Akabane opened his eyes, confused. His vision was blurry. A moment later it cleared. He found himself in an expansive brick room. This isn't Sakura-chan's apartment, he thought. He wasn't quite sure where it was. He picked himself up from the cobbled ground, dusting layers of dirt off his coat. He took a few steps and felt pebbles against his feet. For some reason, he was wearing all of his clothes except his shoes and socks. This confused him greatly.
The room was lit entirely in shades of blue. He wandered through it aimlessly, looking all around. High windows were decorated with broken pieces of stained glass, letting him see the waxing moon beyond. He walked over broken glass from the windows, but for some reason the glass did not cut his feet.
He paused in front of a full rose bush, growing in the single beam of moonlight. "What are you doing here?" he asked it, not expecting any answer. He knelt down to bring the bush's leaves to his eye level. The few buds the plant had left were rotted and wilting, eaten away as if by disease. "Poor thing," he said, touching a leaf with his gloved hands.
His touch brought about a reaction from the rose. The plant's interior began moving, twisting like a pool of mating serpents. The blackness of the vines twisting against one another fascinated Akabane. He tilted his head and leaned back to get a better look at their movement.
As he moved, a vine shot out from within the bush and tangled around his neck. He let out a sound of surprise, barely a cry at all. Thorns dug into his skin. He tried to cut the vines, but another one clasped around his wrist. He attempted to bring scalpels out of his other hand, but the vines had found that hand as well and twisted around it.
He could feel his collar wet with his own blood as the remaining vines curled around his waist and legs, dragging him further into the bush. The thorns cut his face and tore at his eyes. He fought against the bush, but was no match for its strength. It continued to draw him in until his body was consumed and tangled in the whole of the brush. An ever- widening pool of blood grew beneath his body, flowing down to nourish the roots of the plant.
The brush cleared for a moment, and through the thorns and leaves he saw someone standing in the moonlight. He felt his mouth opening, a scream forming within.
"Go ahead and cry for help. Who are you kidding? No one will save a monster like you."
A moment of silence existed between Akabane and the speaker, during which he continued to fight as the words pierced into his mind more sharply than the thorns. He fell silently back into the bush, the will to fight drained from his body. He couldn't find the strength to scream anymore; his voice seemed to have abandoned him. He didn't even make a tiny cry as the branches moved inward, ripping through bone and muscle, consuming him piecemeal.
Then, without warning… he woke up. After a few uncertain moments of heaving, he failed to throw up. He wasn't certain if this was good or not, as he still felt like he had to. He would have thought that waking up, eyes wide, sitting bolt upright in bed covered in cold sweat was something that only happened to movie characters. He would never have admitted it, as it would have shamed his stubborn pride, but the only response he could think of was to pull the sheets over his head and huddle in a ball for the duration of the night.
---
Around ten that same morning, Himiko awoke to find Akabane's laptop gone from the coffee table. Inwardly she moaned. Sakura hadn't awakened her, and she had no idea where Akabane might have gone into hiding now that his apartment was no longer an option.
She did not expect to turn around and find him standing behind her, holding what appeared to be a glass of juice in one hand and a piece of apple in the other. She jumped a bit. His apparition-like way of appearing when he wanted to was a bit unnerving.
"Good morning, Lady Poison. Was the futon to your liking?" If the dream last night had left any permanent mental scar, he wasn't showing it to the outside world.
"What are you doing here?" Himiko asked, surprise making her voice come out at a higher pitch than normal. "And why are you still wearing Jubei's clothes?"
He looked down at the white T-shirt and pants that he had had to safety pin together, owing to the fact that they were much too large for his slender frame. "These are Sakura-chan's brother's. I don't have any clean clothes that weren't in my apartment. I thought I might try to deal with the police today. It's unlikely that they would connect someone this disheveled to my other identity." That, and he just wanted to get out of the apartment. He needed fresh air.
"A good thought," she answered, turning her attention to his middle. "Are they… dead?" she asked, trying not to sound too emotional.
"Sakura-chan is trading their lives for the rent." He grinned at her. "I believe I got the better part of the deal."
At first, Himiko could not even speak, shocked at the callous nature of his answer. "You… you… you, SIR, are a bastard!" she screamed at last, and only Sakura's intervention prevented Himiko from unwisely going at Akabane with fists swinging. The cloth-wielder grabbed Himiko by the shoulders and pushed her toward the kitchen, murmuring something about fixing an early lunch. Chuckling softly, Akabane sat down on the couch. He hoped whatever Sakura made wouldn't upset his stomach.
After a pleasant meal in taste if not atmosphere , Akabane went out and Himiko went on the computer. She did calculations as Sakura curiously watched over her shoulder. "If we assume that the heart just started beating on the day we heard it, their due date should be sometime in March," Himiko mused to herself as she leaned back in the computer chair. "That is, assuming they will grow at the same rate as a naturally conceived infant."
"The date itself is a bit arbitrary, since I don't see any way for them to get out of his body other than by surgery," Sakura added as she nodded in agreement with Himiko's claims.
(While the girls continued their conversation, the officer checking a pile of papers looked up coldly at the strangely dressed man squirming in the seat across from him. Akabane was swinging his legs, kicking the chair and making an annoying noise each time his heels hit metal. "That sure was a nice apartment… for someone who lives on a military disability check, that is.."
"I don't really have any other expenses," Akabane said, pushing away the cup of brown mush they tried to pass off as coffee. He felt vaguely nervous, because there was always the threat he could be identified. No matter how careful he was not to leave evidence on his victims, he felt the possibility hanging over his head."
"Military disability, huh? You're not missing any limbs. Is it that post-traumatic stress thing everyone seems to be getting lately?" He caught Akabane looking sharply up at him. "You're right, those aren't PC things for me to say," he said, wriggling his fingers in a gesture of quotation. "Let's get back to why someone would plant a bomb in your apartment. Made any gang enemies lately?"
"Bombs aren't really the Yakuza's style…." Akabane mused. "Are they?" At least, it didn't seem like the style of the few Yakuza he'd taken jobs with.
"You never know… we have a special interest in your case, seeing as how it could be taken as a terrorist act. Terrorists don't really go over well in this day and age."
"I understand your reasons, but I can't offer you any information. I'd rather my apartment not have blown up, and you can believe me on that."
After another half hour of going in circles that made Akabane's head hurt, he was finally released. Unfortunately, he was released with the caution the police could call him back for more questions at any time they pleased. Even though they hadn't directly said it, their attitude told him that he was prime suspect number one in their minds. He would lay low on his Dr. Jackal activities for the next few days, and tell Himiko it was out of concern for her concerns. That would make her happy.
He had managed, via careful question answering, to learn that his bathroom was largely a pile of broken tile. This relieved him, because it meant they hadn't found the halo of blood he'd left. He'd hate for them to have a sample of his blood on record.
As he walked home, he decided to be polite and pick up groceries. He helped himself to a large amount of the mochi he'd bought intending to share as he walked home. He knew he shouldn't. He knew there was a possibility his nausea would return and he'd see the mochi again. But damn it, it just tasted so good!
"I brought food," he announced when he arrived back at Sakura's apartment.
"Thank you. There's a key for you on the desk. I explained the situation to my landlady and she was very nice about letting me add you to the lease."
He picked up the key and noticed yet another one lying next to it, along with a pile of boxes in the living room. "Whose boxes are those?"
"Mine," Himiko answered, walking out of the main bedroom. "I'm standing by my declaration that I'm not letting a sweet, innocent girl like Sakura live alone with someone like you. So, I'm moving in. Sakura and I will share a room. You can have Jubei's room. Just put his stuff in the closet and don't get too comfortable in your decorating."
"All this fuss for little me? I'm flattered," he answered, eating the very last of the mochi. If she was going to be like that, then she shouldn't have any. "Mmm, mochi," he mumbled.
Himiko studied him inquisitively, noticing the empty sweets package in the bag. "A little bit early for pregnancy cravings, isn't it?"
"I liked mochi before this," he answered. He admitted that he'd never eaten an entire tray in one sitting before, though. Well, wait. There had been that one time. He'd had a really rough day at work.
The nausea that he'd feared the mochi would awaken didn't return until two days later, when a stir-fry Sakura was preparing sent him flying into the bathroom. He had hoped he was over the vomiting. He hadn't thrown up since Babylon City, after all. "I thought it was supposed to be morning sickness," he protested as Himiko came in to check on him. "It is evening now."
"That's just a fanciful name for it, from what I understand. It's really comes-any-time-it-feels-like-it-too-bad-for-you sickness, from what I've heard," Himiko responded. "I hear it generally goes away at the end of the first trimester."
He put his head down on the toilet seat. "Wonderful, two more months of vomiting hell. I can hardly wait."
"Yes, then you get to swell out like you have a watermelon in your shirt," Himiko replied.
Right then, Sakura arrived on the scene. "I'll loan you my books on women's alternative medicines," she said, too cheerily for the sick Akabane's taste.
"Thanks," he grunted. He was starting to wonder if the trouble was worth the power he was going to receive from Babylon City. They had better be some pretty amazing powers for the amount of suffering he was being forced to endure. Not only that, but his attempts to hunt down Rune Biotechnology had been largely fruitless, leaving him with a handful of dead ends and a sense of lack of revenge or closure. "I am going to return to the bedroom."
He made good on that statement and promptly collapsed into a pile of sheets. He rolled around in them until he literally resembled the phrase "a bug in a rug" He'd been rolling himself up in his sheets ever since the first nightmare that he'd suffered, as if the piles of blankets could keep out bad thoughts.
So far, it had worked. Unfortunately for Akabane, tonight was to be the night that his defense mechanism would fail. He dreamed of bright lights shining down in his eyes, nearly blinding him. He tried to move his arms, but found them restrained. Through a haze in his mind, he saw someone dressed in white approaching. The man was holding a bundle as though it were a child. He leaned over and presented Akabane with a jar filled with what appeared to be a jumble of metal and soft bodily tissues.
The most hideous image in the dream was a severed head wrapped in wires, suspended in the air before Akabane. It seemed to be grinning down upon his body, splayed before the dead eyes. They gleamed almost as if they hungered for his flesh from beyond the grave.
He woke up from that dream badly nauseated but unable to vomit yet again. Not knowing what else to do, he crawled into the bathroom and sat on the floor of the shower, letting hot water wash over his back. Despite the heat he shivered. He felt weaker than if he hadn't bothered to sleep at all, a sensation he hated with all his soul. He remained on the floor of the shower until the water turned so bitterly cold that he could not stand it anymore.
It was only when drying off that he realized he'd rubbed his skin raw, blood oozing through cracks in his epidermis. It hurt to touch even the gentlest of towel by the time he'd finished, and his clothes were sheer torture against the irritated skin. He blamed it on dry skin when the girls saw him and gasped, surprised at how rough and red he looked. Sakura wasn't easily convinced, however, and insisted on wrapping as much of his body in gauze as she could, taking special care to cover the especially nasty cracks.
"I look like a mummy," he commented dully, staring as Sakura finished taping gauze over his hands.
"Instead of a mommy?" she joked, trying to lighten the mood. Akabane, however, was not amused. So not amused was he, in fact, that he snatched his dinner away from Himiko and retreated post-haste into Jubei's room to eat it by himself.
As Sakura and Himiko ate without Akabane's presence, the young cloth-user spoke up. "I'm worried that his mental state might be deteriorating," she whispered to Himiko, looking terrified that Akabane might hear her talking about him. "He rubbed his outer layers of skin off in the shower."
"I know. He said it was dry skin. I take it you suspect otherwise?" Himiko asked, setting down her chopsticks.
"Mm," Sakura nodded. "I can tell the difference between skin that is dry and skin that has been abused."
Himiko looked down at her plate, suddenly not hungry. "Victims… of sexual assault often injure their skin trying to clean themselves," she sighed. "Gods, I've been stupid. Why didn't I see it before? I'm sure he feels that he was... molested."
"I understand," Sakura answered, not wanting to push Himiko to say words that were difficult for her. "What do we do about him?"
Himiko frowned. "We need to get him out of the apartment, brighten him up. All he's done lately is mope around and throw up." She looked down at the newspaper she'd been using as a placemat. "That's it!"
Akabane yawned and rubbed his eyes. "I'm tired, Himiko-chan. Why did you drag me out of bed when I was napping so peacefully?"
"Sakura and I noticed that you were feeling a bit down, so we thought it would be good to take you out to do something." Himiko pointed up at the theater marquee. "See? It's a midnight horror movie film fest!"
He squinted at the sign, then at Himiko. "Why would you assume that I like horror movies?"
"Well, you seem to like killing and bloody death, so we thought…"
"And I suppose you spend your free time buying perfumes," he snapped. Noticing her face falling, he sighed and added, "Since you've gone through all the work of dragging me out, I suppose that I can accept your goodwill gesture."
"Thanks. I think," Himiko commented, a drop of sweat clinging to her forehead.
Sakura, to Himiko's surprise, tolerated horror movies very well. She barely blinked when a severed head went flying, spine trailing behind like a grotesque kite tail. She didn't eat popcorn through the vivisection scene like Akabane did, which greatly encouraged Himiko's faith in Sakura's mental stability.
The first movie was a relatively simple slasher flick, of the kind popular in America. It boasted little more than grotesque splashes of colorful special effects, attempting to outdo one another in sheer volume of revulsion inflicted upon the audience.
If only Himiko had paid closer attention to the night's billing, perhaps disaster could have been averted. The second film was a Japanese remake of Rosemary's baby, which became horribly obvious to both Himiko and Sakura only after it was too late. By too late, of course, meant by the time that a badly disturbed Akabane had fled the theater, hands tightly over his mouth, to find a bathroom.
The girls chased after him and waited patiently for him to wobble out of the men's room, looking faint. "Did you throw up again?" Sakura asked, concern in her voice.
He shook his head, but there was a smell clinging to his clothes that suggested that he was lying. Dark circles had appeared under his eyes, perhaps a side effect of the way his skin was off-color. He looked as though all the soft tissues had sunk into the crevices of his skull. "I felt sick when those men… those devil worshippers… did that… to that… unwilling…girl," he finished. The only word he had sounded uncertain about saying was girl. He shook his head violently, trying to clear his mind. "It is not that I was unfamiliar with the movie. I have even referred to myself as Rosemary. Seeing it up on the screen, seeing them do that… it…it made me…"
"It's okay, you don't have to talk about it," Himiko said. "Let's just go home." The three walked home together. Himiko has suggested a taxi, but Akabane wanted the air. A few blocks from the theater, Himiko spoke up again. "I'm sorry. That was very insensitive of me, making you watch that movie. I should have looked into what was showing."
"You should have asked me what I wanted to see. I would have liked to go to a comedy," he answered, sounding distant. Sakura unlocked the door to the apartment. She couldn't help but notice that Himiko was looking away from Akabane, anger set on her face. In Himiko's mind, she'd apologized as nicely to Akabane as she could. He didn't have to be such an ass about it! What more could he possibly want other than a sincere apology? An illuminated manuscript about how apologetic she felt, perhaps?
"I want to take a shower," Akabane commented as soon as he'd wriggled out of his coat.
"You just took one earlier," Himiko argued. "Your skin is too raw." She gripped the sleeve of his shirt, trying to impede his movement. "I don't want you to hurt yourself again," she slipped.
He yanked his arm away from her. "What do you mean by again?" he asked,"I'm very tired and I just want to shower before I sleep."
"You'll rub your skin until it bleeds again," Himiko argued, physically blocking the way to the bathroom. She was ignoring the fact that he was large and strong enough to easily remove her from his path should he choose to.
"I… am not in the mood to fight," he answered, utterly surprising Himiko. She'd been ready to have to put up a struggle with him. "I'll just go to bed."She let him go, tired herself and still suffering a spot of shock. She'd seen him give up on fights before, but she hadn't expected him to drop it that time.
Kneeling on top of the flat mattress, Akabane glanced up into what he could see of the night sky over the lights of Tokyo. "Am I carrying the devil's babies?" he asked the empty air.
8
