It was a rather amusing sight, to everyone who noticed the situation and didn't happen to be Akabane or Hevn. Hevn, her face as red as though she'd just caught Ban peeping at her panties, was trying to direct both herself and Akabane to the ladder while children, teenagers, and even rowdy adults darted about them. Each time a body splashed past her Hevn cringed, expecting them to knock her tight grip on her chest off. Akabane was no longer "supporting" her, as the case may have been, but he was following to help make sure that she made it out of the pool and back to the changing room without incident.
"Where the hell could it have gone?" she snarled, looking about the pool area.
"Do not ask me," Akabane shrugged.
"I know, I know! You don't have your glasses on!" she sighed. "Where are the Get Backers when I need them?"
"Mmm… probably having lunch, seeing as how it is nearing the noonish hour and Ginji-kun loves his snacks."
Hevn sweat-dropped slightly. More likely, Ban and Ginji were digging found out of a trash can or begging Paul to extend their credit one more yen if they were eating. More likely than that, however, was that they were starving on a street corner with their little "Get Backers for Hire" signs. Honestly, if it weren't for her, she doubted they'd ever eat…
"Oh no!" Hevn suddenly cried, pulling to a dead stop, which lead Akabane to smack into her back in surprise. Fortunately, she didn't lose her grip on her chest.
"What is wrong, Hevn-san?"
"I've been so wrapped up in this engagement thing that I haven't found Ban or Ginji a job all week! They must be…" she looked into Akabane's purple eyes and saw from the expression in them that he had no genuine idea that the Get Backers were starving mutts instead of the cold professionals he'd come to regard them as. "Really bored."
Akabane nodded understandingly. "Being bored is the least of fun things."
"Right…" Hevn said, wading over to the ladder. "Now for the hard part…."
"Climbing out without flashing the poolside?" Akabane asked, smile as bright as the blistering sunlight coming through the few sparse trees shading the park.
"Watch my back," Hevn ordered, eyebrow twitching.
"Do not worry, I have watched more of your front than I ever care to see again," he replied. She couldn't tell if he was kidding or not, otherwise she might have risked her shame to give him a patented fist-to-the-head.
Somehow, she managed to make it out of the pool without incidence. Again, emphasis on the somehow. Not even Hevn herself was really sure how she managed to pull it off.
She explained to the situation (sort of) to Clifford, telling him that the snap had broken. Unfortunately, this meant that she had to take over watching the towels, as the only shirt she'd brought was foolishly light in color and wouldn't have worked in the pool.
"Why not use your bra? No one would really notice," Akabane suggested, drinking a lemonade out of a plastic bottle and sitting cross-legged at Hevn's feet.
"What would I wear out of the pool after I got it wet?" she answered, sighing. "I hate this. I paid for the admission, I should get more swimming in that just that."
Akabane picked up his small-frame glasses and slid them on his face. "I will walk around the pool and see if I can spot your garment," he said, padding off.
About twenty minutes later, Akabane returned. "I found your top."
She looked at his hands. They were empty. "Well, where is it?"
"Some teenage boys have it. They told me that it was like a 'Cinderella' deal… you prove that it fits and you can have it back."
Four small veins appeared in Hevn's forehead. "Lovely," Hevn grunted. "Watch the towels. I'm going to go make those boys realize they're not men yet. Where are they?" she asked, her hands curled into fists.
Akabane pointed. "They have a red cooler…"
"Thanks. I think I see them," she said, storming off. She was going to… to… realize that the 'boys' Akabane had referred to were actually six and half-feet tall, hairy-chested gorillas. "Ex-excuse me?" she asked, her face turning kind of greenish.
One of the men looked down at her. He had strangely large eyelashes for a man who looked like he spent his time bench-pressing small cars. "What is it, pretty lady? Come to party with the real men?"
"Actually, I came to get my top back," she said, steadying herself in her resolution. She could handle the master of the Jagan, so she could certainly handle those gorillas.
"Like we told your little girly-boy, ya gotta try it on to prove it fits."
She growled under her breath. "Fine, fine. Give it to me and I'll take it to the fitting room."
"How do we know you'd come back with it?" a guy with a voice that sounded three octaves too high for his body smirked. "You gotta put it on while we watch!"
Hevn's face turned even greener and then faded to an odd tone of red. "I don't have time for this! That top is my property and I won't be harassed by a bunch of punks over it!"
The other men looked up from their fake-tanned girlfriends, hostility in their eyes. "You shouldn't talk to us like that, little girl," one said, threateningly moving close to her.
Hevn didn't move from her spot. "What are you going to do, attack me in front of all these people?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "Not to mention the security cameras."
"Hey, do you really think anyone will move in to stop us? We run this place, little girl. Not even the cops have enough balls to stop us from doing what we want," the man grunted, grabbing Hevn's wrist.
"Oh, let go!" she cried, punching him in the chest. A shock of pain ran through her hand and she yelped. It had been like hitting a brick wall. The men all laughed and howled about how they barely felt her punch, and that they'd encountered flies with greater attack power than her.
In a moment, however, their laughter had quickly stopped, as all their pants lay on the ground around their ankles. Crying out in shame, they grabbed their garments and rushed for the bathroom, dropping Hevn by the poolside as they fled.
"Are you all right, Hevn-san?" Akabane asked as he assisted her to her feet.
"Yes, but… what happened?"
"While you were creating a distraction, I noticed they were all wearing the same style of drawstring boxers, and took the liberty of dismantling said drawstrings."
Hevn let out a sigh. "I really appreciate the gesture, don't get me wrong, but why didn't you just do that in the first place?"
He looked at her, and the expression in his eyes was one of genuine honesty that she'd never seen on his face before. Heck, she'd rarely seen it on anyone's faces anymore, considering the type of clients she dealt with in her business. "It's not safe for me to openly display my powers in public. While they were distracted by you, I could. But if I had just openly sliced at them…"
"The fact that you have inhuman powers might have caused an undesirable commotion?" she asked. He nodded, and Hevn found herself surprised at how accustomed she'd become to people who had supernatural powers. She hardly found anyone displaying their abilities in broad daylight strange anymore, but she also realized that the general population did find them odd. The sad expression in Akabane's eyes made her highly suspect that some negative impact had happened upon him as a result of him using his powers openly in public in the past. She doubted she could find out what had happened, though, if he was so secretive he wouldn't even tell her about his hat.
She realized that he'd walked off instead of answering her, but guessed that was for the best. The look in his eyes felt as though it had rubbed off on her, penetrating her body with its extreme sense of mourning and lost. She shivered. Suddenly she no longer wanted to stay by the pool side.
The brush of cold Hevn had felt turned out to be the weather turning sour rather than any indication of her picking up on Akabane's closed feelings, leaving the four to run from the rainfall as the pool closed down due to lightning streaking across the sky.
"Lightning always reminds me of Ginji," Hevn noted, to which Akabane nodded. At least his expression had returned to happy-neutral. She wouldn't have been able to bear looking at a pure canvas of pain all day.
"Who's Ginji?" Marci asked, fixing her chlorine-soaked hair.
"One of the…" she'd started to say one of the guards where I work, but she was tired of lying and keeping up appearances. "One of my friends."
"You were going to say something else first, dear sister. What were you going to say?" Marci prodded.
"I misspoke," Hevn snapped, feeling her patience with Marci's constant prodding breaking. "It's not important, no matter what you might think."
"Geez, sister, no need to bite my head off."
Akabane looked at his watch. "I have to go change for work," he informed Hevn. A moment ago, she'd slipped the keys into his hand beneath the table so that her sister wouldn't see his gesture. They'd arranged for him to leave the keys in the convenience store by Hevn's apartment. She trusted the owner, and she could pick them up while pretending to just stop for something to drink.
"All right. Be careful," Hevn nodded, watching him pick up his bag of wet swim things and disappear out into the pouring rain.
Marci looked at Clifford, who looked back and nodded. Now was the time to act, while Hevn's precious bodyguard was out of the picture. "Sister, I've been thinking… let's hit up the bars tonight!"
"Bars? I thought those were below you."
"It's Japan, we're young, let's party," Marci smiled.
Hevn frowned. "I also thought parties were below you, if they weren't being thrown by someone who could help you get ahead in your career."
"Stop analyzing me," Marci replied, a sour expression on her face. "I just want to get out and live a little while our parents aren't here to slow us down."
"Well, at least that sounds like you," Hevn shrugged. "What kind of bar do you want to go to? Something fancy?"
"How about one of those weird themed bars that you can't find in America?"
"Sports bars and western bars are themed bars, Marci."
"You know what I mean!" Marci squealed, voice high-pitched. "We don't have Pokemon or waitresses in maid-dresses bars back home."
Hevn ended up laughing despite herself. "I don't think I know of any Pokemon bars, and maid dress bars are usually pervert havens. Are you sure that's what you want?"
"You're making this hard, sister dear. Just pick a bar, and let's go out to drink."
They ended up at a small bar that was indeed maid-themed, and as Hevn had warned her sister, was the definition of a haven for the sort of person you wouldn't want to accidentally brush up against on the subway. That was, of course, unless you happened to like the feel of unwashed hands brushing up your miniskirt. Hey, some people like that kind of thing.
Akabane, meanwhile, was very far from the festivities. Having just finished the exchange, he crawled back up to the high seats of Mr. No Brakes' truck. Letting out a sigh, he swished his blades in and out of his hands. What a boring job to follow a half-week of not having any fun at all.
"So…" Mr. No Brakes said, breaking the silence. "What's with this rumor that you're engaged?"
Akabane gagged. Had he been drinking anything, he likely would have spit it out. "Where did you hear such a silly thing?" he asked, staring at Mr. No Brakes across the darkened truck. Only the dashboard lights lit the cab, causing both their faces to look ghoulishly deformed.
"It's been flying through the underworld that you're engaged."
Akabane grunted and pulled his hat down over his eyes. Well, wasn't THAT just the cherry on the sundae? Rumors like that had a tendency to hang on for longer than she really should, and he truly didn't feel like being taunted by some of the other transporters that felt comfortable joking with him about it. Perhaps he'd just go into menacing-Akabane mode if anyone brought it up. Even those who he'd call "close" to him tended to back off when his eyes grew wide and took on that crazed edge they sometimes did when he was particularly excited about a fight.
"There's one thing I don't understand about the rumors, though. Why would you be hanging out with Clifford the accident?"
Akabane pulled his hat back up. "Say that again?"
"Suzuki said she saw you with two girls and Clifford the accident, and that you were introducing the larger-breasted of the women as your fiancé."
"No, I am not interested in the rumor. Who is Clifford the accident?"
Mr. No Brakes glanced over at Akabane, wondering why he'd taken such a sudden interest in the conversation. Usually, no conversation could rouse Akabane from his apathy, no matter how interesting it might have seemed to be. "I'm not surprised you wouldn't know him, it's odd that he'd in Japan. He's an American, his speciality being that he can make any death look like an accident, no matter how bizarre. He's more of a spin doctor than an assassin, though, preferring to contract out plots with lower thugs… Akabane-san?" he asked, looking over at the very strange, wide-eyed expression that Akabane was making. "Hey, Doctor Jackal, you don't look so good…"
"How fast can you get back to Shinjuku?" Akabane asked, his voice quiet.
"Huh? We don't have any cargo anymore-"
"Don't ask questions, answer them," Akabane snapped, his voice freakishly deep. "How fast can you get back to Shinjuku?"
"Half hour if traffic is good and we don't hit any cop zones," Mr. No Brakes answered, feeling nervous. Akabane's head was down, his shoulders moving back and forth as though he were taking rather unnatural breaths.
"Please try to do better than that. I am not sure that she will be safe that long without my presence."
"I don't understand-"
"You do not need to!" Akabane snapped, startling Mr. No Brakes. "You just need to drive!"
Back at the bar, Hevn laughed as she helped herself to only her second drink of the night. "Tish ish good stuff! Ish drunk and this is mah only second glass!" she giggled, spilling liquor on her dress.
Marci looked at Clifford, and the two passed the same eerie smile between them as at the restaurant. "I'm glad you like it, sister. Please, drink it quickly before it gets warm."
Hevn giggled yet again, completely out of control of her senses. "Whee! Ish gonna go a-dancing! DANCING!" Hevn laughed, attempting to stand and crawl up on the table. A rush passed through her head when she stood, causing her to fall backwards and collapse into the plush chair she'd been sitting in. "Tha wold is spin…" she muttered, voice slurred.
Marci smiled. "Yes, Hevn, it is. Perhaps we should go home now."
"Nah way, I havin fahn!" Hevn cried, before lying her head back down and passing out in her own drool in her chair.
Clifford smiled warmly and waved over a waiter. "Waiter, could you please tell me the number of a good cab company? My fianc's sister is drunk," he purred in perfect Japanese.
The waiter nodded and disappeared to bring them a piece of paper. In the meantime, Clifford made sure that they made as much of a commotion as possible as they helped Hevn to her feet. After all, the more witnesses they left to testify that Hevn had been drunk out of her mind at the time of her unfortunate death, the less suspicion that would fall on their shoulders.
Hevn's head lolled as they dragged her out to the waiting taxi. People glanced at her as they pulled her past, but pretended they hadn't looked. It was human nature to gawk; it was society's nature to pretend that they didn't. Clifford didn't mind, intentionally making a big commotion out of shouting "Hevn, careful! Oh, Hevn, you had faaaaar too much!" to ensure that the threesome would stay in the collective memories of the bar patrons.
After unloading the drunken Hevn from the taxi in front of her apartment, Marci ensured that they weren't being watched, returning her gaze to Clifford. "What now?"
"We take her upstairs and drown her in her own bathtub. We'll say we didn't notice that she'd passed out again until it was too late. What a tragedy, we'll say. You'll cry about how you should have insisted she wasn't sober enough to bathe on her own, but she just wouldn't listen. You'll cry that it's all your fault; if only you could have saved your beloved sister by stopping her. Then I'll comfort you, and the pity of the news readers will be for us… should the simple drowning of a drunk attract anything beyond a crime report and a short obituary, that is."
"What about her bodyguard? He isn't likely to buy the story."
Clifford smiled and put a hand on Marci's bare shoulder, squeezing her gently. "I'll take care of her bodyguard. Don't you worry."
On the far edges of the rough boundaries of what could constitute Shinjuku, Akabane sat forward on the edge of his seat. "A traffic jam? At this time of night?"
"There must have been an accident- hey, where are you going?" he asked as Akabane pushed open the door to the truck.
"It will be faster if I run," he answered, shutting the door behind him.
"You can't use your powers for that long of a time! Your heart will burst!" Mr. No Brakes argued angrily back as Akabane stepped down the ladder onto the pavement.
"It's not that far to her apartment from here. I'll go there first, as I have no clue where else in the city I should look for them." With that, he vanished in a blur as though he had never even existed in the first place.
"Damn it," Clifford swore back at the apartment. "Where the heck are her keys in this massive purse?"
"Dump it out," Marci answered. "We don't have the time to be playing games."
He dumped the entire contents of the purse upon the ground. "No keys!"
"Ugh, she must have lost them or gotten them stolen!" He looked around. "We don't have time for this; we're drawing attention to ourselves. Help me drag her around back."
"What are we doing?" Marci asked, taking her sisters legs and dragging.
"Change of plans," he answered. "Stay here."
He jogged towards the corner store, an idea gestating in his head. He returned quickly, Marci looking questioningly at him. "I hate having to leave behind witnesses," he sighed, then grinned. "So I didn't." With that, he pulled lighter fluid and alcohol out of bag, lying them down beneath a pack of cigarettes.
"Old man?" Akabane asked as he pushed open the door to the small store. "Old man, has Hevn come for her keys?" he asked aloud. The story was empty, making Akabane slightly nervous. Usually the old guy was there alone, diligently minding the registers through the night hours. "Old man?" he asked, peering in back. No one.
"This is strange," Akabane muttered, stepping out. He disappeared down a back alley, knowing that way would lead him to a shortcut to Hevn's apartment. Had he not done so, he never would have found the old man.
He was lying face down next to the dumpster, a small metal object sticking out of his neck. Cautiously, Akabane pulled on the object until it came out of the soft flesh of the corpses' neck. He'd seen them before, poisonous darts that were made of a soft metal that would disintegrate after being left in contact with blood for long enough. Most assassins that used them would have returned for the dart themselves, if possible though. The killer must have been in a hurry.
This only heightened Akabane's feeling of need to find Hevn. Even though he had no evidence, he couldn't help but connect the store keeper's death to the man Mr. No Breaks had spoken of. Especially since the dead man had a large bash on his head and was lying with his foot in a puddle, as though he'd hit his head on the dumpster after slipping. Running towards Hevn's apartment, Akabane felt almost a twinge of pity that he would likely be the only one to ever know the truth, due to the nature of the poison used.
Clifford emptied out the last bottle of alcohol and lighter fluid mixed, lighting a cigarette and smiling brightly at it. "Lighter fluid is much safer to use to start fires than gasoline," he smiled at the confused Marci. "Mixed with the alcohol… we'll just place this lit cigarette between her fingers, and when she naturally moves or twitches or a hot ash falls, she'll go up like a birthday candle." He kicked the last empty alcohol bottle next to Hevn's leg. "Poor girl, a victim of her own drunkness. Well, we tried to warn her she was too drunk to be smoking, but she just wouldn't listen."
"Yes," Marci purred, arm around Clifford. "We tried."
Clifford laughed as he and Marci walked off, leaving the burning cigarette in Hevn's hands as they vanished into the streetlight-lit city.
Akabane arrived at Hevn's apartment shortly after they disappeared, cursing himself for not finding out if she had picked up the keys when he was at the store. He pressed harshly down on the call button. "Hevn-san!" he shouted into the com. "Hevn-san, pick up your telephone!"
No answer. He released the button, sighing in frustration. "No answer." He moved around the side, figuring that he could climb up the fire escape. Maybe there'd at least be a hint to where Hevn had gone in the apartment…
Turning the corner, he let out a sigh of relief to see Hevn lying in the alley, apparently unconscious but her chest still moving. She's alive and breathing, he thought to himself, even if she does smell like she's completely drunk. I panicked for no reason at all. In fact, he was honestly shocked that he had panicked. Hevn didn't mean anything to him, anything at all. Why should he be so worried?
It was at that moment that Hevn inadvertently answered his inner question by dropping the cigarette.
.0.
.-.
To Be Continued