Akabane lay back as best he could in Himiko's sidecar. He was built too long for the tiny machine. Sakura was riding behind Himiko, hands around the short-haired woman's waist. "He looks so peaceful," Sakura smiled, looking over and down at him. His eyes were shut, and it was impossible to tell if he was awake or not. "For someone who almost died, that is," she added quickly.
Himiko nodded. "He'll have to talk to the police about it eventually. I just wanted to make sure it wouldn't be from behind the bars of a prison cell." She let the air out of her lungs, still thinking about the issue of the baby. "What am I going to do with him?! There isn't much room at my apartment, and I can't just leave him out in the cold."
Sakura quietly informed Himiko, "My brother is away 'finding himself.' It'd be okay to put him in my brother's room."
"I wouldn't leave a nice girl alone with a… man… like that," Himiko spat, indicating that she'd potentially thought of another word before man. Through some careful posturing on Sakura's behalf, however, Himiko ended up eventually agreeing to at least take Akabane to Sakura's place until he was back on his own feet. It was the only apartment large enough for the three of them to rest comfortably. Himiko kept insisting they would stay only until he'd rested enough to find another place to stay the night.
The first thing Akabane did upon awakening was retreated to the bathroom, bladder urgently full. He shivered, owing to the bathroom at Sakura's place being too cold for his tastes. After he'd gone to the bathroom, Himiko and Sakura insisted that he take a bath to wash the bomb soot off his skin. Reluctantly, he gathered a bunch of wet towels around his hips and crossed his arms over his chest as Sakura quietly dipped her towel in a bucket of herb-water, spreading a healing treatment over the numerous cuts flying pieces of wood had given him. He jerked away from her when she accidentally pushed her towel too deeply into one of his rapidly-healing knife wounds, causing her to apologize ridiculously profoundly to him for her error. Himiko, meanwhile, stood outside the door with her hands over her eyes at Akabane's request, angrily muttering "It's not like I haven't seen him with his shirt off before."
Sakura blushed, embarrassed by how rude Himiko was being. "You must have gotten hit by a lot of shrapnel," she stated, trying to make small talk.
"Yes," he answered, not saying more because he didn't wish to discuss the nature of his larger wounds, as that would lead to discussing why his knives had ejected from his body, which would lead to discussion of… that thing.
Sakura wrung out her cloth, feeling a bit sick when a piece of detached skin fell into the cleaning bucket. "Akabane-san? Himiko-san wanted me to ask what Kagami-san meant when he talked about a baby. She seemed mad."
Yes, she would be, wouldn't she? "I distracted her from getting an answer earlier, and she dislikes being put off by someone as lowly as myself."
Sakura waited for him to say more, feeling bad that he'd say something so cruel about himself. Perhaps it was sarcasm? She'd always been bad at detecting it. "The answer is…?" she prodded cautiously, rubbing the towel across a cut on his arm.
"I will discuss it privately with Himiko," he answered sharply, yanking the towel from her hands. "I can wash myself, you know."
Sakura looked hurt, but quietly picked up her supplies and left, leaving Akabane to finish cleaning his own wounds. It was lonely work, but he was used to being self-reliant, and thus it felt more natural for him to treat himself.
Himiko was still waiting outside when he emerged like a wet butterfly from a cocoon. Jubei's clothes were so large on his slender frame that it looked as though maybe that were more than just a metaphorical analogy. "Well?" Himiko asked, trying to block his path with her small body. This was largely ineffective from a logistical standpoint. He noticed that she'd rather carefully balanced her weight, which would make it hard for him to knock her over and make it look casual.
"You don't even give me a moment to collect my scattered thoughts, do you?"
"You've put me off long enough. I'm not going to be distracted again."
He dodged around her, flopping down on the couch and sitting on the remote for the television in the process. That didn't feel very good. He dug the remote out from between his butt and the blue-grey pillows. "I'm not sure I have an answer for your question."
"Did Kagami lie to me? I won't be angry with you, at least, if he did."
"I'm not sure that he lied because I'm not sure I believe the truth," he answered, settling back with a cat-like stretch. He ached all over like heck, he was starving, and the conversation Himiko was pushing him into didn't help his mood.
"Did he find evidence that you were involved in an illegitimate child? I know that people in our position don't discuss their families because that could lead to them being killed as an act of revenge, is that it?"
Well, he could answer her first question truthfully without giving her much information. "Evidence, yes. Conclusive evidence, no."
"Who's the mother?"
"I do not know how to answer that question. The situation surrounding it is nothing else if not implausible."
"Implausible? You mean like the myth that virgins can't get pregnant when they're deflowered?" Himiko asked, her voice rising with anger at how mysterious he was being. "Or- oh, that high school girl that follows you around like a lovesick puppy? Did you get her pregnant? Well, considering that, that would practically be statutory rape…"
"I did not RAPE ANYONE," he suddenly snapped, startling Himiko greatly. "I didn't know your opinion of me was so low that you'd actually think that I would violate a child." He removed himself from the couch as Himiko stumbled backwards, moving away from him. He towered over her, black hair draped in wet tangles about his face, eye bright with an insane light at the indignity of what she'd just suggested. If anyone… if anyone in the situation had been sexually violated, it was him, and she had the nerve to…
Himiko noticed his hands twitching. "Akabane, calm down! Calm down" she said, one hand out in defense while the other reached around her back to grip her poison perfumes. "I'm sorry, I was out of line-"
"You think you can say whatever you want if you apologize for it later?" he asked dangerously, eyes taking on that same crazed look he'd had in the infinite castle when Ginji had apparently gone nuts on him. "That's not the way this world works, Himiko-chan," he said, his voice mocking. "Himiko-chan."
All of the sudden, very cold water was thrown over his face and shoulders. Dripping and shivering, Himiko and Akabane looked up to see Sakura standing there, holding up the now empty glass of water shed' been sipping. "It always worked when our cats would fight…" she explained sheepishly.
Akabane looked down at his scared hands, still shaking, clenched, and trembling with rage. It wasn't his nature to act in anger, but…
"Forgive me," Himiko said. "I said some inexcusable things," she whispered, looking away. It didn't elude him that she was using the most humble form of speech that was appropriate for the situation, which was something he often personally did when apologizing. Her speech irritated him.
"You do not understand."
"I would if you'd stop distracting me and just tell me what Kagami meant!"
"Himiko-chan, if you are so insistent upon knowing something you should not, and putting your life on the line for it, then I will tell you something you will wish you had not heard for the rest of your days," he answered, taking the empty glass violently from Sakura and studying it. "I wonder if this will work for a listening device. I know it's good for hotel eavesdropping, but I'm not sure it's as good as a stethoscope…"
"I have one of those!" Sakura smiled. "Or rather, my brother does. It was a present from someone who misunderstood what kind of medicine it is that we do." She disappeared into her brother's room, throwing packed boxes around for awhile before returning with the device still in its box.
Akabane thanked her and took to opening the box, which proved to be difficult owing to the layers of ancient tape holding it shut. He didn't actually want to show Himiko deep down in his logical brain, but his emotional brain had taken control with the indignity of being accused of impregnating teenagers. He also realized there was a distinct chance he might go insane if he didn't have someone he could tell about his problem. "It is cold," he protested as Himiko took the earpiece and tried to stick the metal end under his robe. "And you are aiming that at the wrong organ," he noted, pushing it away from his chest.
After a few moments of pushing it around, he handed the earpiece back to Himiko, who looked it over in disgust for potential earwax debris. "What am I supposed to be listening to? Other than your intestines gurgling that is," she grunted.
"A very rapid, repetitive lub-dub sound. Listen carefully, it is hard to hear under the sound of my intestines 'gurgling' as you put it."
"Yes."
"That's not my… that's not my…" he hesitated, having trouble putting the word 'heartbeat' into the sentence.
"I can here it over here and over here the best," Himiko interrupted, moving the device across his middle.
He blinked. "Are you sure it sounds the loudest in two places?"
"Yeah. Over to the… to the left and the middle right, it is really clear. The sound kinda overlaps between them, it's harder to hear there," she said, pointing.
"I need to sit down," he said, flopping himself onto the couch. "Please, give me that. I want to hear." She willingly handed it over, watching as the amount of time he spent listening seemed to correlate with how far he'd sunk himself into the couch cushions. Without warning, he suddenly threw the stethoscope aside and curled up on the couch with his face buried in the seats.
"Hey, that's Sakura's! Don't throw that!" Himiko snapped, running to retrieve it.
"It's okay," Sakura said quickly. "We've never used it anyway." She put a hand gently down on Akabane's sharp shoulders, ready to yank it away if it looked like she might be in danger of losing her hand by doing so. "What's wrong?"
"It was a surgical wound," he responded, still not looking at them. He didn't want to face them for fear he might drop his emotionless exterior in front of them from the shock of it all. His voice was broken, however, hinting to Sakura and Himiko that something very dire had happened. Listening to him was like listening to a cell phone with bad reception. "They put a thing inside me! They put that thing inside me!"
By that time, both Sakura and Himiko had drawn their weapons, as they were afraid that Akabane had taken a quick leave of his senses, and both realizing full well exactly how dangerous someone with his powers and without a stable mind could be.
He raised his head and found both girls on the alert. "Lady Poison," he said, looking directly through her and into the softness of her soul. Why was he using that name now? He'd been calling her Himiko just a minute ago. "Poison me. Kill it. Get it out of me. It's unnatural. It's against God. It's against man himself."
Himiko tried to back up, but he'd reached out and gripped the spandex of her pant leg with clawed fingers. "Akabane, you're talking crazy," she said, frantically trying to break out of his grip.
"They put a baby inside me!"
Himiko tried to pull free, causing him to hold her tighter. "Men don't have babies!" she cried. "They don't have the right parts!" she hated to do it, but she used her corrosive scent to slice off the piece of her pant leg he was holding, causing him to lose balance and topple onto the carpet as she skittered away.
"Then tell me what you just heard," he answered from his position with his upper body on the floor and his lower body on the couch. "I can't kill it myself. You must have a potion that induces abortion," he insisted, pulling all of himself off of the couch and crawling towards her. Backing up, Himiko felt her heart racing. The thing crawling across the floor no longer resembled Akabane, but the creature from Ju-on. Not knowing what else to do, she stuck her fingers up in front of her face.
"GO AWAY!" she screamed. "I don't, and even if I did, and even if you weren't absolutely crazy, I wouldn't give it to you to murder an unborn baby!" She grabbed a flower vase off the desk and flung it at him.
He caught the vase, a dazed look in his eyes. Having to put the mental energy into capturing it seemed to have snapped him out of whatever trance he'd been in. He set the vase gently down and returned to the couch, eyes turned to the floor. "It's a parasite that someone planted inside me. Is it not my right to do what I will with parasites in my body?"
"You're… you're completely insane!"
"Maybe I am," he said in an almost dreamy way. His head was lost on thoughts of how he'd nearly lost control. Such behavior wasn't normal, even as far as normal for himself was concerned. "If I am, please explain that sound to me. You have to admit you heard it."
"You need help. Men can't have babies!"
"There's a way to settle this," Sakura interjected from the kitchen, scuffling out with a plastic bowl filled with what appeared to be chopped lettuce or cabbage inside it. "Here," she said, thrusting it into his hands. "Can you pee on this please?"
Hi stared at Sakura. Akabane stared at the limp leaves. "You did not even give me any dressing…"
"Madness!" Himiko cried, her small body shaking in rage. "I'm surrounded by madness!"
"It turns red in response to pregnancy hormones! It's a pregnancy test from antiquity."
"In ancient times, it was also believed that one could rid oneself of ill humors by spreading excrements on one's chest," Akabane replied to that, poking the cabbage with one gloved finger. "A cure that is old is not necessarily a cure that is good."
"This one works, trust me! It was handed down to my by my mother," Sakura argued.
"This is ridiculous," Himiko snorted.
"Agreed," Akabane nodded. "So ridiculous that I think it might be worth doing for the fun of it, and the colors Himiko-chan's face is taking on," he said, hand threateningly tugging lightly on the zipper of his pants.
Himiko put her hands up to her cheeks and felt that they were, indeed, flushed. "You... use the bathroom for that kind of thing!" she snapped, pointing.
"Himiko-chan is no fun," Akabane pouted, disappearing off in the direction of the aforementioned toilet.
Himiko waited, tapping her foot in a nervous manner. When Akabane did finally emerge from the bathroom, he presented the bowl in a ceremonious manner to Himiko. "The cabbage is red," he said firmly, setting it down on Himiko's lap. "Douzo."
"Don't give me something you peed on!" she snapped, moving it over onto the table. She looked down at it and declared, "This cabbage lies." She didn't realize until after she said it how stupid it sounded.
After a lot of arguing centered on whether or not the cabbage did lie, and a rather unfriendly trip to the convenience store, the three sat around the coffee table in angry silence. Or rather, Himiko and Sakura sat around the coffee table in angry silence. Sakura was mad at Himiko for calling her cabbage a liar, and Himiko was mad at Sakura for being so stubborn about the stupid cabbage. Akabane didn't care enough to bother with staying mad, so he was just kind of existing. It was something he was very good at. Existing, that is. It wasn't that he didn't care about anything; it was that he'd long ago learned how not to express his cares on his face.
On the table, Sakura arranged the tests that they'd picked up at the convenience stores in neat rows. Himiko's dark mood had grown even blacker because the tests were expensive. Perhaps one test alone would not have been too bad, but she'd insisted on purchasing three in case one came back positive. She absolutely refused to believe that a man could go through something as sacred to women as carrying a child. She absolutely refused to believe that that man could be trusted with the life of a helpless being.
Sakura held up the tests. "All three of them… came back positive, Himiko."
If it were possible for Himiko's jaw to unhinge, it would have struck the thin gray carpeting. All Akabane could say, his voice dull, was "I believe you owe the cabbage an apology, Himiko-chan." He put his hands on the couch and pushed himself upward, standing slightly unevenly. "If you do not mind, I would like assistance in terminating this alien parasite."
Himiko glared at him, eyes filled with the flames she normally reserved only for thoughts of her brother's cruel death. Without warning she launched herself across the room, gripping him tightly around the waist, pulling his body uncomfortably up against her head. "Don't worry," she said, her voice frighteningly calm. "I'll protect you."
He shoved her roughly off. "Do not touch me," he ordered. "You have no right to say that to me."
She gripped his wrist with a force he didn't know she was capable of generating. "I'll adopt them."
"You? You're barely over being a child yourself. No, you are a child," he answered, trying to pull himself out of her grip. He would cut her if necessary, just lightly. As a general rule, he did not hurt other transporters without receiving some pleasure from it, and he knew he would get no pleasure from hurting Lady Poison.
Sakura suddenly broke in, carrying a box out from the kitchen. "Akabane-san, I almost forgot that Kagami-san gave us your pants."
"My, so he did," Akabane mused, taking advantage of Himiko being distracted by Sakura's sudden interjection to break free and stride away from her. He took the folded pants from Sakura. "Do you have a dressing room I could borrow?" he asked, holding them against his chest.
Sakura nodded and pointed to her bedroom. "Just shut the door behind you."
He disappeared into the bedroom and reappeared a few moments later, dressed in his own clothes. He noticed the half-rotted, wet scent of Infinite Castle clinging to them. He wrinkled up his nose in disgust. He hated having to do laundry twice in one week. Wait, he wouldn't have to. He'd forgotten that he'd lost nearly everything in the explosion. It hadn't burned up, but there was no way he could return back to that place now. It would be crawling with police.
"Where are you going?" Himiko asked. "It's late and you have no where to go," she said, almost as if reading his thoughts.
"I have a job tonight," he answered, pulling on his shoes and tying the laces. It was only then that he noticed his hands shaking so badly that the task became difficult. He knew that working after losing so much blood was a bad idea, but if he did not go to work he thought he might go insane. He might go insane even if he did go to work. Work was merely a convenient distraction from the violation and the humiliation he was feeling. The violation was a natural feeling, stemming from the fact that someone had placed an unwanted creature inside his body. The humiliation came from a combination of the concept of being a pregnant man, and from the way Himiko was treating him. She was acting like he was in the bad guy in the situation, when his memory had been erased and his body had been forcibly harmed.
"You can't go on a delivery while expecting," Himiko argued, only further validating his point in his mind. He stopped fixing his shoe and stood up to his full height, letting himself tower over Himiko.
"If I were to say that to a woman, you would call me a sexist pig. It is an easy job." He smoothed out a wrinkle in his coat so that he wouldn't have to look at her face. Her righteous indignation made him sick. "You will not be as foolish as to tell anyone about this, will you, dear girls?" he asked, voice as cold as a corpse. "I would hate to have to silence you."
Himiko took a step to put herself between him and Sakura, not liking the threatening tone that had entered his voice. "Don't worry about it. Your own body will give you away before I possibly could."
"Do not count on it, Himiko-chan. I have no intention of keeping… this thing. Even if the resultant of that is that you consider me to be less than a beast for the rest of our days."
He gripped the door handle, waiting for Himiko to say some kind of witty retort. When no sounds came from the girl, he assumed that the last word had been given as his, and let himself out.
The job was a medical transportation, which he'd actually been avoiding taking since the Bombay Blood incident. He'd rubbed the body traders the wrong way on that one. It was their own fault, but they failed to see it. They'd interfered with his fun.
As he'd predicted, his night's work was both easy and boring. No one even challenged him. For a moment, he considered walking directly in front of a police car and opening the package to wave a severed human heart at them if only to start an interesting confrontation. In the end he decided his client might be irritated if he dirtied up the delivery. Thus, he did not.
It was after the delivery was complete that his life became more interesting. As he was pulling out his wallet in order to buy a juice for dinner, he found a small white business card. He picked up the card and studied it. He didn't remember having picked up this card. The name had been crossed out. The words "call me" and a number were scrawled on the back.
He really didn't know why, but he called the number from a bus shelter as he finished his drink. He recognized the voice on the other end almost immediately. "What did you wish me to call you about, Kyoji-kun?" he asked, voice caught between sarcasm and mocking. "I am afraid I don't have time in my schedule to be a prisoner."
"I actually called you because Infinite Castle wants to cut a deal with you. Give us the child, and we'll give you something you truly want- power."
"What kind of power do we speak?"
"The power of Babylon City. A full residency, if you want it. The power to defeat Midou Ban, if you do not want that. Any power your mind could wish, we can grant you. All you have to give us is that which was unwanted to you in the first place. How does that sound?"
"Too good to be true, Kagami Kyoji-kun. There must be a catch you're not telling me about."
"No catch, beyond having to carry the humiliation as well as the child. We want it enough to trade you this great power for it. What we can give you is limited only by your imagination."
He paused, and then asked, "the seed of destruction?"
"So, you know about that? Really, it is just a fancy name for nothing. The only thing it stands to destroy is women's monopoly over reproduction."
"Somehow I don't believe you," Akabane smirked. "You wish me to become Rosemary, carrying the great power of the devil's child to fruition for your own gains."
Kagami's voice indicated that he was smiling as he spoke to the phone. "Once again, your knowledge of Western culture is impeccable. No less than I would expect of one from your class. I've been authorized to tell you that you have 24 hours to make a decision to accept or reject."
"If I reject, I will become an enemy of Babylon City and all its spies, correct?"
"Correct."
"I have some terms of my own, since it seems that in one form or another it is in my best interests to take your offer. I don't want my choices interfered with, or my life. You will leave me alone until it is time for you collect your goods. I want the power to defeat the fallen angel." He paused, then added, "Perhaps most importantly, I do not want you to tell anyone that we have this agreement."
"Your last request surprises me. I will let you know shortly if my superiors accept your conditions," Kagami answered. The line clicked, indicating that he'd hung up without so much as a good-bye. How rude, Akabane thought to himself. Didn't they teach manners anymore in Babylon City?
A cold wind blew up the sleeves of his jacket, causing him to shiver. He walked the neon-lit night streets of Tokyo alone. Without any ambition he wandered, wondering what he'd gotten himself into. He still had to find a way to talk to the police about his apartment. Hopefully he could do so without anyone connecting his citizen persona to his transporter persona. Leaving the hat at home was usually good enough to fool the police. His hat was like Clark Kent's glasses, only far more effective because it concealed all of his face but his thin lips. He had no desire to bear a child in prison, where the sheer idea of a male pregnancy would make him the wonder and the disgust of the modern world. He did not wish to spend the rest of his days naked in a medical research center.
Was it a child, or was it children? He had heard what could be two pulses, but then, he was not trained in obstetrics. It could have just been an echo. Kagami had said "child," but perhaps Kagami was ignorant or simply using bad speech. He was so lost in thought that he failed to see a pothole and tripped in it. As he stumbled he nearly sprained his ankle, brining his attention back to the world at the moment. He shivered as another cold wind blew against his body. The fact that he was homeless was far more important at the moment than figuring out how many theoretical bargaining chips grew within him.
Against his will, he found his body slowly dragging back towards Sakura's apartment. At the very least, he had to go there to get his laptop back from her. He arrived at her door as the sun was rising. He apologetically lifted the phone to call her and ask to be buzzed into the residence building. He knew he'd hate being awakened at that time in the morning, but it was unavoidable.
Sakura let him in, greeting him in her nightgown with her hair tightly braided. She ushered him inside. He frowned when he noticed Himiko sleeping on the couch. "Why is she still here?" he whispered, not wanting to wake her.
"She wanted me to wake her when you arrived. She wanted to talk to you. I don't have the heart to wake her, though. She looks so peaceful sleeping like that."
"I'm sure she will understand," he answered, laptop in one hand and the other hand on the door. He hesitated, noticing how warm it was inside as opposed to outside. "You know, this is a very nice apartment. If I had a nice apartment like this, perhaps I would not have to freeze tonight," he said cautiously and slowly, hoping Sakura would take the bait and save him the trouble of finding new lodgings. "I shouldn't expose unborn babies to the elements like this, but what can I do? Oh well."
"Wait!" she cried as he started to shut the door. "I can let you use my brother's room while he's off finding his 'comedic self' in Hokkaido. I can let you stay if you won't get rid of them. They mean so much to Himiko…" She glanced over at the sleeping girl, curled up in a ball on the couch. "I owe her my life. I want to be able to repay the favor some day."
"How… sentimental," Akabane mused. He raised his head just enough to let his eyes peak out from underneath his hat. "I suppose I could stay for awhile and think about it."
Sakura nodded and gestured. "His way, please. It's this room," she whispered.
To Be Continued…
(Yeah, I know, not particularly a cliffhanger but my hands hurt and this is as good of place as any to take a break.)
