A Broken World (redone)

By Kimra

Chapter Two

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Usagi lay against the tiled floor, splaying her flesh against the only cool surface she could find. The wash room was not where she usually went to find sleep, but the daylight heat had infiltrated her home and infected her body. In desperation she had crawled into the tiled room willing to use anything to gain even a moments rest.

Her head was pulsing, her body shaking, and a tick in her neck seemed determined to drive her insane. She released a groan and tried to resettle her body. Confrontations with hunters aside sleep was her largest problem, and it continued to elude her. She had liked it better when sleep had been a straight forward process, when she would close her eyes, drift into oblivion and only have to worry about someone slitting her throat while her guard was down. It had been two years since anything was that simple.

A flicker of darkness and she knew the dream was calling.

She released a sharp breath, wishing the dream away, trying to call the sleep. It was useless, it always was but nothing could stop her from trying.

Unbidden her body relaxed, her headache receded and anything that was light faded into nothing, leaving only the soft red glow of a long dead friend.

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She woke quickly, jerked from haunting dreams.

Her body was sticky, her head dizzy, the texture below her felt smooth but it was that surface she was stuck too. She remembered going to sleep, knew she was on her wash room floor and let out a breath of frustrated air.

It wasn't sleep, it couldn't be, it never lasted long enough, never left her feeling rested or at ease, but it was all her body and mind where willing to give her.

Peeling herself off the floor Usagi cringed, at least the bed never glued her down like the tiles where trying to. The disgusting feel of sweet across her body was ignored as she got to her shaky feet. She wouldn't be able to close her eyes for another day at least.

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Usagi rubbed her eyes with the palm of her hand. Sleep wanted her, or she wanted it she could never tell which way it went. But sleep was also beyond her, another hot day, another world of nothing with no way to find the sleep she so craved.

The pub was calm as it often was during the day time. A man she didn't recognise behind the counter which was just as well since Wade was going to kill her for starting a brawl during his shift.

She lent her head back against the wall, trying to decide what had to happen today. She hadn't been offered a job for some time and wouldn't be for a few weeks still because no body wanted a Seeker who had been spotted by the Hunters. It was bad for business but she didn't care, she was alive and that was what mattered most.

"Hey Rabbit!" A sultry voice called and she cracked her tired eyes open to see Miranda approaching. Usagi settled herself for the meeting, knowing it was unavoidable.

"Miranda." She replied as the woman took the seat opposite her.

"Wade's furious." The woman warned her and Usagi shrugged. Wade would get over it the second he remembered that she was a girl and he might one day convince her to put out for him.

"Yeah well, I'm alive. I win."

The woman didn't laugh, which was a shame instead she was silent for a long time, long enough that Usagi opened her eyes to see the pink edged eyes watching her thoughtfully. "The offer still stands little Rabbit. You can't live a Seekers life forever." She was trying to help and Usagi could hear it. Compassion in her voice and honest concern in her actions but all the same Usagi hated the offer.

"No thank you." She bit out disgusted by the idea. She would rather die in the Inner City battling a monstrous Youma then take up such an offer.

"Okay sweetie, I'm not going to force you." Miranda replied a soft smile on her painted lips and Usagi felt guilt for her hard response.

"What brings you over here?" She asked trying to ease them back onto the ground they had been on before.

"I have a message for you."

"Work?" Excitement jumped through her but she didn't jump up like she wanted to instead she did everything leisurely, keeping her pace set and her eyes fixed on their surroundings.

"Not exactly. I've been asking around for you-" the woman began.

Usagi's breath caught at the words. Miranda knew how to find information it was a trick she had that Usagi had never seen equalled so she had asked the woman to ask around for something particular.

"There's a man, thinks he has what you want."

Usagi's hands where shaking as she listened, her body not far behind it as she tried to keep herself still tried to keep it all in.

"Gave me a time and date. Say's if your not there you've lost your chance."

Usagi liked her lips, meeting the woman's eyes. "How trustworthy is this?" She pleaded, not even capable of hiding her emotion from this woman.

"Why do you need to make yourself sleep?" the woman countered. Usagi's expression hardened, her answer gone with it and Miranda saw it because instead of waiting for a reply she gave her own. "It seems secure and I've heard of his services before but things like this-" she shook her head "-I wouldn't trust anyone."

Usagi disagreed with that, because for things like this she had to trust people or she'd be stuck forever in the limbo she seemed to be living. Sleep was the furthest thing from her grasp and the only thing she still craved in this life. And this man, whoever he was claimed he had the information she needed.

"Tell me everything." Usagi demanded of the woman and in reply the woman told her exactly what she needed to know.

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Usagi walked ankle deep through the sludge the inhabitants of the Outer Regions called water. She was sure, somewhere beneath the thick layer of oil, dirt and other grim there was water, but she doubted it was at all drinkable. When she had become a snob she wasn't sure because there had been a time when she was living in the Beyond when she wouldn't have thought twice about drinking the muck she now trudged through.

"Pretty girlie!" A voice taunted from one of the observers on the shore. Usagi didn't even glance in the direction of the slurred high pitched voice. Fallen buildings, hollow tree's and garbage piles littered the shore making anyone hiding among the rubble virtually invisible. She did watch through the corner of her eye as she continued to walk, noting the movements made to her left.

There where people in there, ones she had never seen, would never see and didn't want to see. A few times she'd been attacked on this path, but mostly these people who lived on the border of the Inner and Outer Cities left you alone.

The shore to the right was clear of most rubble at first with a steady incline that she knew from experience lead to where she was going, the Inner Cities.

Her foot caught in her distraction, breaking her concentration and she flung her arms out before her, catching her body before her head could become submerged. She was glad she was moving about the edge of the river because any deeper and she wouldn't have been able to prevent submersion and although the idea of the water on her face was sickening the current of the river could have been strong enough to pull her along.

For a second she stared at the gunk only centimetres from her face, she stared at the murky patterns traced in the oily surface for a long time. Barely hearing the ruff laughing of her proclaimed observer. There was something familiar about the way the patterns of oil shifted every time she breathed, something that kept her transfixed. Despite her protests her mind began to travel.

She stared at the liquid surface barely a breath from her face wondering if she had the strength to continue or if she should let her head drop into the grime.

"Usagi! Get up!" Soft hands grabbed her bare shoulder, tugging her into movement. She stumbled onto her feet responding to the girls plea, her body weak and trembling. It was the desperate look in those violet eyes that made her take the next few steps, it was a look that she would always remember.

"Sorry." She mumbled, her voice thick with the weariness of her body. Fleetingly she wondered if they had done the right thing. She'd never heard of anyone escaping before.

Usagi jerked herself out of memories, pushing against the slimy surface below her and stood shakily. For a moment she stared at nothing, the memories preparing to flick back into motion when she shook her head forcing them away.

"Little girlie fell over." The observer taunted, his laughing voice reverberating off the incline of the opposite bank. Growling low in her throat she continued to walk making a mental note to avoid this path way for a few weeks in case he was a permanent resident. If she was lucky he'd be dead the next time she passed through.

It took more then an hour to find the path she was after. Her feet moving from the slimy dirt beneath the water to the slippery cement surface she had been searching for.

Like any seeker she knew most the entry's to the Inner City, she had mapped most of them in her head, from experience and from her tutors descriptions. So there where some she had never bothered to try, mostly because they would put her in the centre of the Inner City and even she wasn't that daring.

Slowly she moved her feet along the cement below her, crossing the gashing river. She had never tested it, although she had seen some idiots do so, but the river dividing the Outer Regions from the Inner City had currents strong enough to drown even the strongest person. So she relied on the bridges as those foolish enough to cross the river called them. Slabs of cement that stretched across the river, just below the surface. No one knew why they where there, or what purpose they where meant to serve but it didn't stop people like her from using them.

As she reached the other side she heard a snicker from the man who hadn't stopped watching her. The snicker nearly prompted her to turn back around, find who ever he was and stab him repetitively with her blade. She even fingered the hilt in thought then shrugged the idea away. She had a specific purpose this trip and she couldn't be late.

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"Your late." Usagi disparaged as she stared at the new comer. She had been waiting four hours, four hours when she could have been sleeping or at least working.

"You want the information or not?" The man sneered in response as he turned to find her glowering at him. He was handsome, no question about it, with a jaded personality she could read in his eyes. She wanted nothing to do with him but everything to do with what he could give her.

"You have it?" She tried to suppress the urgency in her voice and managed with more skill then she suspected she had. Waiting had done little more then give her time to think, and as always thinking was not something she had wanted to do. The tips of her fingers tingled with nerves, her stomach cramping. She reminded herself to remain on guard, she hadn't spent this long keeping herself alive to give this man a chance to kill her.

"I might." He replied, looking around the broken room quietly. There was nothing around, she didn't even know why he had bothered with the move, but guessed he wasn't used to the solitude of the Inner City. Moths played inside her stomach making her glad she hadn't eaten at the pub earlier, the only positive thing about the hunters encounter. "Are we alone?" She noted his tense shoulders, the poise he kept that looked casual though was far to alert to be so.

"I'm always alone." She replied, her voice dropping a little too much. She wanted to cringe at the tone, wondering if he could hear exactly what she meant and praying he couldn't.

"Good." He took a step towards her and she didn't retreat, he was larger then her, with about twenty years more on his age but she was still not intimidated after all she had a knife that she'd stuck into over a hundred Youma's and more strength then anyone would guess for a girl her size.

She wanted to repeat her question, but was afraid to sound anxious, so she let the silence ebb into every pore of the area, waiting for him to crumble to the silence. It took a surprisingly short amount of time before he surrendered.

"Yeah… I've got it." He murmured reaching into his dirty brown jacket and withdrawing a small pile of papers. "Not much good though, you'd have to go in deep to get these baby's."

She snatched the papers from his hand, scanning them quickly and expertly. If there was one thing her mother had done properly, it was teaching her to read. A breath she was not aware she was holding released as she found what she was looking for on the pages.

"Perfect." She breathed in awe. Her mind sent a silent pray to what ever governed the universe in thanks.

"So." His smile twisted as he stared at her, but she was still watching him despite the papers thrall. "Are you sure where alone?" He took another step towards her, and she looked up at him reproachfully.

"Yes." She replied calmly, staring into his eyes, not hiding her aggravated response to his suggestive tone. He took the hint better then most men did, taking the step back again. She didn't smirk, there was no need to antagonise the man when he was smart enough to back off.

"Do I see the other half?" He eyed the papers possessively until he saw the small bag flying at him. He caught it quickly stunned for a moment before he noticed she had turned her attention back to the papers and away from him. Fingering the projectile he felt solid metal and untying the string he grinned childishly.

"I think we're done." Usagi told him, and before he could respond or even close his gapping jaw she had slid into the shadows and disappeared.

She waited just out of his sight, watching him until he turned for the closest pathway across the river. The river curved, meeting the harbour at both ends to completely segregate the Inner City. It was good that way, you couldn't stumble onto one without knowing exactly what you where getting yourself into. In fact most the time, unless you knew how, you couldn't pass from one to another regardless.

She followed him for only long enough to be certain he was on his way. Crawling silently about the concrete and brick rubble. He had arranged the meeting place, though she wasn't sure why someone as elite as he would want to meet within the City Limits. Then again the information she had requested wasn't entirely legal and even she could understand the need for discretion.

With him gone she reread the sheets of paper before her, memorising what had to be known, she didn't want to spend long that deep in the Inner City so she needed to know exactly what she was looking for. This time though, this time would be different, she would not leave until she had what she wanted.

Resolved she began her travels through the ruins of Old Tokyo.

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Usagi silently fiddled with her newly acquired tablets. They where guaranteed to make her sleep without dreams.

She paused, the tablets she had been rolling around between her fingers stopping as she contemplated her door. It was far too early for the others to be in the house, still she had heard something. She turned her attention from the door shrugging her shoulders absently. The movement jolted her back sharply forcing her to cringe, she had cramped the muscles the night before while sleeping in an awkward spot in the City Limits. A week of searching however and she had her beloved tablets.

Another call sounded from beyond her door and she paused once more. The thin feel of familiarity would have been ignored if her mood had not been so passive. She turned her eyes back towards her door.

Futilely she wondered if it was Rei, but the booted sound of feet as they softly made their way closer removed the thought. Rei had an obsession with going everywhere barefoot, or in the least in high heals, she had claimed to have an aversion to anything that covered her feet too much. They where certainly boots she could hear.

Tentatively she stood from the edge of her bed, eyeing the door suspiciously. She wasn't entirely certain she wasn't hearing things, so when the distinct sound of someone calling out came again she jumped. With her attention attuned to the sound she could not deny it was real.

Her first response was to clutch her tablets to her chest, the information needed to get them had cost a lot of money, the week she had spent searching in the Inner City was nothing compared to the year she had spent trying to learn about them. Besides they where a highly sought after drug which she knew many would not scruple to kill for, they where illegal but she would do anything to free herself of the dreams.

When the call came again, louder but still not distinguishable she moved quickly, reaching under her bed for the hidden clip. She tugged sharply on the hidden doors latch pulling it open. Slipping the tablets in as she closed it, her body shaking with the need to be faster. If the voice was danger, or friend she did not even think on, all she knew was she had to hurry.

The second the secret compartment was securely latched she lunged for her bedroom door, pulling it open with enough force to tug at her forearm muscles. Bitting her lip and cursing her stupidity she dove into the lounge room only to find it completely empty.

She stilled herself listening intently although there where few rooms the voice could have come from. Her heartbeat offered the most resistance to the calm as she looked about the empty room.

"Hello?" Usagi whispered into the room with uncertainty, her door behind her still unlatched the best retreat she could offer herself. The silence that met her tentative whisper made her shake with uncertainty. "Hello?" She called with a little more volume. It was comforting that there was no one there, but it unsettled her because she had been certain of someone else's presence. The unnerving mixture of thoughts and feelings raised her to a point of angered determination.

"Who's there?" Her voice mirrored her emotions, ringing clear through the room and travelling beyond.

"Usagi?" A faint male voice echoed in response. His voice was in her memory although it was a voice she had thought long gone. Unlike the others, just gone. Even before her mind had registered who she was responding to she was pushing the large stone door open and stumbling up the slanted tunnel.

"Mamoru?" She called softly, her heart thundering least it be a trap. She had several enemies who would like to know where she lived, and several who probably where getting closer to finding it out.

When she saw his crumbled body on the floor of the tunnel she raced to his side, turning him over, feeling the sticky blood on his shoulder as she did. "What happened?" She asked, trying to sound peevish. He'd been gone for two years, two years and she had no idea where he had been, but that was nothing to having him arrive bleeding at her doorstep.

Okay, his doorstep. She admitted ruffled and annoyed by the thought. Mamoru had found the place long before she ever arrived.

"Hey, your hairs red." He made an expression of disgust at her hair, and she was tempted to slap him for it. He had nerve, lying on the floor bleeding and insulting her hair. Instead she forced her hands to be more aggressive as they moved his shirt away from his shoulder, normally she would have tried to be tender, even though they had rarely gotten along.

"Imagine!" She declared in a conspiratorial whisper, there was no telling if he was being followed, the wounds where fresh. "I was hoping for purple." He chuckled lightly keeping his voice low, the laugh encouraged her that he was not going to die in the next few seconds. "Can you walk?" Usagi asked as she prodded the wound a little. He flinched outright, his eyes darkening at her. Seeing the expression she shrugged. "I could drag you, but you'd rather walk, right?" She leaned in and stared into his eyes, wondering if he had lost too much blood to think straight. She waited her nose almost pressing against his as she attempted to see his expression in the dim light the tunnel provided. He blinked at her and she took it as a yes, it probably wasn't but she took it that way anyway. Roughly she stood, using the pipes across the roof to pull her into a standing position. Then reaching down she caught the hand he held to her, and she pulled him up to his feet. He stumbled into her at the action and she steadied him, trying not to let his weight push her over as well. When both their feet where steady she pulled his arm over her shoulders, accepting some of his weight, after all he was injured.

Then slowly she walked him back to the burrow as it had been affectionately named a long time ago for it's warren like entrance. Of course the safe house hardly represented a burrow.

She released him when they reached a couch, almost pushing him into it, then swept into the kitchen. Usagi scrambled about the cupboards angrily. She had things to help him, but she didn't have what she needed. After all if she took a wound, any wound large then a small bandage's worth, it would be fatal, so she had given up on caring. The small things she had, scissors, tweezers, small bandages, and pins. She even grabbed her one unchipped bowl, pouring in a cup of her precious clean water, and caught a towel before she returned to the room.

He was waiting, his shirt half off, pulled away from his aching shoulder. There was no fresh blood about the wound, which made her relax her worry about having to search for better medical equipment for the time being. Instead she put the small bowl on the table, crouching on the lounge to his right, staring at the wound.

"Now what have you been getting into?" She murmured and forgetting her resolve to treat him roughly began to clean the blood away from the wound.

"Just terrorising the neighbours." He replied wincing as the cloth brushed the wound.

"Oh quite moving, cry baby." Usagi snapped, she grabbed his shoulder in a mercilessly painful grip and held him still. He seemed to go white at the contact, she reminding herself that he was damaged and loosened her grip. "Besides, it looks like the neighbours where terrorising you."

"Isn't there someone here who wont try and help me by killing me?" He glared at her hand still on his shoulder so the point wasn't misunderstood. Usagi ignored him as she dabbed the cloth in the water and continued cleaning. She found her hands shaking as she tried to ignore the question and the silence that hung between them made him intensely aware of the emptiness of the house. "Like Rei maybe?" He said the words tentatively, and she didn't notice his eyes where fixed on her face reading every contorting emotion that rang over it.

She tried to hold back tears, remembering the time Rei hadn't come home. She had hoped Rei had just run away, it would have made it easier to have the hope that Rei was somewhere laughing at her.

Usagi turned sharply from Mamoru as the tears managed to push there way to the surface. She didn't want him to see it, and she almost despised him for bringing the memory's up again. She tired to say the words but her throat caught, perhaps somewhere inside she was still hanging onto pointless threads of hope, a repercussion of the dream which had begun shortly afterwards. It took her time to control herself, to push the tears back where she wanted them. And when she turned, she found he wasn't looking at her, his mind seeming to have fazed out of the room.

"What about the others?" He asked very carefully. She nearly broke down again. The others, five six, she couldn't even remember half their names. They had all gone.

"I…" She stumbled on her words as she turned back to him "I'll fix your shoulder." She continued firmly, trying to tell him without words that she could not tell him although she wanted to. And before he could ask if there was someone else to help, before he could reject her help or look at her with the pity she loathed she was fixing his shoulder. He let it pass, knowing far better then to pry. "It's deep." She whispered to herself when the wound was cleaned away. A bullet wound she guessed almost impressed, bullets where expensive, someone using one against him would mean he was up to worse then usual. "I'll…" She looked at his face for a moment, he was wide awake, maybe his expression was a little hazy, but there was little hope of him falling asleep soon. That was a shame, him being asleep would have made her job that little bit easier.

So instead picking up the tweezers in one hand and the scissors in the other she forced his body down against the couch pinning him down with her own weight.

"What are you..?" He tired to sit up seeing the tweezers, and the dark glint in her eyes. "Come on Usagi, there's nothing in there." He said it quickly, the girl had a tendency to go manic at times, or so he had always observed, and as cute as it had been all those other times he was finding himself the centre of her mechanisms, and any cuteness there might have been for a casual observer was being ignored by him.

"Oh yeah?" She demanded in a harsh voice. The tweezers hand snaked about his shoulder poking into the back of it. He realised too late he should have cried out and pretended to be in pain, at least then she would have removed herself. Though he had no objection to the position they where in, there was still those dangerous eyes to remember.

"Would you quite prodding my wounds?" He demanded through gritted teeth. She smacked him on the head with the flat of her palm.

"Don't be silly." She hissed leaning closer to him, making the danger all the more obvious. "If it wasn't still in there, there'd be a hole in your back." She hissed it, almost disappointed that he thought so little of her. Sharply, before he could respond she stuck the tweezers into the bullet hole. He shouted and tried to push her weight off him, but she was stronger then he remembered, even then they had never gotten into a physical fight, and she held him down with seemingly little effort.

I must be weaker then I thought. He told himself, feeling frustrated even over the sharp pain of the probing tweezers digging into his flesh. Of course he had collapsed in the tunnels, but then, he hadn't slept for the last two days, and sleep was one of the commodities he could not do without for many reasons.

"Slippery little things. Ah!" The tweezers wriggling stopped and he braced himself as she yanked her arm back. The sudden intensity of the pain threatened to make him faint, but some deity played a cruel joke on him and didn't give him the luxury of unconsciousness. Instead he shouted out a curse that resonated through the house.

He found her immediately pressed against him, surprising him, but not suppressing the pain. Her eyes where wide, and he realised she'd ducked away from the noise. She wasn't looking at him, her eyes where clenched shut, her fingers gripping at his skin and all the while hiding behind the lounges tall back. He waited in silence as she got herself back together, he didn't touch her, touching her when she was so far into that state could not only be deadly to him, but dangerous to her. She was more frail then he remembered, and stronger as well. Before she'd had Rei to protect her, and Rei had never minded the duty. He wanted to ask how long Rei had been gone, what had happened to her, but wondered if he really wanted to know.

"Serves you right for being shot." She snapped as if the moment hadn't occurred. She pressed her hands against his bare chest as she sat up, looking the same as she had the moment before. Evil. Though not really evil, because despite everything there was still too much innocence in her aura for her to be evil.

"Well excuse me!" He declared, though he used a tone they both knew would never travel through the entrance. She stood, leaving him alone in his pain. Then to his surprised shut a door he did not remember being there before. The house had never been enclosed.

"You got doors." He grimaced through his pain. His shoulder throbbed, and he wondered if there was still a chance of fainting. Sleep seemed beyond him, his body so pumped with adrenaline that it would probably allude him for another day or two. That was spiteful.

She returned to his side, sitting on the edge of the low table to look at his wound. It had begun bleeding again, which was hardly a surprise considering her ruff treatment to it. She dabbed a clean corner of the towel and began to clean the wound again. He cringed every time the cloth came near the wound and she ignored it. Her mood was returning to what it should have been, she wished she hadn't responded to his shout like that she hadn't been caught off guard in such a long time, but he had set her on edge with his surprising return.

"Where have you been?" She asked mockingly and began to twist the thin bandages around his arm. She would go out latter and find him better ones.

"Around." He replied vaguely, when she shot him a warning glare he grinned. "What? It's not like any of the places had names!" He threw his hands in the air and cringed automatically at the pull on his shoulder. "What have you been up to?" He gritted, his left hand covering the neatly bandaged shoulder.

"Nothing." She replied calmly, and stood, walking away from him. She suddenly realised what his presence was doing to her. He was breaking down her guards and she somehow knew he wasn't even trying. "I'm going out. You need to sleep, or rest if you can't get those eyes closed. You can use your room." She got half way to the door before he called out.

"Who's room is it now?"

"Mine." She replied reluctantly, her feet taking her closer to the exit.

"I'm not taking your room." He replied sharply, surprising the both of them. Usagi shook her head.

"It's the only spare room, I'll share with one of the others." She wondered if Alina would mind, but guessed she could scare the girl into accepting the deal. Before he could argue or even consider an argument she stormed out of the house closing the door behind her. Two steps and she felt herself collapse from exhaustion from their exchange. And it took an hour of silent crying to calm herself down entirely, all the while hoping no one came home and praying he didn't stick his head out the door.