Author note time: I developed SUPAA author's block while working on this chapter. My apologizes for taking so long to update. It's just like… blah. I can't even begin to describe the feeling. Every time I put the first word down, I decide I don't like it and hit backspace angrily a few times. I think I'll go repeatedly hit my head on the keyboard for awhile now. Thanks.

-&-

Another pair of eyes was watching Hevn that night, a pair of eyes that had an entirely different reason for being interested in her than either Akabane or Clifford. For you see, there was a security camera outside of Hevn's apartment that had become an object of fascination for Midou Ban. Why was it so fascinating? Simple. He was spying on Hevn to find out if she really was dating the monster known as Doctor Jackal, or if some retrieval plot was afoot that she had inconsiderately left the real Get Backers out of… again.

Ban watched the flames went up. Concern and panic flashed through his eyes as he bolted down the stairs from the upper floor of the Honky Tonk. He barely said a word to Ginji as he grabbed the youth by the collar of his oversized white shirt and hauled tail out to the Lady Bug.

"Ban-chan, what's going on?" Ginji cried, excited.

"Hevn needs us!" he answered, slamming the pedal to the floor and roaring out into traffic, cutting off several cars and sending up an angry chorus of honks behind them.

Ginji cried out and dug his grubby fingers into the Oh, Shit handle. "Ban-chan, what's going ooooon?" he cried, watching as Ban nearly rear-ended someone in his rush to skit around a left-hand corner. The cars wheels lost their grip, and for a moment it was almost as though they were drifting.

"No time to explain. Hevn is in danger!" he answered.

By the time they squealed up to the alley, it was empty. Ban said some very nasty words as he kicked at the ground where Hevn should have been, snarling to himself. "Ban-chan, what is going on?" Ginji demanded, his voice edgy with confusion.

"That girl who came into the Honky Tonk with Hevn tried to kill her. I saw it on the security camera," Ban answered, pointing up to the camera.

Ginji gave Ban a sideways look. "Why were you watching Hevn-san?"

"That- that doesn't matter!" Ban stammered. "We have to find her." Of course, his panic was justified. From his vantage point via the camera, he hadn't been able to see that Akabane was there when the flames had started up. He also hadn't been watching his monitor to see Akabane extinguish the flames with his coat, taking Hevn up into his arms and running with her at full speed towards the hospital.

"Where should we look, Ban-chan?" Ginji asked, looking around. He was worried for Hevn, and he hadn't seen what Ban had.

"I…" he hesitated. "Her parent's hotel room. If we hurry we might be able to catch the sister before she skips the country." With that, the two Get Backers ran towards Ban's car.

Contrary to what the Get Backers thought, Marci had no intentions of skipping the country at the moment. Unfortunately, nor was she at her parent's hotel room. She rested in a second room that Clifford had rented using false credentials while he frowned, his brows down turned, and clicked about on his laptop.

"Stop looking so depressed and help me open this bottle of wine," she smiled at him. (Use 'she said with a smile', or make a separate sentence: She smiled at him. Smiling doesn't work as a synonym for 'said.') "We've finally won. I'm the sole heir to the estate, and you'll get a handsome assassin's fee when we return to the States."

"I make it a point to never celebrate until I am certain that a job is entirely done," he answered, looking concerned as he rapidly moved his mouse about the screen.

"Stop being so serious for one moment. She was about to become a ball of flame when we left. In the morning, the police will find nothing but her grizzly accident-fried corpse."

"That's what I'm trying to verify," he answered, voice dark. "But I can't get this security camera feed to open." He glanced over his shoulder. "Oh, what the hell? Pour us a few glasses of wine from the counter, and let's drink to a job well done."

"I knew you'd see things my way," Marci cooed, popping the cork and filling the glasses. She handed one to Clifford, lifting her own high in the air. "To the estate!" she toasted, downing her drink.

Clifford watched her, setting down his own glass. "Yes. To money," he smiled his voice barely a whisper.

"I'm going to order room service, dear. Maybe some… salmon sushi," she said with a dramatic flair. After all, what else were tourists supposed to eat in Japan other than sushi. She thumbed the menu, frowning. Did ribbon script have to be so damn impossible to read? She glanced over her shoulder. "What do you want? Clifford?" Marci asked, confused. "Why aren't you drinking?" A piercing headache hit her right as she said the last word, causing her to drop her glass onto the carpet and stumble backwards, holding her head. Her vision blurred and slanted, causing her to collapse backwards into a chair. "What's happening to me?" she squeaked, voice panicked.

"Did you really believe that I would accept a paltry hit man's salary when your family's millions were up for the grabs?" he asked, rising from his seat and towering over the fallen girl. "How arrogant."

"Clifford… you… you bastard…"

He laughed and grabbed her under the chin, forcing her rapidly dilating eyes upwards. "You shouldn't speak to your husband like that, my dear. Oh, yes. I didn't tell you that according to papers back home, we were married and this little trip was to be our honeymoon." He smirked. "The fact that you acted the part for your parents and the high-ups means that no one will doubt the authenticity of my claims." He rested a hand dramatically on his own forehead. "What a tragedy this will be, my new bride and her entire family… dead on our honeymoon."

"Fam… family? Leave my… parents… out of this," she tried to stammer indignantly.

"I'm sorry, my beloved, but I can't. I have to be the sole heir, as you kept emphasizing." He dropped her back onto the seat, watching her gasp as she fought to remain conscious. "This will be my greatest triumph as Clifford the accident," he informed her, putting pressure on the word accident. "A wonderful private-jet tour over Japan, gone horribly wrong. Oh, and the little black box they'll recover? Don't worry about it. It's pre-recorded with the sound of your voices screaming as the selfish pilot abandons you to save his own skin. What a horrible, horrible man, wasn't he? I wonder if I should collapse or just weep when I tell the news that if only I had felt well enough to go on a flight that day, I might have been able to die beside my beautiful bride and her family! I wonder what I should say I was ill with… perhaps the collapsing is too much. Just weeping is always tasteful."

"You piece of," Marci tried to say, voice slurred.

"Call me what you will, dear. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but with your family's diamonds, names will never hurt me."

The computer beeped behind them, drawing Clifford back to the desk where he'd left his laptop. An angry snarl escaped his lips. "Well, it looks like Hevn's little boy-guard has bought you an extension," he snapped when he saw that the file could not be deleted because someone else was currently viewing it. In Clifford's mind, there was only one person that could possibly be. "I have to kill him first, then I'll be back to finish off you and your family."

He pulled a rope out of the closet and bound her tightly to the chair. "Stay here, won't you?" he asked, making sure her mouth was gagged so that she couldn't cry out should she awaken. "This will be fun. I've never gotten to assassinate someone of his caliber before."

Those were the last words Marci heard before she passed out.

-&

Hevn slowly slid back to consciousness some time early the next morning. She knew it was morning only because light was filtering through some of kind of gel mask over her eyes. She couldn't remember having owned a sleep mask.

She reached up to attempt to move it, and found herself unable to lift her arm without pain. Surprised and worried, she attempted to sit upright. Her attempt was foiled by the pain that any sort of moment sent shooting through her arms. She let out a pained sigh of resignation, falling back into the sheets. "Damn it," she mumbled through lips that felt unusually thick. "I hate feeling this weak."

"That sounds like something I would say," a male voice answered her. She almost didn't recognize the voice, as it was far more subtle and gentle than she was used to.

"Akabane-san?" she asked. "Akabane-san, I can't see you."

"I thought you'd agreed to call me Akabane," he responded to her. She felt large hands brush past her ears, which hurt more than it should, before he pushed the gel pack over her eyes and onto her forehead. She didn't know which was more shocking; the pain she was in or hearing him use informal speech.

"What's going on? Why does it hurt?" she asked, wriggling back and forth as she attempted to push herself upright.

"Stop moving around," he ordered, making sure that she couldn't get up off the bed. "Don't make so much noise, either. I'll get in trouble if they find out I'm in here."

"Get in trouble? What's going on?" she repeated, feeling panic rising in her throat with each passing moment.

"Hevn-sa- Hevn, there's no easy way to say this, but your sister…"

"Attempted to murder you last night," a very familiar voice said authoritatively from across the room. Hevn felt Akabane's grip on her hand tighten as his body tensed.

"Ban?" she asked, feeling more confused than she ever had before. "Will someone please explain to me what's going on?"

"You are in the hospital," Akabane said, and Hevn distinctly noticed that he'd snapped back into formal speech. "Your sister attempted to kill you with fire last night."

"And it seems that she's gotten to your parents, too," Ban added. "Ginji and I went to their hotel room to confront her and they're all missing, but their luggage is still there and the hotel staff never received any intent that they planned on leaving."

Hevn felt her heart sinking with each word. "Maybe… they're just out for the day…" she whispered faintly.

"We arrived at their room at five in the morning. You tell me what tourists would be doing up at five in the morning."

"Dad… likes morning walks…" she said, her voice failing.

"Hotel staff said they left with a man matching the description of the guy who was with your sister when you came into the Honky Tonk."

"That man is an assassin known as Clifford the Accident. I had not heard of him, but Mr. No Brakes had," Akabane informed the two. "I suspect that Hevn-san's parents are in grave danger."

"Ban, Ginji," Hevn begged, wriggling beneath the blankets. "You have to get back my parents! Please! I'll give you anything!" she begged, tears trying to form in her injured eyes. Why couldn't she cry? She felt like she needed to. Why did everything hurt to move? "I know I said a lot of horrible things about them, but… they're still my family," she sniffled, her throat hurting from the action.

"We don't know where he would have taken them," Ginji said fretfully. "We were hoping you might have an idea."

Akabane, meanwhile, had folded his hands neatly in his lap as he sat quietly in the cheap plastic hospital chair. He was inwardly hurt that Hevn had immediately turned to Ban and Ginji for help when he was sitting right there and had been the one saving her butt all along. He wasn't quite sure why he was hurt; he didn't have any sort of emotional attachment to her or her family. It was just a feeling akin to being the last kid chosen at the playground. If anyone noticed that he looked unhappy, they didn't say anything about it. How cruel of her, to ignore him when he'd even dirtied up his coat for her…

His coat! He pulled a small cell phone out of one of the pockets, looking relieved. "I did not lose it in the commotion," he said proudly to himself.

"This is no time to order take-out," Ban snapped.

Akabane glared at him. "This phone belonged to one of Clifford's minions. He accidentally spoke to me once on it."

Ban snatched the phone out of Akabane's hands. "If we can track down where that cell phone was last used, we can narrow down the area to search."

"That was my thought," Akabane replied. His voice was even outwardly, but his internal emotions were rather stirred up. Ban should at least give credit where the credit was due, and right now, the credit was due to him.

"Come on Ginji, let's go," Ban said, ignoring Akabane's comment entirely. He paused, and then pulled a CD out of his pocket. "This is the file showing what happened last night. Make sure it gets to the police." Akabane reached out to take the CD, but Ban shoved past him in such a way that he nearly knocked him over and neatly handed the disk to Hevn instead. Turning his head back over his shoulder, he glared. "I don't need you to complete any deliveries for me," he snapped before grabbing Ginji and pulling him out of the room.

As they clamored back into the Lady Bug, Ban noticed that Ginji seemed to have lost a shade or two of color in his face. "Ginji? What's wrong?"

"When you pushed Akabane-san… I noticed that he wasn't wearing pants under his coat," Ginji murmured, fear filling his voice.

There was, actually, a good reason for that. Akabane, however, was not concerned with that at the moment. He was too busy deciding if he wanted to be hurt or amused by Ban's intentional childish and Hevn's unintentional callous treatment of him. "Well, I think I will go now."

"Go?" Hevn asked.

"Of course. With your sister in jail for attempted murder, you will be the inheritor whether you are engaged or not. My presence is not necessary here anymore."

"Oh…" she said, feeling slightly disappointed. All that time and he'd managed to continue just acting the part. Funny, she'd almost felt as though he might have genuinely been opening up to her. Who was she kidding? Men like that never changed. "Good-bye, I guess."

She heard a little thud noise. "Akabane?" she asked. When she didn't get an answer and couldn't move her head enough to look and see why, she panicked a bit. It hadn't been the sound of a door closing. "Akabane, are you okay?" When he didn't answer for the second time, she managed to flip around like a fish out of water enough to get hold of the call button, pressing it so many times in a row that she made herself obnoxious.

The nurse coming in to enter only got out the first few words of asking what was wrong before making a surprised sound. "What happened here?" she asked.

"I don't know, I can't see!" Hevn sighed in frustration.

"Poor little thing, it must be his heart again. I'll get someone to help him back to his room."

"His heart? His room? What's wrong with him?" Hevn asked, unbidden concern creeping into her voice.

"Calm down, please. You're not in any shape to be thrashing around either," the nurse sternly informed Hevn as a pair of assistants arrived, pushing a wheelchair between them. "He brought you in and then collapsed on the emergency room floor from exhaustion. The doctor said his muscles were tired as though he'd just finished running a marathon without training for it."

It was true. He'd pushed his powers too far between running to Hevn's apartment and then running to the hospital. As they had gone up the hospital stairs he hadn't been sure he was going to have enough strength left to push open the door, but fortunately someone was leaving as he was entering. He truly hadn't brought her in; he'd walked up to the appointment desk and promptly fainted on the floor, Hevn and all. He hadn't suffered a heart attack at that point, but hospital staff had given him oxygen and a bed to rest in for observation. After finding blood coughed up on his pillow that morning, the doctors decided he'd be staying for a longer observation period than previously expected while they ran further tests. None of them had said it yet, but they were afraid of a serious disease.

"Wait!" Hevn called as they were leaving, holding out the disk. "He was holding this for me. He'd be disappointed if I didn't let him."

The nurse smiled and tucked the CD into Akabane's coat pocket before instructing the attendants to return him to his room and make sure he stayed in bed, as he was obviously in no shape to be wandering the hallways yet. "I can't believe it… he hurt himself to help me…" she muttered, "and I've been treating him like my personal doormat all week." She let out as deep of sigh as her injured lungs would allow. "I've been treating everyone like my personal doormat this week." She felt bad. They all knew money was one of her top personal priorities, but even she found herself strangely unnerved by how far she'd been willing to twist herself for it. "No more. I'm coming clean to my parents." She let out a whimper after saying that. "That is… assuming Ban and Ginji can find them in time."