When his father suddenly walked out of the door, Akira was stunned for a moment, but then followed him as fast as he could, letting the phone receiver fall to the ground. He nearly ran into him dashing through the door.

His father was speaking animatedly to the police officer who stood outside their room, referring to a piece of paper he held from time to time. Akira tried to follow the explanation but gave up after he noticed that even the police officer had trouble following the former Meijin's rapid but broken English.

The officer finally seemed to understand what Touya Kouyo wanted from him and although looking a bit sceptical, he took out his walky talky and called for reinforcements before leading them to the elevator.

Akira stared at his father questioningly, but his father chose to ignore him for now.

Outside the entrance, a police car waited for them and soon they were on their way to… wherever.

First, he thought that they were driving to Jamison's beach house but instead the car turned inland.

Akira cleared his throat to get his father's attention and opened his mouth to ask one of the many questions that had tormented his mind since the last phone call, but a simple gesture from the man sitting next to him led him to rethink his actions.

He knew that his father would tell him when he deemed the time right. There was no forcing him anyway. Shifting slowly in his seat Akira tried to guess where they were going by looking outside. From what he could see, it seemed that they were leaving the suburban outskirts of San Francisco and heading toward a rural hilly countryside.

After what seemed like an eternity they left the main road and finally stopped before a gated road that seemed to lead to some kind of large estate. The letters above the iron doors spelled out "JAMISON" which came as no surprise to Akira. Three more police cars were already parked outside. The gates opened after one of the officers spoke briefly to someone on the intercom. The cars then followed a narrow road through the outskirts of a forest until they reached the main property.

Compared to the beach house he had been to earlier, the estate looked like a fortress. The walls seemed to be crafted from large stones: big enough to make a castle be proud of them and there were two small towers that overshadowed the main part of the building. The windows were large and white curtains could be seen behind them.

But Akira saw that some of the windows had metal bars that had been carefully built into the stone: so that it seemed like they had been there from the beginning.

The house looked old. Age seemed to seep out of it like water from a broken barrel. If it had not been kept as well as it had, it would have made the perfect example of a haunted mansion.

The police officer got out of the car and approached a man waiting at the front door. He showed him what looked like a search warrant and the house keeper just shrugged his shoulders and held the door open. Akira reached out to open the car door to follow the police but his father stopped him.

"There is nothing that we can do, but wait. Be patient."

The boys hand fell to his lap lifelessly, but his eyes were following the events outside the car without missing anything.

It was then that they heard a single gun shot.

Without thinking Akira acted and got out of the car. He did not hear the police officers yelling at him to get back in. His mind was filled with images of Hikaru lying in his own blood, dying, alone. Instinctively he followed the law officers as they quickly moved to investigate where the sound had come from.

*****

Hyatt was dreaming again. The old dream where his father took him away from his mother and threw a wad of money in her face. He could still remember how her false tears suddenly disappeared as she greedily turned her attention towards the bills flying all around her like big, grey butterflies.

She ignored his cries for her as his father threw him into the car. As they drove away he heard one gun shot then another. Hyatt wanted to turn around and see what had happened, but the sound of his father's voice stopped him. "Don't do that. Don't ever look back."

Hyatt had no way to tell what would have been worse, seeing what had really happened to his mother or the images that his mind kept creating over and over in his dreams.

Hyatt had quickly learned to obey his father and do whatever was demanded of him. Any time he dared to oppose the man he had been punished severely. He hated his father more than anyone else.

Glaring at the stone walls surrounding him he slowly got up from the bed. Even the thought of Shindou in the cell below his room could not calm his mind. Since Shindou had lost his will to fight he had considerably lost interest in further torture of the boy, but there was not much else to occupy him in this god-forsaken rat hole.

Hyatt dressed in the same suit that he had worn the day he arrived here. In a heap on the floor of his closet was his jumper, covered in blood, semen and dirt. Hyatt stepped in front of the mirror and looked at his reflected image. There were shadows under his eyes. He had a haunted look and his hair was tangled and matted. He tried to straighten it out with his fingers but gave up the attempt. There was no one here to complain about how he looked anyway. The only other person here was the house-keeper, who came down twice a day to bring food for both prisoners locked in this cellar, though neither showed much interest in it.

Hyatt paced his room trying to decide on what to do and then started to walk to his office. It wasn't much of an office but it had a computer connected to the security cameras placed in and around the mansion. Not that there was much of interest with the house being mostly empty as it was now.

Hyatt found the door to his office open and cursed silently. He was beginning to slack already. He hated being closed up like this. He entered the room still lost in thought and turned around right away closing and locking the door behind him.

The housekeeper had an eerie habit of appearing out of nowhere and scaring him shitless if he didn't lock it.

He turned around to discover Shindou, dressed in white Japanese style clothing, sitting in his chair and pointing his gun at him.


*****

Hikaru waited patiently. He ignored the screaming inside his head and the waves of unrelenting pain. The pain grew stronger in intensity as the voice seemed to grow weaker and weaker. {Comment: Must suck to be Sai now}

Hikaru could feel the strength slowly leaving his body. If he had not been sitting he would have probably already collapsed to the floor. The last wave of pain nearly caused him to loose consciousness. As his eyes cleared once again, he saw Jamison coming in and closing the door seemingly unaware of his presence in the office. The boy gripped the weapon harder and pointed it at Jamison.

The gun felt heavy in his hands and seemed to grow heavier as he worked to keep it steady.

Jamison finally noticed Hikaru. For a second he seemed surprised but he caught himself fast. He smiled smugly.

" My, my. It seems I underestimated you once again. How did you get out? And dressed too. A pity. Interesting though. I don't remember having anything in your size here and definitely not in that style."

A spark of insanity smouldered in Hikaru's eyes as a pure dark feeling of hate overcame him. He felt the cool cloth covering him loose consistency, but did not care. If killing Jamison was the last thing he could do before dying, he would settle for that.

But then, to his utter surprise, Jamison's face changed. Instead of the smug mask, Jamison wore the face of a lonely and scared young man; a young man that seemed old beyond his years, as if he had lived his life on fast forward.

There was no malice in his eyes anymore but something that seemed like pain, usually hidden inside a dark place, not allowed to come out at any cost.

Jamison looked like a man welcoming death.

Hikaru recognized it because he felt the same way.

He pulled the trigger.