Author's note: Okay… I read through this at least three times and I'm sure there are still mistakes. It's just one of those days when the grammar bug has bitten you in the ass and made you stupid, what can I say?

JML : Fruit Baskets rocked… the scene with Ayame and the wedding dress… I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

Kyo : The page is cute now that I can see it ^_^ Thank you again for hosting my stuff.

Tenshineko : I can never tell the difference myself until I need to. One is the bodyguard of Magdaria though.

Blue Jeans : Your comment inspired a part of this story (you'll see it when you get to it)

Phoenix : I can do twisted… you know I can ^_^

To the rest, I'm glad you're enjoying it! Here's the update a bit later than normal but hopefully it's okay.

* * *

Tokio walked out of the building, the warm desert breeze catching her long coat and blowing the back of it up like a peacock's tail. The setting sun reflected over the small silver sunglasses she wore and gave an orange-red sheen to her porcelain face. With a frown, she ejected the empty cartridge out of her gun and walked towards the limo. Interrogating the survivors had proven useless. Either they really didn't know where the Juppongatana were holed up or they weren't going to tell her. Either way, they were just stains on the floor now.

The limo door opened and Kenshin walked out, catching Tokio's glance. She shook her head.

"Nothing," she said, voicing what she had just motioned. The ex-assassin nodded. "How's the girl?"

"Asleep."

Tokio nodded, trying to hide a smile. It was interesting to see him reacting like that to a woman. This girl… Tokio really wanted to get to know the one who had broken his shell. Saitou walked out and took a standing position next to her, arms crossed and shaking his head. For a moment, finding the connection for a video feed had seemed like a possible clue but…

"Great," Tokio sighed. "We can't trace the signal back to its source. No one left standing would tell us anything. I know they can't be in town… nothing goes on here without me knowing about it. Besides they'd need too much, medical supplies and equipment, things like that. Someone would have noticed it. We have no leads."

"The desert."

The three people standing outside the car turned their attention to the open door. Inside huddled under a blanket, Kaoru looked at the floor of the limo very much awake and putting things together in her mind.

"I spoke to Megumi maybe three hours ago," Kaoru continued. "Even if they took her right afterwards, they only had three hours to get her somewhere. I saw a map of the area and it's all small towns, Lake Mead and desert. A facility in a small town would stick out like a sore thumb. Lake Mead is too populated. But somewhere in the desert, maybe they could build their own facility. The US government does it all the time, makes underground bases. They're very hard to find. But if we flew above it, we might be able to see something. Even a base underground has to have an entrance above ground."

Kaoru blinked and looked up at the three faces outside. "Get me a helicopter and I'll find the place. It's what I do for a living."

"But, Ka…" Kenshin started.

"I'm not stupid," Kaoru said. "I know who's behind this. And if Megumi's in trouble with them…" she paused and looked up, past Kenshin to the Saitous.

Tokio smiled slightly. Oh yes, she really liked this girl. "I've got just thing… if you're up to it."

"No, she's not," Kenshin interrupted, moving towards the open door. "She's going back to the…" But there was suddenly a tug at his arm and he looked down, watching Kaoru look up at him and seeing something familiar there. That feeling of fear that he had the second he realized she was in trouble. Kaoru was feeling the same thing for Megumi. He didn't want to let her go but…

But Tokio was already stepping into the limo while Saitou relayed orders to the driver. Kenshin had made the decision to get involved and he should have known something like this would happen. So he got in, without another word of protest and took a seat next to Kaoru. She smiled slightly before she fell asleep again, slowly falling onto his shoulder.

* * *

Aoshi felt bad. Worse then he had in awhile. Of course, that's what happens when a building falls on you. Still, feeling bad meant you were alive, right? Turning to his side and feeling the muscles scream in protest, he had to wonder if that was a good thing.

Through half closed blue eyes, Aoshi took in his surroundings. They were sparse. A small room with a cot and a sink. And bars on the door. Hmmm… it wasn't really hard to guess where he was.

He pushed himself into a seated position, feeling his head swim and seeing an explosion of stars in front of him. He started to fall to one side but caught himself quickly, suddenly feeling pain in his arm. He held it up in front of him and noticed, rather unhappily that it was completely bandaged. Broken? Probably.

He stood up and walked to the bars, looking out into the dimly lit hallway. There were a few cells near him but they were all empty. Where was Misao? Maybe she hadn't gotten caught. Maybe she had run away. He frowned. No, she wouldn't have run away and left him behind.

He felt something grip him in the chest. If she hadn't run away and she wasn't here… did something else happen? Was she… was she…

Before his mind could play out the worst possible scenarios, the hallway exploded with harsh fluorescent light. Looking down, he saw the door had swung open and three figures emerged from outside, walking towards him. Two of them were tall men dressed in well-pressed uniforms; one was carrying a large black box. The third was easy to distinguish. She barely came up to either of their shoulders, her own camouflage was in stark contrast to their decorative uniforms.

He realized right away that something was wrong. It wasn't so much that the US Army had caught them. Or the look she shot him that had said "we're screwed". It was the fact that her outfit was completely clean. There wasn't a speck of dust on it.

"Shinomori, Aoshi," one of the soldiers said evenly. "You are an agent for the Japanese Intelligence Agency. You were caught trespassing on a US Military base, a base which I might add was just destroyed by a foreign tank."

Aoshi was silent, looking over unhappily at Misao. His feeling of dread was not diminishing.

"However, based on testimony from several soldiers, you apparently took upon yourselves to draw attention away from the retreating troops so they could escape. And for that, we don't believe you were part of the tank group. But that doesn't mean that we can forget that you broke several international treaties by breaking into our facility."

The soldier sighed. "I thought this would guarantee me a promotion. I thought I might finally make it out of the desert hell. But of course, when we went to report this, we were informed that the top brass already knew about this. Tell me… did you know what you were after?"

Aoshi frowned. To be honest, no. Misao had said it was on a need to know basis and that had been enough for him. She was the one who was going to do the extraction in the end. He was just cover.

The soldier looked over to Misao and she nodded. Turning to the other officer, she took the large metal box from him and put it on the ground, opening it up. Inside were two ceramic cups and a large bottle of sake.

There should have been a face fault, there should have at least been an eyebrow twitch, a little clenching of the fist, a sweat drop even. But this was Aoshi and he could just take it in stride, burying it in the back of his mind somewhere to use as fodder for a future fight.

"Sake," he finally settled on as a response, making sure his voice didn't betray any emotion.

"Sometimes, foreign governments let us try to break into their facilities to test security," Misao said. "Okina had mentioned something a while back and…"

"Well," the soldier said, "I'm afraid to admit that if it hadn't been for the second group breaking into the facility that night, you would have succeeded without any problems. If you had been here a week earlier, maybe we could have prevented what happened.

"Exactly what did happen?" Aoshi asked.

"The Juppongatana broke into the facility to steal something," Misao said.

"It was an experimental missile," he stated. "There was no payload stolen so we believe they already have a payload of their own in mind."

"Exactly what does this missile do?" Aoshi inquired cautiously.

"It's remote controlled, undetectable to RADAR and was designed to deliver the payload without being destroyed."

Aoshi began to understand. The missile itself was almost like a bomber plane. But there were two questions that still plagued him. One was what exactly did the Juppongatana have for a payload. Second was… why hadn't they let him out of the jail cell. He decided that they could provide an answer to at least the second question.

"Your partner suggested it actually," the soldier replied.

"Since we're used to dealing with the Juppongatana, Okina offered to lend us to the army for their operation," Misao started. "Only… well, you're kind of hurt."

It all clicked. The clean uniform that should have been dirty from the collapsing building. But no, she had gotten a new one and was planning…

"No," he said firmly.

"It's sort of already been decided," Misao said.

"Then undecide it," he replied, realizing his response almost sounded like something she would say. "You are not going alone."

She waved her hand. "I used to do this all the time before we met. And I'll have some US guys as back up."

"No."

The soldier sighed. "I can see why you thought this would be a good idea."

"Just let him out as soon as I get there," Misao said, turning to the soldier.

"Misao!"

"All right, we can do that."

"Misao, you listen to me…"

"Don't worry," Misao said with a smile turning back to him. "They've got a nice computer hook up. You can help me out from here."

"Misao!"

"The transport will be here any second," the soldier said. Misao nodded and the three of them walked away, leaving Aoshi to yell out her name a few more times in frustration.

* * *

It was like after a real bad drinking binge… only worse. He didn't want to throw up. He just wanted the room to stop spinning and his head to stop screaming in pain. He could almost feel the bump growing beneath the spiky hair where they had hit him.

Looking around, he took in his surroundings, cursing every time his head turned. It was an empty white room. He couldn't even tell where there was a door. He tried to stand up but realized his feet were bound, as were his arms.

Great, all he needed was some padding on the wall and he'd be all set.

He slid his way over to the wall, deciding it would be a good idea to at least look for an exit. Of course with his arms tied like this the only thing he could do was kick at the wall and try to hear if it was hollow behind.

He had planted a few well-placed kicks before he heard something on the other side of the room. Cursing, he slid over to the other side of the room to see what was going on. Halfway there, he recognized the voice.

"Oi… Magdaria," Sano called out.

"Yes, it's me."

"You okay?"

"I think so."

"So that rooster-head really did get himself caught."

Sano's face faulted and his eyebrow started to twitch. That voice… he recognized that voice. It was not a good voice to recognize though.

"Megitsune," Sano called out. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I think that's a question you should answer first. I know why I'm here, Magdaria has a good idea why she's here but we can't figure out why they would want you."

"Do you have to answer ever question with an insult!" Sano yelled.

"It was a simple question…"

"With a dozen insults buried in it. Look, I don't know why I'm here, okay?" Sano called. "I was with Magdaria and the shit hit the fan, end of story."

"I'm so sorry Sagara-san…I didn't mean to involve you…"

"Great move rooster, you went and upset her again."

Sano's eyebrow twitched. In the blink of an eye, he saw all his possible responses to this and realized that they all led back to him being a bastard.

"I'll look for a way out, so just stay calm for a bit…" he started.

There was movement on the other side of the wall. Sano fell silent as he listened and tried to determine what the muffled voices were saying. But they were speaking too softly for him to make anything out. Finally there was only silence.

"Sagara-san?"

"What happened?" Sano said. "Where's Megumi?"

"They took her away. I don't know but they seemed rather upset."

Sano cursed and began to slide back around the wall, kicking at it and looking for a way out. Finally, he heard the telltale echo of space behind the wall. Lying on his back, he brought his straightened legs to his face and worked his hands around the back of them, moving the bound hands from his back to his front.

Cursing about the number of muscles he had just pulled, Sano caught his breath before reaching forward and slowly working the knots with his fingers. It was a pain in the ass and colorful expressions were coming from his mouth. But he continued and finally put Harry Houdini to shame with his escapist skills.

Still his hands were still bound together. Sano took a step back, clenched both hands into fists and used a double-handed punch to obliterate the door. He looked down the empty hallway and quickly turned back towards the room. One of the hinges had snapped off and broken in such a way that after a minute of sawing at the ropes his arms were free.

Without a second thought he turned right, heading down the empty hallway.

* * *

The helicopter's blades started to spin and the feet slowly picked up off the ground. A second later it was gone, leaving the tower of the casino in its wake. From his back seat, Kenshin was doing anything but enjoying the view. He didn't like the situation for several dozen reasons. But every time he went to bring one up, it took one look from Kaoru or Tokio to tell him it was a useless argument.

Kenshin looked over at the man sitting next to him. If he didn't know any better, he could have sworn Saitou was smiling at the way the women had whipped Kenshin into the back of the helicopter. The thought didn't improve his mood.

He didn't understand it. Kaoru was obviously distraught about what had almost happened but she wanted, more like demanded, to be allowed to help. Sure it was Megumi that was involved but… it was something more than that. The way she had just come up with this idea, she was determined to find the people responsible.

Kenshin sighed. He was beginning to understand Aoshi's position. Kaoru was the type of person who was so determined to do her job and help others that she could really get herself hurt. Aoshi would have to watch over her all the time to make sure things didn't go wrong.

Tokio was humming softly and looking out of the window at the ground. She watched the lights of Las Vegas suddenly melt into desert, dotted only by the occasional dirt road. Night was falling quickly, the sun rapidly edging towards the horizon.

"How far do you think they got?" Tokio yelled into the mic.

Kaoru paused for a minute. "Well, I'm assuming they used land transportation… with the dirt roads, they might be able to do fifty miles an hour, faster if they had SUVs or something like that. That's about 150 mile radius."

"Shorter than that," Tokio said. Kaoru turned to look at her but Tokio shook her head. Sure, Tokio was cold as ice sometimes but there was no reason to be cruel. Better Kaoru didn't realize her near drowning was being broadcast live.

That meant they needed to get Megumi to where they were so she could see the show. "Two and a half hours. So 125 miles," Tokio stated firmly.

She looked around before finally retrieving a book of maps. Flipping through to the right page, she pulled some lipstick out of her pocket and drew an estimated circle of the search area.

"Go east," she said. "And north. There are national parks in the other directions." The helmet nodded and the helicopter banked slightly as Kaoru brought it about to the right direction.

Thirty minutes had passed without a word among the passengers when Kaoru suddenly dipped the helicopter nose down.

"Found something?" Tokio asked.

The helmet nodded and pointed to her left. "There's a dirt road down there. I want to see where it leads." The helicopter followed the winding path down the open desert.

From his vantage point, Kenshin could see that this was probably what they were looking for. The tire tracks on the road hadn't been swept away by the desert winds yet. This road was used recently.

"I think we should land," he started, "and look on…"

The helicopter suddenly pulled up and banked sharply, sending most of the occupants to the right side of the craft. Kenshin watched as something streaked by. So much for taking the safe approach.

"They must have seen us coming," Tokio said unhappily. "But what just passed us?"

"Two helicopters," Saitou said evenly from the back. "Smaller and faster than us."

"They're coming back this way," Kaoru said looking out the rear view mirror. She waited until they were close and dipped down quickly. But it wasn't fast enough to avoid the hail of bullets that bounced of the helicopter's blades.

Tokio frowned and took of her seatbelt. "Can you hold this thing steady? Even if they're coming right at us?" Kaoru nodded firmly and Tokio stood up, throwing open the door. But some act of God, Kaoru kept true to her word though she really wasn't expecting the other woman to do that.

Tokio pulled out her gun and wrapped a foot around the seat's legs and leaned outward, pressing her body onto the edge of the door. The wind blew something fierce and Tokio realized she had miscalculated. This was not like shooting from the sunroof of a car.

However, Tokio was just one piece of the puzzle and without having to be asked Saitou had climbed into the front to steady her. Without having to worry about not falling out, Tokio pulled the gun up and aimed at the approaching helicopter.

Most people would be impressed, the way husband and wife worked like a well-oiled machine. But then, he shot Tokio took as the helicopter whizzed by smashed through the glass of the cockpit and hit the pilot in the head, sending the craft down into a spiraling death spin. After watching that, you couldn't really feel good about the two of them together.

The second helicopter hesitated for a moment before coming around on the opposite of the craft. Tokio waited, letting him think he was smart before she yelled at Kaoru to turn the helicopter. And Kaoru, being the skilled pilot she was, managed to do without ever changing the helicopter's parallel position to the ground.

The shot was clean and the second copter went down. Tokio sighed. Really, they should know whom they were dealing with. She told Kaoru to land their craft since she could already see the outline of something on the horizon. It was the entrance, she was sure of it and there was no reason to risk any more mid-air fights.

The blades had barely slowed down when Saitou and Tokio jumped off and started to walk away. Kaoru started to unstrap her own seatbelt before she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Just stay here," Kenshin said.

"I won't," Kaoru replied.

"I don't want to get into an argument about this…"

"And I don't want another Aoshi," Kaoru said firmly. Kenshin blinked. "You know why Tokio and Saitou work so well together? Before he actually trusts her to be able to take care of herself."

Kaoru threw open the door and walked away quickly, wondering exactly when her knees would decide to give out. That was so… unlike her. Normally she would have just pined and waited and wished for something to change. Maybe it was Tokio's influence. But she wasn't going to get left behind anymore.

* * *

Sano slipped down the halls, carefully listening ahead to see if he could hear anyone coming. Hey, three months at the police academy had actually taught him a few things… when he managed to stay away in class.

Of course, he had no idea where he was going but it felt like from the way he was walking the building was essentially a circle. The hallways curved and Sano got the distinct feeling that if he kept going he'd end up back at his little cell. He hadn't seen any stairs or elevators yet so Megumi should be somewhere on this floor.

He turned the corner and heard the commotion, followed by a loud clang. He peeked around and got a good glimpse at the scene. Megumi was holding a metal tray in her hands, a very dented tray, and on the ground in front of her was an older man who had apparently been the one to make the dents.

"Oi, megitsune," Sano called from the corner. Megumi blinked and looked up.

"What are you doing here?"

"Rescuing you," Sano said.

"Feh, like that time in Tokyo I guess."

Sano cringed. Damnit, he had still been recovering from a bullet shot to the stomach back then! Why did she always have to hit his buttons?

"Besides," Megumi said, holding up her hand. "I'm the one with the key to your cell," she said, twirling the set in her hands.

Sano paused, feeling the red flush hit him but shaking it off. "Let's just go get Magdaria and get out of here."

Megumi walked over and quickly past him. "Yes, let's go rescue your little girlfriend so you can fulfill that role of knight to the damsel in…"

"That's it!" Sano cried, grabbing her as she passed by. "Why do you have to make everything so damn hard?"

Megumi stopped and looked over her shoulder. "I'm just stating the truth," she said evenly, never betraying any emotion. "You do want to save her, don't you?"

"What, are you jealous?"

Megumi blinked and looked a wee bit upset. "Being jealous would mean I actually cared. And I don't."

"Really. That's great," Sano replied. "I am glad to hear that."

"Good, I'm glad we're in agreement."

"Put your hands up!"

Sano turned around, his fist snapping out and catching the guard square on the nose. "Can't you see we're having an argument?"

The guard quickly collapsed to the ground, his gun falling to the ground but his other hand clutching the radio tightly. That allowed him to signal the rest of the compound about his predicament and the alarms went off a few seconds after he hit the ground.

"Good job," Megumi said, putting her hands on her hips. "Why didn't you just send out invitations for them to come here!"

Sano's eyebrow twitched and he tried to calm down. His face turned red with anger and he tried to calm down. His hand clenched into a fist and he realized there was no way he was going to calm down. He took a step forward and even Megumi seemed a bit thrown off. He reached forward and grabbed her waist, bringing her close to him.

"What are…" she started, her normal façade shaking a bit.

Without a word, he knelt down quickly, threw her over his shoulder, stood up, and started to walk away. "NO MORE DISCUSSION," he yelled.

Megumi's mind clicked through what just happened and how she had ended up in such a degrading position. This should have been a lesson. She should apologize to Sano right now for making him this upset. Maybe… maybe she had gone too far.

"BAKA! Get the gun!" she yelled, pointing at the fallen guard.

Yeah right, this is Megumi after all.

* * *

Misao moved quickly against the side of the building. She turned to the soldiers and gave them a thumbs-up. They nodded, taking positions and all producing crossbows. Misao aimed hers and the grappling hook shot upward. Dropping the crossbow to the ground, she tugged on the rope until she was satisfied that it was secure. She adjusted the apparatus on her head and grabbed the rope, planting her feet on the side of the building and climbing up.

MISAO!

She let go of the rope and fell to the ground, landing squarely on her ass. Lucky for her she had barely taken two steps before the voice had exploded in her ear.

"Ow!" She protested into the microphone. "Stop yelling in my ear or I'll fall again." She got her hands around the rope again and started to climb up.

There was silence on the other end of the radio. We are having a long discussion after this.

Misao stuck her tongue out at Aoshi, knowing he wouldn't see her from where he was. All he saw what she was looking at, the night's sky, a building arching upwards, and the taunt rope she was climbing it with.

"Whatever. Right now though, it'd be nice to have someone saying helpful things on the other end of this connection," Misao said.

There was another pause. I can't be of help if I don't know what's going on.

Misao sighed. "Its real simple. Big building in Vegas, heavy security at the door. US surveillance caught a few images of a couple of Juppongatana folks walking in with a large box. I'm going to sneak in, the US boys are going to help. Enough info?"

All right. I have a satellite image of the buildings entrance in front of me. It doesn't look like you've been seen.

Misao continued climbing upwards, Aoshi giving the occasional status report. The twenty-story building didn't take too long to climb but just as she reached somewhere around the 18th floor, Misao suddenly found herself wondering about something.

"Aoshi… can you see the roof?"

There was a pause and some silent typing. Give me a second.

Misao nodded and looked up. Her eyes shot open as she took in the form that had suddenly appeared on the edge of the roof. His head tilting downward, the man smirked.

Misao! There's someone on the…

The sword slash downward and the rope suddenly went slack, heading right for her and back towards the ground. Her footing slipped and she started to pitch backward, watching with increasing horror as the edge of the roof began to recede and the voice in her ear started to yell.