Disclaimer: We don't it. As usual.
"Say 'aaaah….'"
"No." Chibi sullenly crossed his arms and shook his head at Ban.
"Chiiibiii…" Ginji groaned.
Ban was severely tempted to use the Jagan so he could win the damn staring contest Chibi was setting up.
"Are you sure you don't want me to help?" Natsumi asked. She, Ban, Ginji and Chibi were in one booth…she and Ginji were sitting across Ban, and Chibi was seated on the table.
"He won't let you," Paul remarked. He was referring to Chibi.
Natsumi had been back for four days now, and she and Chibi had struck up quite a friendship, as she'd babysat him at least twice in those four days…but of course, his favorite caretakers were always Ban and Ginji. They had to explain to her, though, where exactly Chibi had come from. And exactly where, they didn't know…
Chibi was being a very picky baby today. He didn't want to be fed by "Nats'mi" or "Jinji", but by "Banchan". And now that Banchan had been coerced into feeding him, he didn't want to eat.
"Chi-bi…EAT!" Ban's hand held the spoon an inch from Chibi's mouth.
"NO!" And Chibi became violent, giving the spoon an angry push upwards.
"Agh!" Ban got a faceful of food.
Chibi was still upset, and he threw a tantrum, for the first time. "No! No! No! No!"
His flailing hands hit the bowl, upset his glass, and sent the spoon flying across the room. Natsumi squealed as she got a lapful of water, and Ginji sparked a little when food spattered on his shirt and in his hair. Paul, who had successfully dodged the spoon, snickered. "He has good aim."
"Shut up, Paul."
"Hidoi, Master!" Tare-Ginji wailed.
"Chibi, what's wrong?" Natsumi asked, picking up the baby and wiping him off with a towel she produced from her apron pocket. Once again, his arms were crossed and he was pouting, and his head…
"Ban-san! Gin-chan! He's hot!"
"Eh?" Ban and Ginji looked up from wiping themselves off.
"He has a fever! Master, get the thermometer!"
Paul stared.
"What?" Natsumi asked.
"I have a thermometer?"
"Hai, in the medicine cabinet!"
Silence.
"I have a medicine cabinet?"
Natsumi, who had suddenly become all businesslike, proceeded to give him a set of insanely complicated instructions which he somehow managed to understand. He disappeared into the back room, and she rounded on Ban and Ginji.
"What have the three of you been doing?!"
"Natsumi, you're overreacting."
"No, I'm not, Ban-san," Natsumi countered from the backseat, where she was holding Chibi. "We don't have medicine in the Honky Tonk. And who knows, it might be serious…look how miserable he is."
Chibi was cradled in the waitresses' lap, sniffing mournfully. He really wasn't feeling good. Ginji kept looking worriedly over his shoulder, wondering if his little buddy was ok.
"It's only a fever," Ban insisted.
"BLEAGH!" As if on cue, Chibi threw up all over the place. He stared helplessly at the grownups, still looking very, very sick.
Natsumi screeched, then sighed. "Ugh…I'm wet…again…"
"CHIBI!" Ban exclaimed.
Startled by Ban's shout, the kid began to cry.
"Ban-chan, don't get mad!" Tare-Ginji waved his arms frantically, at the same time trying to help Natsumi mop up what she could.
But Ban kept complaining and Chibi kept crying. Ginji and Natsumi looked at each other, and sweatdropped.
"Natsumi-chan, I'm getting a headache…"
Ginji, Natsumi, and Chibi were in the waiting room of the pediatrician. As they hadn't called the doctor for reservations, they had to wait in line before they could see him. Ban, in the meantime, had been sent outside grumbling the minute his cigarette made an appearance.
Chibi was curled up against Natsumi's chest, all cleaned up. They'd had to go back to the Honky Tonk so Chibi and Natsumi could change and so Ban could make a quick clean-up and spray Lysol all over the interior of his car. Now the Subaru smelled very strongly of Crisp Linen, and too much of a good smell isn't that nice anymore… Chibi was sucking at a rapidly-emptying milk bottle, and his eyelids were drooping slowly. He still had a fever, and they still didn't know why.
Ginji, on the other hand, was beginning to fidget impatiently. First, his foot began tapping. Then, he unconsciously stood up and began pacing back and forth. And finally, he recognized the symptoms. Uh-oh. Gotta go. "Natsumi-chan?"
"Hai?" The girl looked up from the magazine she'd been flipping through with one hand.
"I'm going to the bathroom for just a while, ok? If the doctor calls, go ahead."
"Sure, Gin-chan!" Natsumi said cheerfully, and the blond Get Backer smiled back and left the room.
The waitress was so absorbed in her magazine, she didn't notice that ten minutes passed…more than long enough for a normally functioning human to use the necessities. And when the secretary called her for their turn…
"Oh no," she groaned, realizing her error in letting Ginji off alone as she picked up Chibi and made her way into the office. She stopped a young intern who was exiting the office and asked him to go outside and find Ban.
Ban was lounging just outside the hospital door, smoking. Damn hospital staff, they wouldn't let him smoke inside, and he badly needed one right now…Really, Natsumi was overreacting, he'd gotten worse sicknesses and had healed with minimal medication…
A young intern came out of the hospital and stood in front of him, clearing his throat. "Excuse me, Midou-san…"
"What?" Ban asked, taking his cigarette out of his mouth. This was polite for him.
"Mizuki-san sent me to tell you that we lost him."
Ban's eyes went wide and he grabbed the young man by his collar. "What?! But he wasn't THAT sick! It wasn't that serious!"
The intern squeaked frantically and flapped his hands, trying to free himself from the strong grip. "Eep! No, not the baby, Midou-san, your friend! The blond one!"
Ban sweatdropped, and it took a minute for it to register…Oh. He's talking about Ginji. He released the man and tried to cover up his mistake. "Eh. That was a dirty trick," he said, shoving one hand into his pocket and pushing his glasses up. He turned and stomped into the hospital, still with a huge sweatdrop hovering above his head.
The intern chased after him, calling frantically, "Midou-san! Wait! No smoking…!"
Four floors away, Tare-Ginji wandered morosely through the corridors. "Ban-chan's going to kill me…"
He'd found the bathroom with no trouble, but upon getting out…
He stared at the map in front of him, depicting the hospital floor he was on, and sweatdropped. "Eto…I think I'm lost again."
He waddled away, calling out into the deserted halls. "Ban-chan?"
No answer.
"Natsumi-chan?"
Silence.
"Chibi?"
As if the baby could help right now.
Suddenly…"No shouting in the corridors!" A nurse that looked a LOT like Kazuki popped up beside him. In fact, Ginji almost glomped her when he realized that she DEFINITELY wasn't 2-D…chestwise.
He reverted back to his normal form under her sharp glare and muttered a hasty "Gomen" before walking away.
He ducked into an empty corridor and breathed out a sigh of relief. Okay, that was weird.
He found himself in front of an unmarked door. Carefully, he opened it in hopes of finding someone who could help him out. Al he saw was darkness, only lit by a single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. It illuminated a single cold metal table.
"Ano…anybody here?"
Again, no answer.
Suddenly, the lights blasted on, blinding him momentarily. A hand tugged at his sleeve, and he turned to find a small man in what looked like a cross between a lab gown and a doctor's coat staring intently at him. Suddenly, the man clapped his hands together with childlike glee. "Oh, you'll make a very good specimen…er, patient,"
"Nani?!"
"I agree, he's perfect!" a curly-headed, stout woman who came up to Ginji's shoulder appeared on his other side and began poking him experimentally. The rabid blinking behind her THICK, one-inch lenses made her beady eyes look creepier than they already were.
"Come, young master, to the table!" Another man popped up and the three simultaneously began tugging at him.
"Hey, wait a minute, I'm not a patient…Whoa!" He overbalanced as they dragged him onto the floor then lifted him onto the table. "Hey, hey, hey, stop…!" but Ginji's struggles were futile. Somehow, the three smaller humans got him strapped to the metal table (which was as cold as it looked), dazed and swirly-eyed.
The three doctors stood over him, looking infinitely more menacing from his current point of view.
"Let the games begin!"
He did not like the sound of that.
Suddenly, there was a swarm of many OTHER similarly intimidating doctors, surrounding the table and clapping their hands with the same glee the previous three had. One carried a huge tank almost as big as himself, with a big red 'ANESTHESIA' splashed onto it. Another held what looked like a gas mask and two feet of rubber tubing. And then through his panic, Ginji heard the grating of wheels and then the soft clink, clink, clink of something metallic…his hand twitched electricity as his mind frantically tried to process the sound.
And when he turned his head he caught sight of a doctor pushing a rack of sharp, shiny objects, with shiny blue handles…
Scalpels.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Ban was talking to Natsumi in the doctor's office, trying to figure out where Ginji had gotten himself to, when the lights crackled and went out. Almost immediately, the emergency lights went on, and in the dim lighting Ban, Natsumi, and Chibi (and the doctor) looked at each other upon hearing a faint, far-off scream.
"Nah…that can't be…" Ban began.
The main lights came on again, then off. And they began to flicker.
"Jinji?" Chibi said questioningly.
"Oh crap."
The pediatrician blinked owlishly as Natsumi leapt after Ban, snatching up Chibi and calling out "Ban-san!" Then his office was empty.
And he reacted, very, very late. "Ah…hey! Wait!"
Oh, damndamndamndamndamndamndamn…
Flicker on, flicker off. Flicker on, flicker off. Static in the air, frightened beyond wits.
"GINJI!"
"Ban-san, wait!"
"Banchan!"
Natsumi caught up with Ban, her legs pumping hard to keep up with his long running strides. "Ban-san, how do you know we're going in the right direction?"
"Don't ask, just run!"
They'd run down a few floors to the underground section of the hospital when they heard more screaming. And suddenly a horde of doctors in lab gowns raced past them, all smelling faintly singed with crackles of static around them, and shouting something about an unbalanced electricity-generating patient. In fact, Ban thought he heard one shouting, "Scientific breakthrough! Scientific breakthrough!"
Ban and Natsumi looked at each other once more and then continued racing down the halls.
They found the broken-down, unmarked door, which still had crackles of residual electricity flickering around it. Cautiously, they peeked in.
The room was…a mess. Scalpels lay all over the floor, an overturned rack was smashed into the wall, the metal table was smoking and still glowing a little with electric charge, the gas mask was cooked, and the large anesthetic tank (thankfully unpunctured) was being used as a barricade by several more doctors cowering in the corner.
Cowering in the opposite corner was a shivering, electricity-generating Tare-Ginji.
"Scalpels…scalpels…scalpels…nooo…."
"Poor Gin-chan," Natsumi said sympathetically, putting down Chibi.
The baby toddled over to Tare-Ginji. Poke, poke. "Jinji?"
Ban sighed in resignation and picked up his partner. "It'll be hours till he's back to normal, come on, let's go…"
"I really hope we don't have to pay for this," he muttered as they walked out of the room.
Unfortunately, once they were a floor or so up, the lights went off again.
"GINJI!" Ban bashed Ginji on the head.
"Hidoi! It wasn't me, Ban-chan!" Ginji whined.
And then a beam of light focused at the top of the stairs they had been about to climb, and in the spotlight was the group of three doctors, the small man, the slightly bigger one, and the curly-haired glasses-wearing woman. Out of nowhere, music began to blast, heroic and strident.
"Them again!" Tare-Ginji cowered behind Ban, Natsumi, and Chibi.
"How dare you disturb the workings of the Chosen Ones!" the small man exclaimed, striking a dramatic pose.
"Advocates of the laws of science, defenders of the truth, and faithful followers of the path of Discovery!" the other exclaimed.
"We have come to teach you a lesson, one you'll never forget!"
"Get ready!"
The crash of a gong. "Tremendous Trio, the Sovereigns of Surgery!" They all struck assorted poses.
Crickets chirped as Ban, Ginji, Natsumi, and Chibi sweatdropped.
The three frowned. "Uh…Tremendous Trio, the Sovereigns of Surgery!" one of them said weakly, and the gong crashed again.
"And…their army!" and the crowd of lab-gown wearing doctors appeared behind them.
Ginji sighed. "Oh no…"
"I'm not in the mood," Ban snarled, sounding a little petulant.
"Should we run, Ban-san?" Natsumi asked. She was pretty calm.
"No, it's okay, we'll handle this." In a flash, Ban and Ginji were attacking "the Sovereigns of Surgery…and their Army."
"One thousand volts!"
"Snake…BITE!"
"ATTAACK!!!" Battle cries echoed, clouds of dust rose and lights flickered erratically on and off.
Chibi, caught up in the excitement, pumped his fists up and down and screamed, "Banchan Jinji Banchan SNAKEBITE!"
And suddenly there was a sick, squelching sound and a fantastically evil smell.
Natsumi turned in horror and pinched her nose. "Chibi!!"
All fighting ceased, the doctors stared, and ran off, screaming, "Mercy!!"
Ban and Ginji groaned and covered their noses.
Suddenly, the pediatrician popped up beside them and adjusted his glasses, scribbling rapidly on a piece of paper. "Oh, it looks like he has diarrhea, too…"
Chibi's three babysitters facefaulted.
"What kind of a hospital is this?!" Chibi-Ban said angrily as soon as he could get a word in edgewise. The pediatrician blinked owlishly again and adjusted his glasses, handing Natsumi several medicines for Chibi. Ginji came out of the bathroom carrying a nice, clean baby, who poked at his blond friend cheerfully, saying "Jinji! Jinji, funny!"
"Ban-san, at least we know what's wrong with Chibi now, and he'll be well in no time with this medicine," Natsumi, who had spent the past five minutes listening to the doctor's diagnosis, tucked the medicine into her bag. They didn't have to pay, as they weren't Chibi's real parents, and that made him a sort of charity ward…
"That's the point! How do we know these medicines aren't going to turn Chibi into an orangutan or something?"
"I am a pediatrician."
"Yeah, well your colleagues almost used my best friend in an experiment. How do you explain that?" Chibi-Ban glared stubbornly at the doctor.
The bearded man spread his hands outwards and shrugged, completely deadpan. "I am only a pediatrician. I belong to the Aboveground section of this hospital. The Aboveground serves this part of Shinjuku regularly. We are just people trying to earn a living. Now, below the ground…" he shook his head. "That is another story. I cannot vouch for them." A solemn nod. "You can trust Aboveground business."
"Feh," Ban snorted. Well, considering he, Ginji, and apparently even Natsumi had been treated in this hospital before (though none of them had known the existence of the basement floors) then maybe…
As the three adults and the baby walked away and exited the hospital, the pediatrician stared after them. Suddenly, the bespectacled, curly-haired woman popped up beside him and whispered, "Report for duty, Spy-On-the-Aboveground!"
The doctor turned away with a sigh. "Aw, knock it off Ishii-san, I didn't have the heart. The baby was too cute."
"Remind me never to go back to that damned hospital," Ban grumbled. Ginji nodded fervently as he kept a squirming Chibi from rejecting the medicine Natsumi was coaxing him to take. Kazuki was in the Honky Tonk, too, sipping thoughtfully at his tea as he digested what Ban had ranted to them.
"I know that hospital," Paul said offhandedly. "It's strange, and it's true that it's divided into the Aboveground and Underground. The Underground is for the more…diverse dealings."
"Diverse my ass," Ban snorted bad-temperedly.
Natsumi glared at Ban. "Ban-san, the baby!"
"Che."
"Incidentally, I think the doctor who attended to Chibi was a spy from the Underground," Kazuki said placidly.
"WHAT?!" Ban, Natsumi, and Ginji froze.
"Oh, Dr. Ohbu the pediatrician? Yeah, I know him. He's a spy, yes, but he never hurts his patients. The medicine's safe," Paul commented. Kazuki nodded.
Ban stared at them. "How do you two know these things?"
Paul almost smiled. "I have my sources." Kazuki nodded again, smiling in agreement.
The other three sweatdropped. Creepy
Suddenly, the door opened, and they all turned to see a bouncy, cheerful and as-always buxom Hevn and a tired but happy-looking Himiko.
"Hi, we're home!" Hevn called cheerfully.
Ban rounded immediately on them. "Where have the two of you been?"
Himiko stared at him. "Hey, what's with you?"
Ginji's reception, though, was warmer.
"Hevn-san! You're home!" he cried, waving his fans around and flourishing them at Hevn, then at the staring baby seated on the table. "Now we can give Chibi milk a little more regularly!"
Silence. Then, the very painful sound of a 200 kg fist and a stiletto heel striking a small body and flinging it into the wall.
Himiko stared in the middle of taking of her helmet. "I'm afraid to ask what happened when we were gone. Did nine months pass while we were away?" she asked Natsumi, only half joking.
Natsumi sighed. "Himiko-san, meet Chibi."
The baby blinked, smiled, and waved.
To be continued...
A/N: WE WENT ON HIATUS AGAIN! -Riyuji
I'M GONNA LIVE! -Rabid Lola
By the way...this is our birthday gift to the Wielder of Paperclips. HAPPY BIRTHDAY WIELDER!
And to all those who were not born today...A very merry unbirthday to you!
November: You'll see. Thanks for the props!
ViL: No, Natsumi didn't really misunderstand. And about Hevn...we agree. Entirely.
the PIERROT: Wee salot yu 2!
Millie-chan: Um...we can arrange that! Haloo, Kababayan!
Faye-chan: Sorry, Faye-chan, but Ren will not be making an appearance. Mugenjou's too dangerous for little kids. -nods- And yes, I remember, I will write it as soon as my Philosophy teacher stops picking on me.
Nikki: HOY! Basahin mo naman ang ibang chapters!!
Eizan Fujishima: Hey, any luck yet? -grin- Text Riyuji at 09177620616 if you have any guesses. Good luck!
obssdGB: Helloooo, new reviewer! Please tell your friend thank you for "reading" too. At obssdGB...Pinoy rin kami. Pwede kang magtagalog kung gusto mo.
Philips, Ichigo Akira, KarotsaMused, and Lady Guena: Thanks for the props!
