A/N: Hey all! Sorry for taking so long with this! I'm going through some major life changes (all positive!) right now. I'll have a little more time to write soon, so i'll try to update a bit more regularly. I've accepted that this story is just a writing exercise for me at this point that I come back to whenever I feel stagnant. I have an end in sight, though, and hit a pocket of inspiration, so I'll be posting a few chapters, hopefully with a day or so of space between them. Thank you all for your patience, and I hope you enjoy! I know i do a lot of head hopping which is a huge no-no in the writing community, and I'll be trying to correct that in the future chapters that I'm currently writing, instead of going back and doing a huge edit.
Marcessitia, thank you so much for your review again! I'm missing the Taka/Ki too, so it's not gonna be far off from here, thankfully! :D
It was like Kinu was looking for a way to be an inconvenience at this point. Takasugi hadn't been able to convince her to ditch the shop for the night, even though this was possibly the best reason to have her on his ship. Gintoki had been acting oddly since they'd returned. They had gone their separate ways and Takasugi had let her makeshift family take her, so the man was finally having his moment with his beloved sister. She didn't look to be much in the way of company, though. Kagura wasn't getting any more of a response out of the girl, but occasionally Kinu would nod. Just enough to keep herself in the conversation.
"If she's staying, maybe one of us should, too…" Matako kicked her heel against the wooden floor of the teashop. Kawakami made a sound, punctuated by the tap of his empty tea cup.
"Perhaps it can't be helped. I'll stay here tonight-"
"Bansai,"
"Like hell you will." Sharply cutting in beside him, Matako rolled from the wall she'd been perched against and landed palm first in the seat beside the deaf man.
"Certain melodies require specific pitches, and I dare say that-"
Takasugi didn't think he needed to be here for this. He lifted his tea, and the steaming citrusy concoction warmed a trail to his stomach. Gintoki's group was still talking, mostly to each other now. Kinu, on the other hand, was stiffly perched in her solitary stool behind the counter. For once she had pulled it away from where she usually leaned against the wall. Her attention was firmly fixed on her lap, but when her eyes flicked to him he thrust himself back into the unfolding conversation at his table. "I could stay, or-" She glanced over briefly, and he froze just as much as she did.
"Matako-chan, though it may be harsh, I don't think you or Kinu-chan are the instruments for this piece."
"She'll come with us." Glancing back towards the girl, Takasugi ignored the blatant annoyance.
"She already said no to all of us. If we ask her again we'll just look desperate, the twerp." Matako said, and Takasugi snickered. The blonde pulled her flowery coffee mug across the table. "How far's her mom?"
"Ai isn't the issue." His attention drifted again. "Just leave Kinu to me."
"Are you going to seduce her, Shinsuke?" Kawakami's question drew his attention back to the table and he eyed the man. When Matako snorted, a wave of insult rushed through Takasugi.
"Of course I am. I'm irresistible." He grit his teeth as the deaf man's shoulders started to shake, and eventually both of the people across from him were half snickering, half outright laughing.
"Shinsuke-" Kawakami reached across the table as if he would dare to bat Takasugi's arm. "Maybe email her a list of Garvin May hits first."
"Or flowers." Matako added, nudging Kawakami and receiving an encouraging laugh. "Get her a card that says sorry about the kidnappings."
"I don't need your awful advice." They probably didn't even make cards like that. He'd check later. Takasugi slipped from the table, and the chorus of snickers behind him died down. He let himself behind the counter and helped himself to another cup of tea. He made a point of ignoring any looks he might be receiving from the opposite side of the bar, but when he topped off Kinu's mug she looked up at him, and mouthed her thanks.
"Any word?" Gintoki spoke directly to him, and he answered without missing a beat. As if the conversation had always been there, and they had only continued where they had left off.
"'Fraid not." Smoke seeped through the words. Seemed Amagi hadn't realized those things were feral, and a pain to catch. Takasugi slid onto the ledge of the sink as he waved his cellphone at the man. "They'll be dodging the media."
"No hospital, if that's the case."
"Nah." Takasugi glanced at the Yorozuya, and once again, he found total understanding. Judgement.
They sat in near silence, all thinking on separate issues. Tinted with the underlying image of the main threat. How could they prevent another incident if he couldn't take her? They had a few days at best, and that wasn't nearly enough to move a single person, let alone an entire family. Especially with no preparation.
Separate, they both had their own methods of getting things done. One way or another. But together, Kiheitai or not, they were a force from the depths of Hell. An odd sensation overtook Takasugi as Kinu tipped the same carafe used to fill Gintoki's cup into his tea. Spiked it without asking.
He'd have to repay her in the future.
"We can't be serious…" Shinpachi finally said after seeing that nobody would speak against the brewing crime. "Why don't we just call the police?"
"Oh, yeah," Matako's mug pressed onto the counter and she climbed into the chair at his side, rolling her eyes. "Let's call the Shinsengumi to save us from a politician's son. They wouldn't dream of touching him." She nodded up at the rising shadow of Kinu's form as it retrieved her coffee mug and retreated to the depths of the refrigerator. "What's next, you wanna call the bank about your taxes?"
Kinu returned with a freshly poured coffee over ice, and topped it with whipped cream.
"We can't exactly call the police." Kawakami slipped behind the counter and ran his cup under the sink. All the while, Takasugi watched on. Ai couldnt be far now. Hopefully she'd had time to calm down on the way.
"Kinu-san can." The pen boy insisted, and Takasugi narrowed his eye on the boy. He just didn't know when to stop, did he? It was obvious that Takasugi had won, he wasn't getting a say in what they were doing. Not in this case. Anything else, sure, but that kid didn't know the first thing about dealing with people like Amagi, let alone fighting them.
"No." For the first time, a soft monotone cut into the room. Amagi had done weird things before that definitely should have gotten him arrested. Like incorrectly mopping a convenience store floor as community service. That probably counted as fraud. "We'll defend the tea shop." The girl drifted to her feet, unusually stiff. Suddenly, her head was as empty as he'd suspected when he'd met her.
"Defend the tea shop?" Takasugi scoffed back, and she cut her eyes towards him. "Are you even hearing yourself?"
"This is Kinu-san's family home." Shinpachi stated, and again, Takasugi considered strangling the boy in the back alley. Matako answered well enough for him.
"Nobody cares about the tea shop." She got it. At least somebody was on the same page as him. Takasugi held Kinu's gaze, searching for a sign of comprehension. Some divine reason shining through her thick skull.
"Hey!" Kamui's sister perked up from the other side of the Yorozuya, cheeks smeared brown. "If you don't like it, give me your glass!" She had been inhaling a plate of cake. And rice balls. In fact, she had three plates laid out in front of her, all sporting various foods and desserts. Kinu had been anticipating their return, and had saved foods for them. The girl had already served the Kiheitai, and it looked like she'd had a bit too much fun with a cookie cutter. They were cute, though, and if her displays were to be trusted, they had sold to the last scrap of lemon iced shell cookies. He didn't think it was a theme, but it had melted into sugar on his tongue. From the ornate cream fliers stacked on the table and taped in the window, it was the day of her new menu launch.
A grim occasion for the sampling she'd wanted.
Kagura reached around the silver haired samurai, and Matako took a step back, tucking her mug against herself.
"You've got like four drinks!"
"He's not after the tea shop." Reigning his attention, Takasugi turned back to Kinu. Her crossed arms tightened.
"Then why would he attack it?"
He started to tell her exactly how stupid that was. Amagi had expressly told her that he was there for her, more or less. Maybe not in that exact manner, or with those words. Before he could drag her back down to reality, the bell over the door rang out,
"Ki! Honey!" An equally tiny form burst through the entry. Flushed and gasping for air, Ai half clawed, half dragged her way inside. When she got a good look at the room, surprise rippled across her, but she bypassed the greetings to unleash an unexpectedly pointed attack. Her first question had been whether there was a body. When Takasugi reported back, empty handed at that, he hadn't known what she was capable of.
It wasn't until he was being dragged up the stairs, hissing and surprisingly animated, from Kinu's view in the tea shop doorway. Ai didn't even have enough hands to grab her ear, too, but she knew she had to go with them. Lest they all perish.
"What did I do?!" Gintoki had tried to defend himself, but his repeated cries of pain amped up a notch. Ai was the final boss.
Kinu was just creeping her way over the top of the stairs when Ai finally laid in.
"What's going on with the businessmen around here?!" She had dumped her hostages off at the dining table, and was already standing at the head. Unbothered by the sour faced men cupping and massaging at their red earlobes. "I swear! If it's not one thing its another! Suicide, loan sharks, and now what-" She locked onto Takasugi with eyes that would have cut any other man.
"A bureaucrat." He gingerly offered, trying to smooth the irritation of his prior assault. He would have walked upstairs on his own, she could have just asked them. "Amagi Seiji," The moment Takasugi got the name out of his mouth, Ai made a sound. Her hand shot over her mouth, and she spun around.
"Amagi?" The woman snatched an indigo pamphlet from the refrigerator and slapped it on the table, only pointing as she thumbed through to the back page. Kinu had completed the world's slowest journey to her seat, but she never fully made it down. "Like the family that funds the tech institute?"
And there he was. On the table before them, smiling for the camera. Amagi Seiji, in his full glory. Kinu froze. Maybe there was more of a problem than she thought. Even Takasugi had abandoned his outwardly dignified anger to ponder the image.
"How old is this?" Gintoki asked, and it was a wonder Ai had heard him at all.
"A few years." She left the pamphlet where it laid and started rummaging in a drawer behind herself, no doubt for a cigarette. Subconsciously, perhaps, Takasugi reached for his pipe. "He comes by all the time, though. Him and Ishii-san, they're regulars. I see them nearly every shift I work here. We met them at her orientation, remember sweetie?"
Suddenly, everybody was looking to Kinu. She didn't think she recalled anything like that. Kinu paid attention to people. For her orientation, she had been overwhelmed with the prestige, and the fancy uniforms, and everything else. She hardly remembered what Ishii looked like for the first week she was in his class, let alone random faculty.
Kinu never had time to think about that. Other teachers, who they were, what they did. Or administrative people. She knew her own teachers, and she knew the people in her guidance office. Surely she would have remembered Amagi.
"No," She started to shake her head, but her mother insisted. Ai planted a hand on the table and smoke poured from her nostrils and mouth.
"Honey, I'm telling you." How could Kinu not recall ever seeing him? "He's been a regular for… about two years now. Remember when the post office took your package to the school?"
Slowly, the girl started to nod. It had been a day that she hadn't been able to attend her classes. Kinu remembered hoping that it would be declared a snow day, but there had been no such luck. She'd had to take a regular mark of absence, like any other day.
"Ah," It dawned on her, then. He had been the one to bring the package to her shop. Ai had done most of the talking, but Amagi had been wrapped up for the snow. Between his hat and his jacket, all she had been able to see was his eyes. Thinking back, she was sure that it had been him. "I remember."
Kinu thought Takasugi would have something to say. She expected a face, or a tone, something reprimanding her for not having paid attention to powerful people when they were nearby, or something. The one eyed man was scowling across the room, biting down on the golden mouthpiece of his pipe. Blissfully tuned out of the conversation and in his own head. Likewise, Gintoki was staring at Takasugi.
They went silent, and Kinu took a much needed moment to unwind herself. She pried her palms from the dining table and took the pressure off her aching knees, eyes still locked on the words under Amagi's picture. Senior member of the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Kinu didn't know what that meant, but it sounded important.
"This has got to be a misunderstanding." Ai finally said. She drew in a deep breath, and steadied herself, hand already reaching as she turned, for the wallphone. "Amagi-san is marrying that girl from your class. She's pregnant, isn't she?" Ai was practically mumbling to herself at this point. "The really pretty one that used to work at the hostess shop with us. You know, Naomi-chan, and Ayumi-chan's friend? We should just give him a call-"
"No-" Gintoki was over the table before Kinu could think to stop their mother. For once, Kinu remembered who her mother was talking about. "No, we can't do that."
"What?" Ai turned back, and Kinu quickly avoided her scan for answers. "I have his phone number, why not?"
"We cut his hand off." Takasugi stated, and it was as if realization hit Ai at once.
"You did what?!" She choked back, clutching her chest, and half leaning into Gintoki.
"What is this we shit?!" Gintoki barked back. Without warning, Kinu leaned across the table and smacked the one eyed man's shoulder. On Gintoki's side for a change. Was Takasugi trying to kill her mother? "You-"
"Just… Let's just try to calm down…" Gintoki was ushering the woman towards the table. A cacophony of emotions was washing over Ai. At first, it was confusion. That quickly turned to abject horror, and for a moment, Kinu thought she saw the same defiance she felt. "Here, sit down." Ai started to comply, but then she was at Kinu's side. She squeezed the girl into herself, taking her a step, and pulling her to her feet.
"We're getting the hell out of here."
Dumbstruck, Kinu turned to her mother. "We'll go north. To the mountains, you remember your grandmother, don't you?"
"They hate us." She protested, but Ai shook her head.
"Not enough to turn us away." She said, and as Kinu glanced towards the men at the table, she found them curiously peaceful. Staring at one another.
"I think we can all agree that the shop isn't the most…" Takasugi paused to search for the perfect word. The perfect excuse to have the girl another night. Maybe a week.
"Whoa, whoa, nobody's gotta fly north just cause this criminal cut off some rich guy's hand." Gintoki was reigning Ai in again, this time with Kinu at her side. The woman's ragged breaths tore at her lungs, and she had to sit a moment to catch her breath. Kinu fetched her a glass of water from the not so distant sink as she pulled at the neckband of her yukata. The fabric slackened as Kinu set the glass beside her mother, and Gintoki pulled an orange prescription bottle from the tiny cupboard over the sink.
It finally struck Takasugi as he watched Kinu count out the pills in silence. Ai took them with little more than a hum. Something befitting her daughter, and they turned away from one another. The older, waiting for the medication to take effect. The younger frowning at the wooden table. He'd never fully pried into Ai's condition.
Gintoki was the only one speaking normally through it all.
"You talk the old hag down for another month, and Shinpachi will carry your futons himself." He was saying when the older woman's arm shot out to smack him. He tactfully out-jumped her reach.
"This is our home." Kinu didn't know what any of them could be thinking. She didn't care who Amagi was. She didn't care if she had met him before, five years ago when the moon was green, for god's sake! He had violated their home, and everybody wanted to abandon it. After all of the work they had put into the tea room, and the garden. The time and effort spent maintaining and trying to improve through the years was nothing under the pressure of one guy? Some bastard she hardly knew? He wanted things that couldn't possibly have anything to do with her, and yet she was there in the center of it all. It was the worst thing that she could fathom.
What else did she have?
"He'll drag me from this house kicking and screaming."
"That's exactly what he'll do." Takasugi didn't get it. Amagi had come after her, but that didn't mean that he was above striking at the things that were most important to her. The way he had mentioned her mother made her skin crawl. Especially with the knowledge of her apparent friendship with the men. Something about it was so wrong to her that she couldn't think to do anything but dig her heels in.
"This is our family home." She sank down to the table, as if being closer would spell it out in some way he just wasn't seeing. "I'm not going anywhere." Kinu was already halfway to the hallway by the time they'd fully caught her words.
She didn't have anything else to say to them, and she didn't give them time to decide whether they liked it or not. Kinu didn't think she could muster the words if she even tried. People had been everywhere for what felt like forever. Yelling, crying, being suspiciously unaware of Takasugi and Kinu with no explanation, out of nowhere. It was too much. Even when she slammed her room door for all that she was worth, it dropped from it's track altogether. Her success was equal between catching the door and sorting out the sudden influx of emotions. The wooden frame smacked into her forehead and she fought it back into place.
What was she feeling?
Physically, her jaw and throat hurt. Her chest was vaguely painful. She thought her stomach was a bit queasy, but she couldn't be sure. Maybe it was because she hadn't smoked. In this mull of sensations, she found herself sitting at the foot of her bed, listening to the sounds of an occasional stirring in the house.
She heard her mother's muffled voice pick up when the main door to the house opened. Everybody had stayed and talked about something without her. She couldn't even handle the conversation. As footsteps shuffled by, Kinu threw herself over her bed. Breath baited, she watched the now crinkled edge of her door over her shoulder.
It took some time for her to finally exhale. They had all left her up there. Alone. Maybe she needed to be alone.
If some asshole was going to invade her space, she was going to respond accordingly. The only way that made sense to her. How could she leave Ai and Riku to fend for themselves if a madman was after her? Wouldn't he just take them? Hold the shop hostage? It made more sense for her to stay exactly where everything important was.
Like a captain out at sea, she knew her place in the grand scheme of things.
Everything had spun out of control, and gone further than she had expected.
Maybe that was why her desk kept getting vandalized. If Amagi was seeing women and stalking Kinu on the side…
She opened her phone and scrolled through the group chat. There had been an influx of messages since what had happened. Kinu pulled a blanket over her freezing shoulders as she scrolled through the name calling and scrawled over pictures of herself. They were still flooding in. An agitated swarm, all focused on Kinu for some strange reason. She had left the group chat three times since they'd all sat down, and she had been added back every single time.
Even when she blocked the numbers, a new one was started immediately.
They wanted her to see it, but they were all using fake names. Numbers to be specific. Every person in the group was labeled as Kitten Number whatever. Kinu's name read Kitten number fifty four. Fifty Four!
It was too targeted. Takasugi was awful. He couldn't possibly be hiding fifty three other women from her.
As she stared down at the device in her hands, a cord caught her eye. It curled around the leg of the table, and led into the cracked closet door. Hooked up to her makeup prototype.
Taking it, Kinu sat up.
A cacophony of cords and wires trailed from Kinu's closet, wrapped around the table and futon, and finally ended at the panel in her hands. Finally, after hours of setting her equipment up, she had achieved her goal. Information. Her phone laid, stripped to the bare bones; naked on her table and victim to the electrical highways she'd stolen from the bot hanging from her closet door.
"Young mistress, shall I do your hair?"
Glancing at the skeletal arm reaching forward, Kinu clicked her teeth.
"You don't have hands yet." She murmured.
"Understood. Processing error fifty three encountered. Forcing script abort… Processing…"
Kinu was doing the same. Scrolling through the IPs she'd dug up, and sifting through whatever attached names and information she could find. A vast majority of the messages were coming from random locations around the galaxy. It didn't make any sense. What had she done to piss off the gelatin people of Gorklon-68?
Either they knew what they were doing, or they got around. From the look of it, whoever was running the accounts was covering their tracks. They were intentionally scrambling their location. It had to be somebody at her school, if they had pictures of her desk. Probably in her class. They were taking care to connect to different routers to send messages, pictures, and whatever else floated their boat.
There were dozens of accounts in the chat, and Kinu had been sitting on her bed since the night had simmered down. Everybody was taking a break from pretending it was a family game night.
Takasugi had left without saying goodbye, and she couldn't blame him. If he wasn't going to help her defend the tea shop, she didn't need him there. Kinu couldn't just hop on a ship and be whisked away across the universe. Or a train across the country.
What about her parents? The Yorozuya? She wasn't even sure if her mother had gotten a good look at her father yet, or if he was the same as the last time she'd seen him. Kinu bit the end of a pocky stick as she grabbed a sheet of paper to scribble a list of each account caught using repeat IP addresses. Since the messages had started, she'd only been able to think about figuring out if it was as she had suspected since hearing her mother's gossip.
Those women were probably in danger, too. That wasn't her problem, though. They were just as crazy as he was if Amagi had been the reason some strangers decided to make Kinu's life harder.
"When shall I have hands?"
"As soon as I figure out the logistics and fix the diagram…" Kinu murmured, pulling up her school's database. She only knew a few of the people in her classes.
"Understood."
Specifically, the girls that worked at the hostess club. Kinu wanted to know their full names, though. She wanted to know who they were. She still wasn't sure how she'd prove it was them, but she went into it open minded.
Frowning at a few names, Kinu scrolled through the roster list for her year. Mori Ayumi, and Abe Naomi. That was them. Kinu knew them because their makeup was always smooth, and flowy. She didn't know how they did it. Some nights, she would watch them swipe on a coat of lipstick, or dab rouge onto their cheeks with their little sponges. They were the only ones that used sponges on their cheeks, but it looked cute.
Kinu wondered why they would want to harass her. She hadn't ever spoken to them in any notable way. Now, she couldn't think of any natural way to approach them, but she would come up with something. Something normal and refined. Like Takasugi.
She would do what he did, and sit down with them. Gracefully, and dignified. If everything went as planned, it would be fine. If not, she might have to cut off somebody's finger. It was a shame that there would be nobody to hold the victim steady, but Kinu had a good idea of how it worked.
"Oi, are you connected right now?"
"Yes." The form hanging on her closet door turned it's metallic head towards her. Pushing herself up, Kinu navigated her way over the wires and to the suspended torso and head. The shimmering caramel eyes trailed her movement. She could see the lenses focusing inside of the skeletal eyeball. Looking at her.
"Print my class roster, and a list of the student body. Any information you can find."
"Understood."
Kinu scanned the woven cords at her feet, eventually finding the printer stuffed at the top of her closet. She stretched, nearly making it to the full tips of her toes before dropping back to the hardwood; face significantly more sour. Then she hopped towards it, and her fingers barely scraped the edge of the plastic. This was unacceptable.
Her third attempt, she managed to snag the cord and the printer came crashing into her arms. With one hasty snatch and shove, it was booting up.
The paper started to feed into it, and soon, Kinu had a full thirty pages to sift through. It didn't take long until she found exactly what she was looking for. The easiest girl to talk to would be the one in her mechanics class.
"Open your panel and look up this address."
It only took a minute for the pictures to pop up on the display. An apartment building. Bright yellow walls and a gated courtyard peeked back at her through the street camera view.
"Now see if you can connect to 204. It should be Abe Naomi."
"Pairing."
Eyes fixed on the school list, Kinu skimmed the addresses again. This was the most recent change on file. From the records, her emergency contacts were her parents, and one Fukuda Ikumi.
Kinu recognized that name. It took her a moment, but the images vaguely danced around in her head.
Usually, there was a third girl at the hostess club with them. Kinu hadn't seen her since the previous year, and now that she thought about it, she hadn't seen the third at school, either. Or on the train. They had spoken once on the train on the way to school. It wasn't much of a conversation. Kinu had been frustrated at her project not working, and Ikumi had shown her how to properly connect a delta pump. It had saved her grade.
They had ancient literature together. Ikumi had perfect raven black hair, and always curled the ends to look like a supermodel.
A sharp electrical buzz sounded above Kinu and she looked up from her papers to see the mechanical eyes rolling a full 360 in their sockets.
"Error-" Unnaturally tinny, the robotic voice pitched, and Kinu was immediately back on her feet, hands outstretched at her side as if preparing to catch her android. "Processing error 12-38-C."
"What does that mean?" Kinu didn't have time for a diagnostic book. She needed answers now, why was it speaking in code?!
"Unrecognized video file. Start."
Before her eyes, the display panel popped out of Makeup-chan's chest, and a loading screen ran a full circle before a woman came into view. She spun a full circle, showing off the natural flow of her emerald dress. Then she crouched, grinning into the camera as her tawny curls fell over her shoulder. It was Naomi herself.
"Yoo-hoo! Hey there! It's really not cool to hack into people's private networks, you know that?" She ran a fist under her eye, mock pouting. "What if I had delicate, lady information here? This network is puppy password protected! Isn't that right?"
A tan Pomeranian bounded its way onto the camera. Naomi scooped it up, propping the creature against her collar as she cooed at it. That's it? She'd bugged her own network to show people her dog? No defense? Just a weird perky warning? That was a bit of a relief. She was stupid.
Kinu took a breath, and a single step towards her bot. Naomi finally looked back to the camera as if only an afterthought. "Now look at what I can make your computer do."
"No!" Throwing herself forward, Kinu ripped the keyboard panel out of Makeup's stomach. Unpolished metal edges pricked at her fingertips, but her race to the input was unobstructed. She was typing before she fully knew what she was looking for.
She didn't know what the security system would target, but from the sound of the steel eyeballs scraping at their sockets, it didn't look like it was something she had prepared for. Kinu had two main options.
Hope to block and disengage before she could be identified, or hammer forward.
If she pushed, it'd be nearly impossible to focus on saving her project. Especially without knowing what kind of damage was being done. Kinu had thought using her strongest resource would be the fastest, easiest way to do things. Now, she wished she had used something else. A scrap build. Anything.
If she pulled back, the security would probably be airtight when she got back.
Fingers furiously dancing across the keyboard, she kept her eyes locked on the code. Praying for accuracy, because by the time she spotted a typo she'd be two lines down.
The dialogue box came up, and with the stroke of an enter key, Kinu had a live stream of text flowing in front of her. Naomi was trying to burn out her components and melt her fans.
A flurry of mechanical clacks filled her small room, and when Naomi's code shifted to Kinu's main files, she switched her defense. This was a live fight. Not from the computer or the security system itself, but Naomi had to be there, actively trying to destroy her.
"No!" Kinu didn't know when she'd started yelling at the screen. It was too late, though. She was already in. A list popped onto the screen, and she nearly cried out at the sight of it. Dozens of IP addresses. All Naomi's. Now, they raced. "Print!" Hissing at the robot, Kinu smacked her palm into its scuffed tire rim hip. It's eyes were shifting side to side. Under the sharp repetitive tick, Kinu could hear the motors adjusting. Focusing. "Print!"
The printer made a sound. Paper fed into it, and spat back out, blank. The white code was still flowing across her screen. Naomi was torching her entire system.
Kinu had found her list, but now she couldn't get it. She dived for the printed papers, and tripped to her desk for a pen. Then she stumbled back to the floor in front of her closet to scribble as many IP addresses as she could.
She got to two and a half before her screen started going out. The dreadful switching of Makeup-chan's eyes lulled to an end, and they loosely rolled to the bottom of their sockets, taken by momentum. The electrical whirl turned to a hum. The screen went black, and Kinu sat there, pen in hand. Staring at her sore failure.
Silence rang in her ears.
Just as she adjusted to the new quiet and started to sink to the floor, the metal cavity in front of her popped open, and sparks shot out of the coolant fans. Gray waves of smoke spurted from the ruined hunk of metal in front of Kinu, and she glanced down at her two and a half IP addresses. That wasn't a fair trade.
With a heavy sigh, Kinu turned her paper over and glanced over her compiled list of harassers.
Palming crocodile tears from her red face, still barely able to look away from years of her efforts burned to cinders in a matter of seconds, she found it. Gorklon-68.
What were the odds of that?