueled into an unquenchable need to harm those who tried to mess with her favorite child—

With a booming voice that shocked even those at the far back of the office, Kanzeon let out a sharp command—

—of declaring war against Houtou for making a mockery out of them.