The jostling got more violent as Momiji reached the entry way of a
popular club, and some times it really hurt. Tears of pain sprung to her
eyes and she carefully wiped them away when she could. For the first time
she was doubting the intelligence of her little escapade. She'd never been
alone before, never had to deal with such crowds or people by herself or at
all except the fans outside her door. The club, a name she couldn't make
out with her watery eyes, must have been very popular since it had nearly
a hundred people trying to crowd through it's doors. Momiji got jabbed in
the side by someone's sharp elbow before she made it to the outer rim of
people. She was able to stand still for a moment, and she reached up to
take off her choker hesitating at the last moment.
What if they were mad at her for running away? Kusanagi would most certainly give her a thorough scolding. She'd let him down again having tricked him in horribly before making sure he couldn't follow her. Tears, not of pain pricked her eyes and her hands continued to waver. Suddenly police lights flashed almost directly in front over her making her momentarily blind. Momiji had a sudden urge to run thinking that they'd found her already, but she couldn't see. She took a small step backwards, not running into anyone, and turned to flee when suddenly she was flung to the pavement.
"Ouffff. Get off me!" She shouted trying to breathe. The person shoved her harder into the gravel on the ground and she winced as it cut into her skin. Then the weight was gone and she managed to run over. A young woman who looked almost identical stared down at her with panic filled eyes. Momiji stood up examining the girls hair, blue also, but a little bit longer than hers. They were wearing the same shirt and pants, and even their boots were the same. Talk about coincidence.
The girl took a good look at Momiji her eyes lighting up before she shoved passed her and took off into the crowd. Momiji stood there confused until a police officer found her shoving a gun under her nose.
"Found you at last!" He grunted grabbing her by the arm in a cruel unrelenting grip. Momiji just looked at him. He shook her arm trying to get some response.
"Quiet now are you? Bout time. Don't try that again or else!" He shook the gun under Momiji's nose threateningly before taking off with her in tow. Finally Momiji could speak.
"Where are you taking me? You've got the wrong person. What are you doing? HEY! Listen to me!" She was rewarded with a hard shake, but wasn't freed. She tried to brace her feet but they slid on the gravel and when she almost lost her footing Momiji gave up fighting. She needed help. Reaching up to rip off the choker the man noticed her movement and caught the free hand.
"No you don't missy. You're coming with me, and I will not stand for any more of your nonsense. I suggest you get in the car and do what your told." He took a zip tie and cuffed her hands together behind her back before shoving her head first inside the back door of a police car. Unable to stop she bashed the top of her head on the opposite door before falling stunned to the seat. Her eyes filled with tears she couldn't wipe away and she felt her mascara run down her face. Her hands were immobile behind her back and there was no way she could get her teeth anywhere near the cloth of her choker. How did she always manage to get herself into these things?
Back at Momiji's house Kusanagi felt the same pricks of pain first in his hands, then his cheek before the muscles in his arm pulled taunt. He closed his eyes trying to block out everything but the pain to somehow trace it back to it's source. He swore as he could find nothing. Fists clenched by his sides he tried again but still nothing.
"I'm telling you, you've got the wrong person. I'm now who you think I am. I'm Momiji Fujimiya I swear. You've got to let me go." She screamed yet again at the back of the drivers head. The man who had caught her sat in the passenger seat grinning over the seat back at her with a menacing look in his eyes. She bit her tongue for a moment before trying again. The man grinned wider and angrily she kicked the wire mesh separating them. His partner mumbled something making him turn around.
"At least tell me where you're taking me, Come on." She tried to reason with the driver. So far he had done nothing to her, so maybe he wasn't like his partner. Neither answered her and she went back to insisting upon her identity which was received by more silence. Infuriated she lapsed into silence watching out the car window. They were still in Tokyo, but the car headed into the demolished portion of it, the area hit hardest by the Aragami attacks. Only the government had been allowed back in to begin reconstruction of buildings or to finish off hazardous buildings. It made sense to Momiji somehow she would end up back here.
They passed the crater where the God Susano-oh had taken Aragami form and where Momiji had died only to be revived. She had thought for a moment that maybe they were heading there, but they moved silently on till they reached a series of enormous warehouses barricaded behind a double chain link fence with rolls upon rolls of barbed wire atop them. The car went to a gate where they were waved through on a driveway that lead to one of the five buildings. They pulled up in front and Momiji was pulled out of the car and roughly pushed inside the warehouse.
The whole building, dark now, was as far as she could tell, filled with rows upon rows of computers and lab equipment. Beakers full of liquid percolated and bubbled odd glowing objects and beakers threw shadows into vivid relief and computer screens hummed in the darkness. Momiji's green eyes roamed over all this before she was shoved through yet another door into a small room that looked much like a cell. There was a white slab of metal in one corner opposite the door and a bench by it's end. A tall man stood at the bench with his back to her, but as they entered he turned around holding a very large hypodermic needle. He had a smile on his face.
"Ah, I see you've found her." His voice was raspy, fitting the evil aura he gave off. Momiji subconsciously cringed back from him and his piercing blue stare. White hair about the length of hers stood strait up on the top and was shaved on the sides. As far as Momiji could tell he was maybe forty, but she wasn't really interested in his age, but the needle advancing in her direction.
"She gave us a good chase, then started up with some bull story about her being the Kushinada. For being a street bum she doesn't seem to like our hospitality." The until now silent driver reported to the man in white. Momiji looked at him eyes wide open in shock.
"You have the hospitality of a Viper!" She spat at him, but he didn't even look at her. "And I am the Kushinada. Now let me go!" She struggled against her bonds for only a moment when the man in white stepped in front of her the needle held only inches from her face.
"Of course you are. I mean the Kushinada goes running around the worst parts of Tokyo in the middle of the night dressed like a tramp. Now face it. We know you have no family so no one is going to go to the cops, no one's going to report you missing and you are NOT the Kushinada. Now this little shot is going to help you relax and tomorrow you'll feel much better, I promise." He advanced on her closing only the few inches that separated them. Momiji struggled to move back away from the needle but she was held in a firm grip unable to move.
She felt the needle enter her arm and tried to scream but a hand clamped over her mouth. Her arm went numb and shortly she wasn't able to stand. She looked from the man in white to the car driver. Both were watching her expectantly and she realized why when the room started to go black. She didn't remember hitting the ground.
Severe cold woke her up, but the second she opened her eyes she wished she hadn't. An incredibly bright light blinded her for a few moments before she lifted her head to look down at herself. She was strapped to a metal table only barely larger than she herself and she was wearing only a hospital robe. Other than that she was naked. Not even underwear which explained the cold. She still wore her jewelry including her choker which she thought was odd, but apparently they people who had done this to her only wanted the clothes off. She tested the bonds but found them much stronger than she was and so she had to settle for looking around the room.
Mostly it was an empty sterile room with glass walls and a marble ceiling. Against the wall to her left was a white rack where eight beakers full of different colored liquids all different from the other. There was something in the bottoms, but Momiji could crane her neck around enough to see them so she moved on. Other than that there was only a metal tray covered by a white cloth. It was on wheels like a surgical tray. That wasn't a good thought.
The room managed to get even colder and her skin broke out in goose pimples and she shivered uncontrollably wondering if they were trying to freeze her on purpose or if she'd just been forgotten. Well apparently not forgotten for just as she thought it the door opened and two men and a woman entered the room through a door that had looked like one of the glass windows. The two men went over to the beakers on the rack while the woman went to the tray and pushed it to the table next to Momiji. When the woman spoke Momiji jumped slightly having expected them to not talk.
"The file says your name is Dorien do you want us to call you that?" She sounded almost kind despite the fact that the people she worked with had kidnapped the person she was now talking to not to long before. Momiji wondered how long it had been, and asked. "It's Saturday morning, you only slept through the night."
"Oh. My name is Momiji." She tried telling her. The woman looked at her with a raised eyebrow before she walked around the table to look at the beakers. She rearranged a couple of them talking to the men quietly.
"Yes your file did say that you insisted that Momiji was your name. I'm sorry Dorien but that just isn't your name. Before you escaped we did all your genetic makeup and back round checks so we know exactly who you are, although after today it wont matter much." She peered in the last beaker before nodding to one of the men. He and the other man turned their backs to her and started talking in hushed tones.
"Why wont it matter?" Momiji asked realizing that something very serious was going on here, not that her lying naked on a metal table tied up wasn't serious, but something more was happening and she had no clue as to what it was. Maybe this woman would tell her before it happened.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about it to much. You'll figure it out soon enough." She said cryptically going back to her tray and moving the cover off just a bit folding it on top in just a way that Momiji couldn't see what was underneath. "Just so you know we're going to do this in the most painless and quick way possible. First we'll inject certain portions of your body with an anesthetic. It wont last more than a few minutes, but that's all we'll need."
"All you'll need for what?!" She asked panic making her voice rise in pitch. The woman patted her arm almost fondly but shook her head pulling out another hypodermic syringe. This one was much smaller and filled with a slightly green liquid Momiji turned her head so she didn't have to see it but in doing so she didn't know where the woman was going to use it till she felt a slight prick in her knee. Surprised Momiji looked at the woman not understanding.
"Next we'll make a small incision to allow access to the nervous and blood systems." She told Momiji as she pulled out a scalpel and proceeded to make a two inch cut in Momiji's knee. Momiji couldn't feel anything, but that didn't keep her from flinching as though she had.
"What are you doing to me? Allow access for what?" She asked her voice catching in her throat as one of the men came around the bottom of the table carrying a beaker with blue liquid in it. Off the tray the woman pulled a very long pair of forceps and used them to grasp the object from the bottom of the beaker. Her body hid what it was until she had it cradled in her hand. Momiji strained to see what it was, but couldn't. The woman set it against her knee and blinked a couple times in surprise.
"Wow. I didn't expect that kind of reaction, but it's working." She told the man who was now returning the beaker. Momiji tried to raise her head enough to see what was on her knee, but she couldn't even as the woman reached over with her syringe to the other knee. The procedure was exactly the same except for the colored liquid which was this time purple. The woman noted the same reaction out loud infuriating Momiji because she still couldn't see.
Next she went for Momiji's hands talking as she first injected then cut. She told Momiji about having to cut carefully not to slice any muscles or tendons. If she hadn't been doing it to Momiji, she might have been interested, but it was hard for her to follow along her mind having take a hike. Her eyes on the other hand followed the scalpel's every movement, but again her vision was blocked just as the contents of the yellow beaker should have been revealed. When done her hand was covered by a damp cloth and Momiji could have screamed with suspense. Again she tried to ask.
"What are you doing to me? What are those things? Please tell me." She was on the verge of tears but she did not receive an answer. When her other hand was done one of the men came up to hold her head turning it to the side of the beakers. She tried to move her head but couldn't and he didn't answer when she asked why he was doing it. Her robe was pulled down almost to the point where it exposed her breasts, but not quite before whatever was in the syringe made it numb. The last four beakers where brought in rapid succession and the woman pronounced her done. Momiji wasn't paying attention.
As the woman finished whatever it was she was doing Momiji felt something deep within herself shift and change. Her powers, or that of the Kushinada were being changed somehow suppressed changed and suddenly she felt a power welling in her chest. Extreme pain shot through her like a web between her chest hands and feet until she screamed from the intensity. Her eyes were blinded by a brilliant bluish white light that emanated from her body until she blacked out.
What if they were mad at her for running away? Kusanagi would most certainly give her a thorough scolding. She'd let him down again having tricked him in horribly before making sure he couldn't follow her. Tears, not of pain pricked her eyes and her hands continued to waver. Suddenly police lights flashed almost directly in front over her making her momentarily blind. Momiji had a sudden urge to run thinking that they'd found her already, but she couldn't see. She took a small step backwards, not running into anyone, and turned to flee when suddenly she was flung to the pavement.
"Ouffff. Get off me!" She shouted trying to breathe. The person shoved her harder into the gravel on the ground and she winced as it cut into her skin. Then the weight was gone and she managed to run over. A young woman who looked almost identical stared down at her with panic filled eyes. Momiji stood up examining the girls hair, blue also, but a little bit longer than hers. They were wearing the same shirt and pants, and even their boots were the same. Talk about coincidence.
The girl took a good look at Momiji her eyes lighting up before she shoved passed her and took off into the crowd. Momiji stood there confused until a police officer found her shoving a gun under her nose.
"Found you at last!" He grunted grabbing her by the arm in a cruel unrelenting grip. Momiji just looked at him. He shook her arm trying to get some response.
"Quiet now are you? Bout time. Don't try that again or else!" He shook the gun under Momiji's nose threateningly before taking off with her in tow. Finally Momiji could speak.
"Where are you taking me? You've got the wrong person. What are you doing? HEY! Listen to me!" She was rewarded with a hard shake, but wasn't freed. She tried to brace her feet but they slid on the gravel and when she almost lost her footing Momiji gave up fighting. She needed help. Reaching up to rip off the choker the man noticed her movement and caught the free hand.
"No you don't missy. You're coming with me, and I will not stand for any more of your nonsense. I suggest you get in the car and do what your told." He took a zip tie and cuffed her hands together behind her back before shoving her head first inside the back door of a police car. Unable to stop she bashed the top of her head on the opposite door before falling stunned to the seat. Her eyes filled with tears she couldn't wipe away and she felt her mascara run down her face. Her hands were immobile behind her back and there was no way she could get her teeth anywhere near the cloth of her choker. How did she always manage to get herself into these things?
Back at Momiji's house Kusanagi felt the same pricks of pain first in his hands, then his cheek before the muscles in his arm pulled taunt. He closed his eyes trying to block out everything but the pain to somehow trace it back to it's source. He swore as he could find nothing. Fists clenched by his sides he tried again but still nothing.
"I'm telling you, you've got the wrong person. I'm now who you think I am. I'm Momiji Fujimiya I swear. You've got to let me go." She screamed yet again at the back of the drivers head. The man who had caught her sat in the passenger seat grinning over the seat back at her with a menacing look in his eyes. She bit her tongue for a moment before trying again. The man grinned wider and angrily she kicked the wire mesh separating them. His partner mumbled something making him turn around.
"At least tell me where you're taking me, Come on." She tried to reason with the driver. So far he had done nothing to her, so maybe he wasn't like his partner. Neither answered her and she went back to insisting upon her identity which was received by more silence. Infuriated she lapsed into silence watching out the car window. They were still in Tokyo, but the car headed into the demolished portion of it, the area hit hardest by the Aragami attacks. Only the government had been allowed back in to begin reconstruction of buildings or to finish off hazardous buildings. It made sense to Momiji somehow she would end up back here.
They passed the crater where the God Susano-oh had taken Aragami form and where Momiji had died only to be revived. She had thought for a moment that maybe they were heading there, but they moved silently on till they reached a series of enormous warehouses barricaded behind a double chain link fence with rolls upon rolls of barbed wire atop them. The car went to a gate where they were waved through on a driveway that lead to one of the five buildings. They pulled up in front and Momiji was pulled out of the car and roughly pushed inside the warehouse.
The whole building, dark now, was as far as she could tell, filled with rows upon rows of computers and lab equipment. Beakers full of liquid percolated and bubbled odd glowing objects and beakers threw shadows into vivid relief and computer screens hummed in the darkness. Momiji's green eyes roamed over all this before she was shoved through yet another door into a small room that looked much like a cell. There was a white slab of metal in one corner opposite the door and a bench by it's end. A tall man stood at the bench with his back to her, but as they entered he turned around holding a very large hypodermic needle. He had a smile on his face.
"Ah, I see you've found her." His voice was raspy, fitting the evil aura he gave off. Momiji subconsciously cringed back from him and his piercing blue stare. White hair about the length of hers stood strait up on the top and was shaved on the sides. As far as Momiji could tell he was maybe forty, but she wasn't really interested in his age, but the needle advancing in her direction.
"She gave us a good chase, then started up with some bull story about her being the Kushinada. For being a street bum she doesn't seem to like our hospitality." The until now silent driver reported to the man in white. Momiji looked at him eyes wide open in shock.
"You have the hospitality of a Viper!" She spat at him, but he didn't even look at her. "And I am the Kushinada. Now let me go!" She struggled against her bonds for only a moment when the man in white stepped in front of her the needle held only inches from her face.
"Of course you are. I mean the Kushinada goes running around the worst parts of Tokyo in the middle of the night dressed like a tramp. Now face it. We know you have no family so no one is going to go to the cops, no one's going to report you missing and you are NOT the Kushinada. Now this little shot is going to help you relax and tomorrow you'll feel much better, I promise." He advanced on her closing only the few inches that separated them. Momiji struggled to move back away from the needle but she was held in a firm grip unable to move.
She felt the needle enter her arm and tried to scream but a hand clamped over her mouth. Her arm went numb and shortly she wasn't able to stand. She looked from the man in white to the car driver. Both were watching her expectantly and she realized why when the room started to go black. She didn't remember hitting the ground.
Severe cold woke her up, but the second she opened her eyes she wished she hadn't. An incredibly bright light blinded her for a few moments before she lifted her head to look down at herself. She was strapped to a metal table only barely larger than she herself and she was wearing only a hospital robe. Other than that she was naked. Not even underwear which explained the cold. She still wore her jewelry including her choker which she thought was odd, but apparently they people who had done this to her only wanted the clothes off. She tested the bonds but found them much stronger than she was and so she had to settle for looking around the room.
Mostly it was an empty sterile room with glass walls and a marble ceiling. Against the wall to her left was a white rack where eight beakers full of different colored liquids all different from the other. There was something in the bottoms, but Momiji could crane her neck around enough to see them so she moved on. Other than that there was only a metal tray covered by a white cloth. It was on wheels like a surgical tray. That wasn't a good thought.
The room managed to get even colder and her skin broke out in goose pimples and she shivered uncontrollably wondering if they were trying to freeze her on purpose or if she'd just been forgotten. Well apparently not forgotten for just as she thought it the door opened and two men and a woman entered the room through a door that had looked like one of the glass windows. The two men went over to the beakers on the rack while the woman went to the tray and pushed it to the table next to Momiji. When the woman spoke Momiji jumped slightly having expected them to not talk.
"The file says your name is Dorien do you want us to call you that?" She sounded almost kind despite the fact that the people she worked with had kidnapped the person she was now talking to not to long before. Momiji wondered how long it had been, and asked. "It's Saturday morning, you only slept through the night."
"Oh. My name is Momiji." She tried telling her. The woman looked at her with a raised eyebrow before she walked around the table to look at the beakers. She rearranged a couple of them talking to the men quietly.
"Yes your file did say that you insisted that Momiji was your name. I'm sorry Dorien but that just isn't your name. Before you escaped we did all your genetic makeup and back round checks so we know exactly who you are, although after today it wont matter much." She peered in the last beaker before nodding to one of the men. He and the other man turned their backs to her and started talking in hushed tones.
"Why wont it matter?" Momiji asked realizing that something very serious was going on here, not that her lying naked on a metal table tied up wasn't serious, but something more was happening and she had no clue as to what it was. Maybe this woman would tell her before it happened.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about it to much. You'll figure it out soon enough." She said cryptically going back to her tray and moving the cover off just a bit folding it on top in just a way that Momiji couldn't see what was underneath. "Just so you know we're going to do this in the most painless and quick way possible. First we'll inject certain portions of your body with an anesthetic. It wont last more than a few minutes, but that's all we'll need."
"All you'll need for what?!" She asked panic making her voice rise in pitch. The woman patted her arm almost fondly but shook her head pulling out another hypodermic syringe. This one was much smaller and filled with a slightly green liquid Momiji turned her head so she didn't have to see it but in doing so she didn't know where the woman was going to use it till she felt a slight prick in her knee. Surprised Momiji looked at the woman not understanding.
"Next we'll make a small incision to allow access to the nervous and blood systems." She told Momiji as she pulled out a scalpel and proceeded to make a two inch cut in Momiji's knee. Momiji couldn't feel anything, but that didn't keep her from flinching as though she had.
"What are you doing to me? Allow access for what?" She asked her voice catching in her throat as one of the men came around the bottom of the table carrying a beaker with blue liquid in it. Off the tray the woman pulled a very long pair of forceps and used them to grasp the object from the bottom of the beaker. Her body hid what it was until she had it cradled in her hand. Momiji strained to see what it was, but couldn't. The woman set it against her knee and blinked a couple times in surprise.
"Wow. I didn't expect that kind of reaction, but it's working." She told the man who was now returning the beaker. Momiji tried to raise her head enough to see what was on her knee, but she couldn't even as the woman reached over with her syringe to the other knee. The procedure was exactly the same except for the colored liquid which was this time purple. The woman noted the same reaction out loud infuriating Momiji because she still couldn't see.
Next she went for Momiji's hands talking as she first injected then cut. She told Momiji about having to cut carefully not to slice any muscles or tendons. If she hadn't been doing it to Momiji, she might have been interested, but it was hard for her to follow along her mind having take a hike. Her eyes on the other hand followed the scalpel's every movement, but again her vision was blocked just as the contents of the yellow beaker should have been revealed. When done her hand was covered by a damp cloth and Momiji could have screamed with suspense. Again she tried to ask.
"What are you doing to me? What are those things? Please tell me." She was on the verge of tears but she did not receive an answer. When her other hand was done one of the men came up to hold her head turning it to the side of the beakers. She tried to move her head but couldn't and he didn't answer when she asked why he was doing it. Her robe was pulled down almost to the point where it exposed her breasts, but not quite before whatever was in the syringe made it numb. The last four beakers where brought in rapid succession and the woman pronounced her done. Momiji wasn't paying attention.
As the woman finished whatever it was she was doing Momiji felt something deep within herself shift and change. Her powers, or that of the Kushinada were being changed somehow suppressed changed and suddenly she felt a power welling in her chest. Extreme pain shot through her like a web between her chest hands and feet until she screamed from the intensity. Her eyes were blinded by a brilliant bluish white light that emanated from her body until she blacked out.