"What are we going to do?" Tari asked, rocking back and forth on her heels. "Siri's been kidnapped!"
"Oh...this can't be good, this cannot be good," Raine wrung her hands, and was joined by Telex in this. The pilots were all silent, but Releena seemed the most disturbed by the news.
"It's all my fault, if I hadn't asked you kids to help-"
"No, Miss Peacecraft!" Toraneko told her sternly. "This is not your fault. It's them!" She pointed nastily to the five ex-Gundam pilots. "It's just like I've been saying all along! We can't trust ex-soldiers for nothin'!"
"Tora-" Raine began.
"No, Raine, don't you dare try to stick up for them," Toraneko snarled haughtily. "Nor you, Telex. You guys are my best friends, I don't want you to be brainwashed by the likes of them!"
"Toraneko, you listen here and you listen good," Tari's voice was choked at a whisper, but it was heard quite clearly over the others. "Siri has, and always will be, my best friend. She's always had a good instinct on people from the start. Siri trusted them, and if Siri trusts them, then I trust them too."
"But Tari-"
"Toraneko, did you hear me? You will not waver my decision. It was not Heero or Duo or Wufei or Quatre or Trowa's fault, you hear me? In fact, we wouldn't even know if it wasn't for them. Okay?"
Toraneko looked up at Tari and smiled. "I still don't fully trust these guys...but if you trust them, I will."
"Now that that's settled, what the hell are we gonna do?!" Telex shouted. It wasn't every day you heard Telex yelling at people, so you could tell she was worried, at least.
"Okay, let's start off with the most obvious question," Quatre said. "Why would someone want to kidnap Siri at all?"
"She knows something," Tari answered automatically.
"Yes, just like the rest of us, Tari," Telex stated sarcastically. "Everyone at school knows she would tell us anything. Why not kidnap the rest of us?"
"Do you think she knows something we don't know? Something she saw or heard or they thought she did, and that's why?" Raine thought aloud.
Heero watched the four girls talking between themselves. He had to admit, Siri did have good taste in friends. Each of these girls had their own strength and they were all intelligent to some degree. And they all cared about her. The thing that bothered him, though, was why he was the only one, or thought he was, anyway, that had ever noticed her bruises?
"What about her father?" Releena asked. "He is in legal custody of her. And who is her mother? I know the court took Siri away from her."
"Trowa, look him up," Duo snapped the order. The other three pilots blinked at him in shock.
"Maxwell, I didn't think you would ever actually say anything so intelligent," Wufei said, being perfectly serious and honest. Nervous laughter ran through them.
Trowa had been bringing up the school site and was hacking his way through.
"It will take a few moments," he said calmly. "This is a well-guarded site."
"I'm gonna go see if I can get Mr. Shin," Toraneko said at once. "He's perfectly trustworthy and we need more allies."
"More like you need a boyfriend, TN," Telex teased her. She blushed. "But you're right. Go ahead." Toraneko nodded and sprinted out the door. Then came back, her face redder than just simply red.
"I think I'll call him first. Maybe he's already left school."
She picked up the phone and dialed ten numbers.
"Hello, this is Kai Shin, can I help you?"
"Hey, Mr. Shin, are you gonna be at school for a while?" TN asked him. "I need to talk to you about, uh...about my grade."
"Yeah, Toraneko, I'm going to be here until about eight-thirty tonight, grading that test you all took today. Sure, you can come in and ask me."
"Okay, I'll see you soon, Mr. Shin. Bye." She hung up quickly and was gone in a flash.
***
~~~
A groan was heard reverberating about the place in which I lay. I could tell I was bound and that I was moving. Probably inside a van or truck of some sort. Looking around, ignoring the white-hot and dizzying pain I felt in my jaw, I only came to one conclusion; it was dark.
"Awake already?" grumbled a voice. One I knew all too well. My father. "What are you, some kind of witch?"
"Daddy?" I spoke shakily, my voice high from lack of hydration and the snapped bones in my jaw. Oh, how it hurt. I could not fully involve you in the pain, it would cause you so much agony just thinking about it. "What-"
"Oh, shut the hell up, brat, it's not like it's gonna do ya any good." He brought out the bottle from before and the blackness became complete yet again as I swirled into a dizzying darkness of the consciousness.
~~~
"Hey, Toraneko, how's everything going?" Mr. Shin said upon her entrance. His dark-blue eyes closed happily and the white hair tipped a bit. She closed the door behind her, glancing around the room with her dark brown eyes for any cameras.
"Toraneko, what's going-"
"No time to explain, we've gotta get out of here. Now," TN said to him. "We're in danger as long as we are inside this school."
"Toraneko, are you playing some kind of prank-"
"This isn't a joke!" TN screamed. She gasped and covered her mouth quickly. "Oh, great, now we gotta leave even faster. Come on, Mr. Shin, I'll explain on the way to Ms. Peacecraft's house."
He nodded, suddenly realizing that his prize student was not bluffing in any way. The twenty-year-old teacher dropped what he was doing and stood, grabbing only his coat and briefcase, leaving the papers he was grading on his desk.
"I knew there was something wrong with Rem, but I didn't realize it was so urgent," Mr. Shin said as they ran down the corridor toward the front door. "I have a small idea what's going on. He's been dealing drugs through the school, am I right?"
"Yeah, and another thing. We have reason to believe he's kidnapped Siri," Toraneko stated rashly, hopping into the passenger side of his car. He stared at her a moment before climbing in as well, starting the car with renewed fervor.
"Then we had best get to Releena's house, then, hadn't we?"
***
~~~
"Sir, they've left the school. I think he knows something's up," the Indian stated into his cell phone quietly. Deer Waterweed gave a small sigh and ran his fingers through his long black hair as he listened to Rem's reply.
"Just the girl and Shin, correct?"
"Yes."
"Bring the girl to me. Do whatever you want with Shin."
Waterweed gave an evil grin, a fire alit in his brown eyes. He repeated his master's words in his mind as he agreed and hung up. Do whatever you want with Shin...
Like a bat in the night, he raced after the car, his legs pumping inhumanly fast. Running as fast as the cheetah, he caught up with the car in seconds. An ocelot suddenly pounced on the hood of the car where Shin and Toraneko were driving.
Two screams, one significantly higher-pitched and more hysterical, ripped through the night. The ocelot leapt at Shin, tearing his flesh to shreds with its sharp claws and teeth, splashing blood of the deepest red all over poor Toraneko.
When the ocelot had finished its short meal upon Shin, it turned toward the hysterical but silent Toraneko. She did not remain silent for long. The ocelot ripped her arm, spewing blood onto the seat next to what was left of Shin's corpse. It dragged her, kicking and screaming, onto the pavement, dragging her far away, then stuffing her into a bag.
Waterweed shifted back to his original form, holding the dark-haired girl in the bag. She was still kicking, but her screams had condensed to mere whimpers.
"Sit still, or you will suffer the same fate," he snarled at her. She immediately stopped kicking, but still whimpered, an occasional sob echoing in the dimly-lit alleyway in which he had dragged her.
However, in the car, a dim light encased Shin's corpse, rebuilding his flesh...
***
Trowa's eyes suddenly widened. The entire room, which had been buzzing with ideas, ground to a halt. Several crickets chirping outside were the only ones who could be heard.
"What is it, Trowa?" Telex asked with baited breath. She had learned very well by now that if either Trowa or Heero showed any kind of emotion, something was seriously up.
"The tracer..."
"Oh, no," Tari moaned into her arms, tears suddenly overcoming her. "Toraneko..."
"That's two of us down," Telex murmured.
"And three to go," Raine stated, strangely calm.
***
~~~
The next time I awoke, I was no longer in the van, or whatever it was. Now I was tied, rather tightly, to a wooden chair in the center of a square room. The only light was a small bulb overhead that cast an eerie bluish glow over the stone room. I was cold and hungry, but truly, when was I not?
I noticed that my jacket was gone, as well as my socks and shoes. My hair had been taken out of its ponytail. In my haste to look at my clothes, I had completely forgotten my jaw, which reminded me of itself quickly. If any of my friends had seen me now, they would have been unable to determine whether or not it was truly me.
My attention was drawn to the shadowed doorway by the sound of someone clicking their tongue pityingly at me. I strained in the blue light to see their face, but I needn't have tried. He stepped into the light mere seconds after I looked up.
My gasp rang out in the room, as though we stood in a deep chasm rather than a small room. I tried to speak his name, but my jaw did not work properly anymore.
"Oh, you poor little thing," he said, though I could see that he obviously did not mean it. "You're all hurt."
I growled in my throat. It hurt my jaw to even do that, but I no longer cared.
"Strange, isn't it, Siri, that the one person who was said to have been your protector and guide is the one who will eventually destroy you?"
My growls weren't as loud, but I made them heard.
"It's much more fun if you can talk to me," he grinned. There was a gleam in his eyes not unlike the ones I'd seen in the falcons' eyes. He pointed to my jaw and, as suddenly as he did so, my jaw was healed.
"What are you doing, Rem?" I snarled at him. "This isn't right and you know it. Why do you want to destroy me?! Or Releena or Hee-Harding? Why is my father helping you?"
"Slow down, little vixen," he sneered. "You will lose that songbird's voice of yours."
"Why do you mock me!?"
"You truly wonder," he grinned at me, bending to my eyelevel, his hands resting on his knees. "The Holder of Power knows not she holds it. So cute."
Holder of Power? What the hell? He must have seen the blank look that overcame my face, for he laughed.
"Yes, little vixen, yes, think. Give yourself your own power. Join me, vixen, or die. Holder of Power, you are destined for neither good nor evil, for there is neither. There is only power."
There is only power...
Where had I heard that before? Where? So many books swirling about in my head, where had I heard this phrase before? It was a book, a fantasy, yet it was so real. But what was it? The main character...what was his name? Black hair, unruly, green eyes, as emerald a shade as mine...
***
~~~
"Got it," Trowa said, neither triumphantly nor any other emotion. He had brought up the information on Siri's father and mother. And he did not like it. Not one bit.
"What's it say, Trowa?" Quatre asked, not daring to focus on Toraneko's sudden disappearance.
"Her father's...gone by many names," Trowa said, looking over it. "His current one is Vince Ravioli Caprice."
There was silence in the room as they all slowly made the connection.
"The Italian who attacked Releena...was Siri's father?" Raine inquired slowly, bewildered beyond comprehension.
"How is that possible?" Telex asked. Tari began to speak as well.
"Yeah, she never seemed the type to have such a-"
"Isn't it obvious?" Heero stated, cutting Tari off. The others stared at him. A monotone at this point was as intimidating as a shout on any of their parts.
"What's obvious?" said Telex.
"She is the way she is because of the way her father treated her," Duo realized. "She wasn't being analogical when she said her father would kill her..."
"Sh-she was being serious?!" Tari and Raine both agreed silently with their dusty-blond friend.
"All those times she had her hood up..." Raine murmured. "We've never seen her face, but we didn't think..."
"No. We didn't," Tari said grimly. Silence reigned.
Frantic knocking at the door broke their reveries.
"But...Toraneko's..." Telex and the others looked at each other.
"But what about Kai?" Releena asked, voicing herself for the first time for a while. After a few seconds of silence, Heero grabbed his gun and held it in front of him, ready to fire if it wasn't Shin.
"Harding, thank god!" Shin cried upon Heero's answer of the door. He quite understood the gun and allowed himself to be led into the house, where explanations were passed about, from the attack on Releena to their realization of Siri and her father.
Then inquiries began about Shin's outer appearance, which was covered in his own blood.
"I was killed," he said simply. Gasps rang out and he had to calm the others before he continued.
"But...Mr. Shin-"
"Shin is fine, Telex."
"Shin, how can you still be standing there without any pain? Are you a ghost or something?"
"No...a god."
Silence. Only crickets were heard.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, A-"
"Telex, will you shut up a minute?!" Tari yelled at her. Raine still remained silent. If Shin was a god...Toraneko...she would be so disappointed.
"Explain," Heero grunted.
"Of course. I was sent here on orders to watch certain demons who were trying to restart the flames of the war. This dimension has become so unbalanced..."
"Wait a moment. Dimension?" Quatre was paler than the Gundam boys had ever seen him.
"It's a long story. Basically, the universe is divided into thousands, probably millions, of different dimensions in which a balance must be had.
"There is a central Spirit World, where I come from, that regulates this balance. Five prisoners have escaped the SWDS's, or Spirit World Detective Squad, custody and have hidden themselves here, in this town.
"I disguised myself as a teacher, because I suspected the principal, Rem, to be one."
"What did these prisoners do, exactly?" Tari asked, more bravely than she felt.
"Tried to take over dimensions, or destroy them," Shin gave her a wry smirk. "Like any old villain in a movie or book. That's where they come from, after all."
"What do you mean, come from?" Duo snapped.
"That's how dimensions and people are born. By someone else imagining them into existence."
"What's Siri and Toraneko got to do with them, then?" Raine asked, quietly.
"The five are demons," Shin answered. "In order for them to get their own bodies back, they need two sacrifices. One is the body in which they inhabit. The other is a girl who has lost her virginity." Everyone suddenly looked ill.
"But Toraneko and Siri haven't lost their virginity," Tari yelped in surprise.
"You forget, Tari," Shin said quietly. "That the majority of the demons have inhabited men."
***