Disclaimer: I don't own any Witch Hunter Robin characters, I'm only borrowing them.

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CHAPTER SIX: OSAKA

"That's the castle." Nagira pointed to a many-layered white building with slate colored roofs garnished with gold accents. It rose up from a base of heavy stone blocks, giving it an uneven look as if a giant child had piled stones together, but an adult giant had painstakingly built a doll's house on top.

Mai and Nagira were killing time before their afternoon meeting with a group of lawyers. They'd driven to Osaka and checked into their rooms at the Rihga Royal Hotel early, so Nagira had offered to show her the city in a quick car tour. Mai had accepted gladly. She'd never been to Osaka before. As they drove around she began to think of the similarities between Tokyo and Osaka. Both were cities with long histories, but the bits and pieces of the past, like Osaka Castle, were few.

Like most modern cities, Osaka and Tokyo were seas of modern concrete and steel girder buildings. Mai could feel the girders, like skeletal bones, holding up the much flimsier floors, carpets, elevator shafts, etc. What would happen if those girders pulled free of their weaker encumbrances? In her imagination, Mai saw the metal pulled out, saw the buildings crumpling inward, crushing everything inside.

"Mai?" Nagira's voice snapped her out of the daydream.

"Huh?"

"I asked where you wanted to go to dinner after the meeting." Nagira smiled, keeping his eyes on the road.

"Anywhere you'd like." She pulled herself together. "Wherever you chose is fine."

"You're easy to please. That's what I like about you."

Mai could feel herself blushing. Had Nagira just said he liked her? She stared out the car window. There was so much metal out there. The cars zipping by, the streetlights overhead, window frames. She wrenched her eyes back to her oversized purse, and pulled out a file.

"Tonight we'll drive by Nagai Stadium after dinner. I lost a bundle on the World Cup in 2002, but I still like Nagai."

"Hmm." Mai made a noncommittal sound. Nagira loved sports and games. It didn't matter if it was baseball, football, or even pachinko; if it could be played, Nagira was all over it. Though she didn't understand the attraction, it was part of him, so she accepted it.

The meeting ran late, and by the time Nagira and Mai left the restaurant, it was nearly 1:00 in the morning. As they waited on the sidewalk for the valet, Nagira's phone rang just as the boy came with their car.

"Hello?"

Mai noticed that Nagira was using his blue cellphone, the one that was registered to an assumed name and a post office box. When she'd asked why he paid that one phone bill with untraceable money orders, he'd laughed and said that sometimes he didn't want people to know he was a lawyer. Besides, he didn't trust the police not to bug his phone in order to get at one of his clients.

Mai tipped the valet and slid into the car as Nagira, intent on his conversation, got behind the wheel. As they pulled away, she listened to his comments.

"Yeah, you're sure he wants out? OK. OK. How'd you know we were in Osaka? OK. We're maybe 20 minutes away. You're sure he'll be there? OK. Here's Mai."

He passed her the phone, saying, "It's Mikeo. He's found another witch who wants out. This one's in a street gang."

Mai took the phone and began to chat to Mikeo. She liked talking to him, and always managed to find a few minutes to speak to him before passing the call on to Nagira whenever Mikeo called the office from a payphone.

She was smiling when she hung up. Nagira pulled into the parking lot of a run down looking bar, and got out. "We're meeting him around back." Mai's heart began to beat faster.

He stopped as she got out, and spoke to her over the top of the car. "On second thought, you stay here."

"Nagira, I..."

"I don't want you getting hurt." She began to protest again, but he reached across the top of the car and touched her hand, which was resting on top of the low-slung sports car. "Besides, someone has to make sure no one steals the car."

He flashed her a wave, and jogged around the side of the building. She could still feel where his hand had touched hers. She placed her other hand on top of it, trying to capture the feeling, but it faded. What was wrong with her? Nagira was her boss. He was probably just being kind.

Raucous music was pouring out of the bar, and light from the neon sign danced in the water pooling along the cracked asphalt. Over the din of the music, Mai heard a sound, like something breaking. It came from behind the bar.

Not bothering to stop and think, she slammed the car door shut, and ran toward the noise. Mikeo's last words had been "Tell Nagira to be careful." She'd forgot to tell him that. She rounded the corner to the back of the bar, nearly tripping as she stumbled over some shattered bottles. It looked as if someone had thrown them, hard, against the wall of the building next door.

Nagira had his gun out. He carried it with him everywhere except court. Three men stood in front of him. One was cowering slightly away from a short stocky man with a Mohawk. The third stood by the bar's exit door, leaning nonchalantly against a dumpster which had been pulled forward from a concrete lean to area big enough to house it. Smaller trashcans lined the wall near the exit.

"You can't have him," the man with the Mohawk said. "He's mine." He stood with his arms crossed, relaxed, arrogant. At first Mai couldn't understand why Nagira had his gun out. No one else had a gun. Then she spotted one in the hand of the man by the dumpster, obviously a flunky waiting for orders.

Mai shrank back against the wall. No one had seen her yet. Beyond the concrete lean to there was a passageway to the trash area of the structures on the block behind the bar, but she didn't see anyone in it. She stopped to listen.

"Maybe you should let him decide that." Nagira smiled humorlessly.

"He," The mohawked thug grabbed the cowering one by his shirt, bunching the fabric, "doesn't get a choice. But you can walk away, maybe." The man's eyes glinted dangerously. He was watching Nagira the way a cat does a bird, single-minded, so he didn't see the younger man at his side, clasp his hands and make a pleading gesture toward Nagira.

"Everyone gets a choice."

"You're all out of them." Dropping the other man's shirt, the Mohawked man threw his palms back behind his head, then forward, and a stream of trash from off the dumpster, including bottles, sliced through the air. Nagira ducked, but lost his gun as a box hit the side of his face, knocking him to the ground, stunned.

The Mohawk man stepped closer, yelling, "You think you can march into my territory and take away my man. I'm the leader here. I keep what's mine, and that includes tonight's take."

Mai was just beginning to come forward when the Mohawk struck again. This time aiming his palms right at Nagira, who was staggering to his feet. Nagira flew through the air and hit the wall of the building behind him, falling into a heap, and lying still.

"NO!" Mai screamed and came forward. The Mohawk looked up, startled, but it was too late. Reaching out with her mind she brought all four of the metal trashcans crashing in on the Mohawked man. Now it was his turn to slump down. The flunky by the dumpster began to raise his weapon, and Mai wrenched it away with a mere thought. He sprang back, surprised.

Mai turned her back and ran to Nagira. She just reached him and was pulling his body toward her when a shot rang out. Gasping, she whirled around and saw the cowering man standing over the pile of trashcans, gun in hand. Smoke wafted up from the barrel. She glanced over to where she'd mentally thrown the weapon, and of course it wasn't there.

"Leader, huh? Just because all I can do is make fog so the security cameras won't catch you? I was always smarter than you." No longer cowering, the smaller man grinned wolfishly at the body under its pile of metal.

"What the...?" The man by the dumpster burst out, glancing back and forth between his dead leader and the man holding the gun, as if he couldn't believe what had just happened. He turned and began to run toward the passageway.

Without pause, the other man lifted his arm and shot him in the back.

Mai flinched, and stared, wide eyed, as he came toward her, carrying the gun down at his side. "Why did you...?"

"Shoot him?" The man shrugged. "He's just a human. Why not?" Then he veered away, and picked up a duffel bag, which lay near the piled trashcans. Unzipping it, he took out a fistful of money. "Ah, lovely, laundered money. And now it's all mine." He grinned over it as if it were a lost lover, then, his expression changing in a second, he spat at the trashcans. "Three-way cut? Hah."

Mai rose slowly to her feet, Nagira forgotten, as it began to sink in. "You planned this. You never wanted to be rescued. You asked Nagira to come, hoping this would happen. Hoping you'd be able to steal the money."

The thief's eyes grew speculative. "Nagira, huh? Well your little Nagira's a loose end." He stood, duffle bag in hand, and began to point the gun.

Power coursed through Mai. An overwhelming anger charged her body, consuming her thoughts so that she nearly forgot to breathe. Then she went cold. Straightening her spine, she did what she had to do, what she wanted to do. The dumpster sailed through the air and struck the gunman, but she didn't stop there. It kept going, the man pinned to its surface, until it struck the building she was standing next to with a force that shook it to its foundation.

Expressionlessly, she put her hand up and made a slow waving motion, grinding the dumpster harder against the wall. Unlike the Mohawked man, she didn't need to use hand gestures for her power to work, but she did it now because she felt like it.

A moan at her feet distracted her. Eyes narrowed, she prepared to send the dumpster at whatever it was keeping her from her joy. It was Nagira. For a second, she recognized him, yet felt nothing. Then memory returned. This was Nagira, who'd saved her. What was she doing?

Mai's hand dropped to her side and she fell to her knees. She got her arms around his shoulders and pulled him upright.

He rubbed his head where the box had hit him. "What happened?"

"The guy with the Mohawk threw you against the wall."

Nagira started to laugh, then sucked in his breath and winced. "I mean afterward."

"Oh. The witch we came for shot the other two, and took the money they'd stolen. He planned it that way."

Muttering a curse, Nagira staggered to his feet, his hand still clasped against his head. "Where is he now?"

Don't look at the dumpster. Thought Mai silently. Just don't notice it. "He's gone now." It was the truth, but it made him assume a lie.

"Cut and ran did he?" Nagira glanced around at the trashcans piled on top of the corpse, and spared a brief look at the dumpster before walking toward the trashcans. "You must have put up quite a fight." He pushed at a dented trash can lid with the toe of his foot. "No wonder he took off. Wish I could have seen it." He looked at her.

Mai felt shame course through her, much as the intoxicating power had only minutes before. She dropped her gaze, saw Nagira's gun lying where he'd first stood, and went to get it.

"Here." She handed it back to him. It wouldn't do to let the police find it with Nagira's fingerprints all over it. Even if ballistics didn't match the bullets in the two bodies to his gun, they'd certainly call him in for questioning. As for the real murder weapon, Mai carefully did not look at the dumpster, now flush against the building. Even if they did find it, it was probably ground to metallic dust. "Can we go now?"

Pocketing the weapon, Nagira placed an arm around her shoulders and walked her back toward the front of the bar. "Sure thing. You did good tonight, Mariko." He said the name emphatically, as he'd done the first few days when he'd given her the alias, and she'd had trouble remembering it.

Forcing herself to smile, she muttered a quick "Thanks." And averted her gaze to the cracked asphalt as if concentrating on not tripping.

Who was she? She wasn't the same girl she'd been when people still called her by her real name. She could barely remember that girl. Was she Mariko Kanazawa? The phantom Nagira had created? A sort of chic, efficient office girl by day and superhero by night? That was how he thought of her, but Mai knew it wasn't a real image of her either. The truth was, she was treading a very fine line between altruism and destruction.

Heaven help her, she'd understood all too well the witch's 'He's just a human' comment. When she was using her power she felt strong, invincible, and better than everyone else. It was addicting, and the feeling of superiority, of entitlement just kept growing every time she used her powers. For the first time she admitted to herself that what she could do might change her irredeemably into the sort of monster she'd just fought. She'd beaten him easily, but could she stop the evil from growing inside her? Where would it end?

TO BE CONTINUED