Miracle:

Chapter 12

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Dawn found the young hacker stretched out on one of the STN-J couches, his breathing irregular and harsh. His sleeping form twitched and his eyes snapped open, taking a moment to register the familiar room around him. Growling, he sat up and rubbed at his eyes roughly; this was thethird time nightmares had ruined his sleep. Slipping his glasses back on, Michael got up from the couch and went back to his computer, hands hesitating over the black keys.

If he turned the computer on…it would be there, waiting for him…the bits and pieces of his dreams. The dismantled handheld device was still hooked up amidst a tangle of wires and Michael found himself reluctant to touch it. It was funny…all the trouble the STN-J and Robin were now going through was contained on that one small piece of technology. So much fuss over such a small thing…

Sighing, he moved away from the seat where he spent nearly all of his time and instead sat himself down in one of the other chairs, absently flipping through one of the many stacks of paperwork that still needed to be read and filed. But his eyes didn't really see the papers, and his sleep-deprived mind didn't really register what was written on them.

When the rest of the team showed up for work later that morning, they found their hacker still sitting in the same place, staring dazedly at the reports.

"Michael…Michael?" Robin's soft voice snapped him out of his daydreaming state.

Jumping a little, he glanced up at her with a foggy look that soon faded once he realized the rest of his coworkers were here, including Doujima. "Ah…good morning…"

"You okay?" Sakaki asked, flopping down in another chair as he always did.

But before the younger boy could answer, though,Amon cut in. "What did you find out from the handheld? Anything useful?"

Michael nodded slowly and a murmur of disquiet rippled through the room. "The entire…story…behind this Nagira guy is on there. And…" he paused, shooting Robin a quick glance, "…the reason for Robin's rape."

She cringed visibly when he said that and the hacker immediately felt a fleeting stab of guilt shoot through his gut. He hated to bring this painful subject back into the light just as it seemed she was beginning to forget, but the startling truth that had haunted his dreams all night was this: Robin's rape and Nagira's suicide were linked together as surely as day and night.

Always the quick thinker, Karasuma replied quietly, "A connection, then?"

Another reluctant nod from the younger teen. Another ripple of uneasiness spread through the room, all eyes now focused on Michael, as he got up and went to his computer, flipping the switch and turning it on for the first time since last night. "I saved everything on here so I can send copies to all your computers," he told them as the machine hummed to life. "But for now I figured I'd outline everything and you can do your own in-depth reading later."

The group tensed impatiently as he finished talking, Robin trembling as she lowered herself into a chair slightly apart from the others. Her abused lip was caught between her teeth once more as she clasped her hands tightly, the knuckles turning white.

The first of the many documents Michael had found appeared on the screen and as the youngest Hunter saw this, a quiet whimper escaped her lips. Sympathetic looks were shot in her direction all around, but before anyone else could make a move, Amon moved to sit next to her in a swirl of black fabric.

Immediately, Robin pressed her face into his shoulder, seeming to calm almost instantly in his presence. The bewilderment displayed on their coworkers' faces was nothing compared to the shock that replaced it when Amon's arm slipped around her slender form and came to rest upon her shoulder. The look in his eyes dared them all to say something about it, but they merely turned away so as to hide the small grins that were threatening to appear. True, they were confused as to why she wasn't afraid to touch Amon, but they figured they would find out soon enough.

Turning back to his computer, the hacker took a few moments more to sort through his pages and pages of data before he started to speak.

"First off, Robin's rape wasn't accidental…it was planned."

The room cringed and Michael shook his head. "Everything was planned out in advance, and the timing was perfect because getting Robin pregnant was also part of the plan."

Doujima emitted a strangled gasp and Sakaki narrowed his eyes. Over the past few weeks he had become much like an older brother to the young Hunter, always looking out for her and giving her rides when she needed them. Now, his temper flared up at this new information as his mind registered its harm to his "little sister". "What kind of asshole would do that kind of thing!" he shouted, slamming a fist down on the table.

"An asshole like Zaizen," Michael replied coolly. The bluntness with which he was telling his team members these things only served to intensify the stark, dire natureof their situation. His lack of technical jargon and habit of dancing around the point—though mainly used to annoy—was frightening.

Another whimper came from Robin as the rest of the room recoiled in horror. No one seemed to notice the tightening of Amon's arm around Robin as he held onto her tighter; if one didn't know better, it could have been called a hug.

After pausing a moment to allow the rest of people in the room to regain their composure, the hacker boy continued his explanation. "You see, the Orbo we use here at the STN-J doesn't always work the way it should. Yes, it helps, but it can't always protect us from the witch we're fighting, especially if that witch is strong. But apparently, as of late, Zaizen has had a team of researchers working around the clock to try and figure out a way around this."

Growing more and more impatient with every sentence, Sakaki finally cut in rudely. "Who gives a damn! What does any of this have to do with Robin!"

"Sakaki!" Karasuma laid a hand on his arm and squeezed it abruptly, none too gently. "If you'd shut up long enough, Michael would be able to tell us!"

Ignoring the outburst from his fellow Hunter, Sakaki glanced down at her hand, then back up. With a smirk that would have put the Cheshire Cat to shame, he put his own on top of hers. Face flushing, the woman yanked her hand back quickly and turned away from the rookie Hunter, staring determinedly at the Michael's computer screen.

"Thank you, Karasuma," he said dryly. "Anyway, as I was saying, Zaizen's been looking for ways to work around the Orbo, or to improve it. But it seems thatnothing's been working for him as of late; each one of his experiments failed, and a lot of his agents died. So he turned to something else a little more potent to solve his problems. He turned to gentics."

"Genetics?" Doujima asked, her voice shaking slightly. "But what's so special about Robin's genes? She's a Hunter! Just the same as all of us!" Her sweeping gesture took in each one of them around the room.

"And that's where you're wrong!" Michael exclaimed, sounding slightly pleased with himself, despite the situation. "You see, the baby wouldn't be composed of soley Robin's genes. Only half of the full set of chromosomes comes from the mother. The other half…comes from the father."

"Chromosomes…he's speaking nerd again…" Sakaki muttered to Karasuma, the edge of his lips barely skimming across her ear. The flush that had just begun to fade on the older woman's face came back full force and she swung one hand back to smack the rookie lightly on the chest.

Seeming not to notice, the young hacker continued his spiel; he was in full information mode now and nothing could distract him when he was like this. "So really, Robin's genes are important, because she has strong powers." Here he paused and glanced around. "The rest of us aren't able to offer our genes because half of us are male and, as far as we know, Doujima doesn't have any specific witch hunting powers. While Miss Karasuma's power is strong, hers is unique and really wouldn't serve Zaizen in his quest to eradicate the witches of the world."

"Go on," Sakaki prompted, as the teen paused, most likely for breath.

To everyone's surprise, it was Robin who spoke up next, not Michael. "Who's…who's the father?" All heads turned to face her as she turned away from Amon's shoulder so her voice could be heard. "Who did this to me?" Unexpectedly, there was no hesitance in the young girl's voice—it seemed she truly wanted to know who had raped her.

Instead, it was the hacker who paused, his blue eyes hesitant as he looked from Robin to Amon to his computer and back.

"Just spit it outalready, damn it!" Sakaki exclaimed, finding himself once again restrained by Karasuma's hand on his arm.

Looking away from both Robin and Amon, Michael finally answered in a low voice, "It was Nagira…the man Amon found dead yesterday."

Only Doujima remained unaffected by this information, as she didn't know what had happened yesterday. In a synchronization that would have been comical if the situation wasn't so serious, Karasuma and Sakaki turned wide-eyed looks upon Amon.

"Nagira?" Robin chewed her lip a little. "But what's so special about that man?"

"He's Amon's-" Sakaki began, before being smacked into submission once more by his partner. "Ow…"

Confused, Robin glanced up at Amon, who was staring at nothing, his eyes blank. He wasn't letting it show on the outside, but the news had shocked him—really shocked him—down to the very core of his being. He didn't remember ever being thrown off-balance like this…except when his mother's powers awoke and turned her into a witch.

"Amon?" The pleading in the youngest Hunter's voice, and the trust, forced the dark Hunter to look down and meet her gaze; his eyes softened.

"He's my brother."

This time, it was Robin's turn to fix a wide-eyed stare upon the leader of their team. Michael still refused to look at them, as he put his head tiredly into his hand. The silence in the room was louder then any noise could have ever been and it was only broken when Robin chose to speak again. "Y-your…brother?"

The last word was no more then a whisper and, to Amon, it seemed as if her tone of voice broke his heart even more then finding out who it was that had raped her. "Yes…Nagira was my half brother. We shared the same father." His arm grew limp and dropped from her shoulder. For the first time since she had turned to Amon for comfort, Robin pulled away from him.

The way he used past tense to talk about his brother caused Karasuma to look away as the memories of the emotions she had sensed on his body came flooding back to her mind. "But…why? Why Nagira?" Sakaki finally asked, ever the curious one. "And anyway, how could Zaizen force him to do this? Did he bribe him? Blackmail him?"

With a sigh, Michael glanced up. "This is where it gets really twisted. In answer to your last few questions, no, Zaizen do not bribe nor blackmail Nagira. He controlled him by other means. You see, if word of this ever leaked out, Solomon would be the one to blame, and that would ruin our boss." The sarcasm in his tone was unmistakable.

"He thought it would be better if there was no one on the outside who could give them away."

"Why didn't he just get someone to do the job, and then kill them?" Sakaki interjected, his curiosity still getting the better of him.

"He had a scientist who specialized in medicine and pharmacology, who told him he could make the perfect drug. One that was capable of both controlling the victim and leaving him with no memories of the situation."

"Drugs…" Robin murmured, her stomach giving a lurch.

Michael shook his head. "No, there were no drugs put into you, Robin. The drug was contained in Nagira's body and that of his 'controller'. Now before you ask any questions Sakaki-" the hacker held up a long-fingered hand. "Let me explain. To say that he was creating the perfect drug is inaccurate; it wasmore like he was creating the perfect drugs. Because as we all know, Nagira obviously had no motivation for raping Robin, and wouldn't have under normal circumstances. But then the drug came into play."

Here he turned to his computer and brought up a few still shots of what appeared to be Nagira's apartment. "Here, you can see that Zaizen had the Solomon agents sneak into his apartment and set up cameras around the rooms. It's most likely that this is the point at which they slipped the drug into his food, or beer, or whatever."

At the word 'beer', Amon snorted.

"I can pretty much guess how Amon got this handheld off of the agent…and what he did to the others in the area…" Michael's voice was dry.

Amon snorted again.

"Meanwhile, back at Solomon, someone else, probably a hired underling of Zaizen's, took another drug, which was a mirror image of the one in Nagira's food. When he came home and ingested the drug, it would automatically link him to whoever was the 'controller' back at Solomon; from then on,his mind and body were no longer his own."

Karasuma shivered slightly at this point and instinctively moved a little closer to Sakaki.

"You see, the drug linked their brainwaves, taking control of the victim's nervous system, and synchronizingit with the 'controller's'. So, all the Solomon agent had to do was think of raping Robin, and Nagira's body would answer, much like a puppet."

Silent tears were working their way down Robin's cheeks by now and she turned her face away from everyone else in the room before they could notice. Michael's frankness had struck something deep inside of her yet she knew this was really the only way for him to get this out. She just couldn't believe…

"Except it wasn't perfect," Michael continued. "For some unknown reason, Nagira began to remember things and his health started to decline—probably because remnants of the drug lingered in his body. After he finally remembered everything…" The hacker trailed off, knowing what had happened yesterday.

Amon, who, up until this time, had been staring intently at the wall, turned to Robin and frowned slightly.

"But why Nagira!" Sakaki asked again, his impatience coming back full force.

"Simply put, Nagira was a Seed. His father was a witch, or a Seed,thus his powers got passed down to Nagira. Whether or not they have awoken is irrelevant, because all that is needed in this situation is the genes. The genes for his power…the genes that Zaizen needs to replace his usage of Orbo." He looked at them over the rims of his glasses. "Nagira had the power to resist the Craft. That was his own twisted version of it. To make a long story short, if someone with the Craft were to attack him, his body would reject it and it would end up doubling back on the user."

Now it was Karasuma's turn to ask a question. "You said he chose Robin because of her strong powers…but that doesn't make sense. If the power he is trying to duplicate is that of resistance to the Craft, then why give the child half the genes of someone who's obviously very gifted with it?"

"Well, as far as the Craft is concerned as far as genetics go, it is usually the power of the father that turns out dominant, if both parents happen to have them.On the off chancethat the baby turned out to have Robin's powers, it might still have a slight resistance to other people's Craft, as well as having a very strong gift of its own. So, by crossing Robin's genes with Nagira's, Zaizen is assuring himself ofa win-win situation; either way, he would end up getting a strong Hunter to aid him in exterminating witches. So if the baby had Robin's Craft alone,all he would have to do would be to get Nagira to impregnate Robin again for another try."

Robin flinched.

Amon's frown deepened as he turned back to the hacker. "My brother was a Seed?"

Michael nodded. "Apparently, yes. You said you share the same father, didn't you know that he had witch powers?"

"I wouldn't have expected Nagira to have witch powers, he never showed any signs of developing them." The dark man stopped for a moment, seeming to catch himself about to say something secret, before he regained poise and continued.

"Our father wasn't around when we were growing up," Amon answered flatly. "Frankly, Nagira and I didn't see that much of each other either when we were children. When our father separated from his mother, she took Nagira with her and father moved on to my mother. He left, or died, before I could remember him, and my mother didn't like to talk about him much.

As he was explaining all of this, Robin had once more rested her gaze upon him. The chill way in which he told this story sent shivers down her spine; it was as if he were a block of ice, detached from all feeling and emotion. She wondered what had happened to him to cause him to be this way…and she wanted to know more. She wanted to know Amon better.

Finishing his tale, Amon sat back in his chair and looked over at Robin. Finding her tear-stained face staring at him, he looked away again, gruffly handing her a handkerchief. He had seen the look in her eyes…and he didn't like it. All his life the tall Hunter had avoided telling people about his past because it always evoked the same emotion in all of them: pity. And pity was something Amon hated. He didn't need it, it certainly didn't help him in his life, and, therefore, he wouldn't give it to others.

Now this logic may have been twisted, but it was the only thing that had kept him alive up until this point in his life. It had given him something to lean on, a reason for becoming strong, so that he would never again have to deal with pitying people and their well-meaning sympathies.

"Of course Nagira didn't show any signs of developing powers!" Michael exclaimed, his voice slightly reproving. "His power was resistance to the Craft!"

Sakaki smirked. He loved it when Michael proved others wrong…so long as it wasn't him being proven wrong.

"After the birth, Zaizen was going to take the child and raise it at Solomon. His ultimate goal would be to train it and use it as the perfect witch-hunting machine. He could then use both Robin and her child to create more of these Hunters, until he had enough to safely replace the Orbo with."

"That's sick," Doujima spat.

"But it's true," Michael replied. "Yes it's sick, but the truth remains that this wasn't accidental and that as soon as Robin's baby is born Zaizen plans to take it from her."

Immediately Robin's arms curled tightly around her belly. Amon caught sight of this, then nodded in approval at Robin's next words.

"He can't have my child." It was strange…even after all she had just found out, even though her head was spinning, Robin found herself unable to even think of parting with her child. It was an intense love-hate relationship between her and the unborn baby, her love coming from theinstinct that she was its mother, and her hate stemming from the fact that the child served as a constant reminder of what had happened to her.

She wanted the baby because it was her own. She didn't want to keep it merely for the sake of preventing Zaizen from turning it into a killing machine; she simply wanted it because it was a part of her, her child that shewas giving lifeto.

"Do we know who was controlling Nagira?" Doujima asked, disturbing the silence that had once again taken hold of the room after Robin's poignant words.

Orange hair went flying as the hacker shook his head. "And that's what really strikes me as odd. The data and photographs give us all the information about the project except who the controller was. This could be for one of two reasons, the first being that hesimply wasn't important enough, just a hired boozerthat they could count on to rape an innocent girl."

"Reason numbertwo?" Karasuma prompted.

"It was someone so important, that it would endanger the entire project to put his name in the files. Someone who didn't want his identity nor his role in all of this known. Possibly even Zaizen himself."

Sakaki wrinkled his face at the hacker's last comment.

"Either way, the name's not in there, but we've found out basically everything else. The question now is: What are we going to do about it?"

This time, the silence stretched out over minutes, hanging in the air heavily, like a dense fog.

"We'll go after the bastard," Amon finally replied quietly, looking up from his study of the floor tiles. "We'll hunt Zaizen down and find out who it was that made this drug and inflictedthis on Robin. Then…" he trailed off ominously as the rest of the team shot him perturbed looks.

"Kinda like what happened to those Solomon agents…right?" Sakaki asked, fighting to keep the quiver out of his voice.

But Amon didn't answer and silence once again descended upon the roomful of Hunters as each became lost in their own thoughts.

-

Oh my… That was a lot of typing…This chapter's even longer then the last one! But there was just so much to explain! Even now, I'm sure I've forgotten little details here and there and as each one becomes apparent, I'll correct it or explain it in future chapters.

I know the ending must have seemed abrupt, but seeing as how the chapter was already eight pages long with over 3,500 words…I figured it was time to stop.

I would really love to hear your feedback on Zaizen's plans and motives, whether negative or positive. (So long as it's constructive!) Let me know about any gaps in the plot or corrections, etc. And I am going to get this betaed—I swear!—but I figured you wouldn't want to wait any longer so I posted it while still in the rough.

So I'm going to let you go, seeing as how you're probably tired of reading by now. Please review!

-SanoGirl

Updated: 5/3/05-Betaed Version