Disclaimer: I don't own GetBackers, don't sue! I don't have enough money to hire a lawyer. Also, I would love to pretend I came up with the idea of a Sakura and Kagami pairing, but I admit I was inspired by an entry called 'Seen and Unseen', if I'm not mistaken, written by incandescens, to whom I bow reverently. If you haven't read it, you should check it out. I doubt you'll regret it unless you're into slash.

Where did he go?

The silent question hangs in the air even after he's gone. He can see it in their eyes, their astonished faces, as he vanishes from their sight, something that looks like anger in Midou Ban's eyes that this is one nemesis he won't get to see torn apart by the pain he has inflicted. He smirks. It's nice to know that no matter how badly they beat him, they would not get the satisfaction of seeing him fall to the ground and scream in agony.

Nobody wins over Kagami Kyoji. A dull but annoyingly present ache where Kudo Himiko's anatomy had connected with his and not in a manner meant for male enjoyment. Wince. At least not completely, he adds silently.

They say that in Mugenjyou, wounds heal extremely fast. Kagami is still waiting for some evidence of that.

Reminder to self: complain about time required to heal on next trip back to Babylon City.

As a matter of fact, his condition seems to be going from bad to worse. First Jackal, then the Kudo-Midou tag-team…not exactly a combination in favour of one's physical health. Kagami lets out the breath he was unconsciously holding, alone for the moment in one of the many corridors in Lower Town, a place akin to something like a high-tech playground for his people. There is no one around to see his proud posture collapse, to see him hunch over and gingerly feel the arm he knows is badly bruised from a relentless Snake Bite, unbroken only because the blow to his head knocked him out of that vice-like grip. There are no prying eyes to ogle at him while he touches a sore spot on his head where a bruise is surely forming. There is no one to watch as he unbuttons the purple, collared shirt he is wearing and checks on his hastily bandaged torso. The blood is still flowing from the holes in his body, courtesy of Akabane Kuroudo's scalpels. If he doesn't do something about it, he'll have to get a new coat.

Probably should have worn black. At least I wouldn't have to worry about stains. Then again, he would look like a Dr. Jackal wannabe. And why would he want to be Akabane Kuroudo when he could be Kagami Kyoji? It would be an utter waste of time, although observing everyone else's reactions would probably be very amusing. With the exception of Kakei Juubei, who probably wouldn't notice anything anyway.

"Kagami-san?"

The blond looks up sharply, instinctively covering the bloodstained bandages with his shirt. You don't go walking around with Mugenjyou showing that you are wounded. To be wounded means that someone has beaten you in a fight; if someone has beaten you in a fight, it follows that others can beat you too. And in Mugenjyou, you don't want people to think that. Not unless you have a desire to be beaten into a bloody pulp and left for dead.

"How did you know I was here?" Hint of anger in his voice–anger at himself, mainly, for being seen when he doesn't want to be seen and not realizing that he had been spotted, but he doesn't see why he should allow her the satisfaction of knowing that. Still, to be angry is to be out of control, and to be out of control is to be weak. The man of mystery from Babylon City might be powerful, might be somewhat full of himself, might be handsome, might be extremely hard to read–anything but weak. Somehow, even though it hurts to even move thanks to a certain hakobiya, Kagami straightens up, leaning against the wall in a casual attitude with his trademark enigmatic smile and his hands in his pockets. He doesn't bother to hide the once-white bandage under his shirt from her. She isn't strong enough to challenge him, and anyway she would never dare. She was a servant, and he was probably a feudal lord in that same hierarchy. A smirk settled on his lips at that thought. "Of course. You were watching. Did Makubex tell you to come?"

It's not a question he needs to ask. He has weighed Kakei Sakura in his mind before this, and he sees nothing worthy of his interest. She is as submissive as Kudo Himiko is stubborn, as loyal to her master as the latter is fiercely independent. She never speaks unless spoken to. She never does anything she is not expected or told to do. She was a young woman in her twenties taking orders from a kid whose voice had barely cracked, for crying out loud! She had no real role in Makubex's organization except as an extra pair of eyes to watch the screens that show everything going on in their territory, unless that foxy genius is sleeping with her. Although she appears to have been brought up in a family in with tradition and old practices, as her brother is evidence of, Kagami can see her spreading her legs without protest because her master told her to. As he gazes at the young woman, who is admittedly very easy on the eyes, that vision grows increasingly graphic and he has to bite his bottom lip to stop his smirk from growing wider. But back to his original point…

Kakei Sakura is not the type that thinks for herself. She puts all her faith in one person, and that lucky bastard gets a free slave for life that can fight (more or less) and is exceptionally pretty too. In other words, Kagami expected a quiet 'yes' from the cloth mistress. The only reason he asked was to avoid an awkward silence. Oh, Sakura was probably clever enough in her own way, since she could use the Kakei Cloth Technique and help Makubex with his computers, but somehow she didn't seem like the type he could count on for intellectually stimulating conversation.

"No."

What?

His silence speaks volumes. She sees the surprise in his eyes and realizes that that was not what he had expected her to say. Calculating almost as quickly as Makubex in her head, she reaches the very plausible conclusion that he sees her as a mindless servant in about two seconds. A little more coolly than before, she continues. "I saw you reappear here on one of the monitors. And despite all the posture you affect, it was obvious that you were hurt."

Not as much as this hurts, some part of him cries at the sly dig at his ego.

"So I came here." A steely look in normally soft, downward-gazing brown eyes. Probably saved just for him, he thought sarcastically. Somehow, he had expected this. It was likely that anyone else, say Kudo Himiko, would have exploded in wrath if they had realized what she had realized, but even so Kagami had somehow expected this coldness on her part. No raging fires or violent threats, just stiff words that somehow managed to remain polite despite the sarcasm dripping from them and cold, low-burning embers of anger. The Kakei clan certainly did know how to bring their children up. The icy, controlled gaze that was almost but not quite a plain glare seemed to add silently, On my own accord. Without instructions. Without orders. And, let's not forget to follow that up with, Bastard.

"Come with me," Sakura says, walking ahead of him with her head held up with dignity, not high with pride, and her back straight with strength, not arched with an innate desire to show off her cup size. Her movements were graceful and smooth, commanding respect but causing no fear. The posture of a lady, Kagami thinks lazily. Maybe she was just doing that to show him how wrong he was about her. Or maybe his first impression and quick dismissal of her had clouded his vision so much that he had not bothered to notice before. Kagami follows, idly wondering what her reaction would be if she realized that he was looking at her shapely derriere and the seductive sway of her hips as she led him so that he can distract himself from other thoughts that were just as, if not more interesting but required more effort. Absent-mindedly he removes the white jacket of his suit, some part of his mind reminding him that it was going to be hell getting bloodstains out if he didn't. Combine ogling with the pain he's going through, all his injuries aggravated by the brisk movement, and it actually is a pretty damn good distraction. Though, with his usual smirk, he readily admits that he probably deserves all that suffering for what he's thinking as all that testosterone in his body starts acting up.

If Makubex hasn't started having wet dreams about her, he's probably impotent. Nothing dangerous, that. Just a random, irreverent thought. But if she heard it, what she would do to him (or try to) would probably be very interesting. And, horny little bastard that he was, he'd probably enjoy it.

Kagami blinks, reminds himself that he is here for a reason, that he is a professional from head to toe, even if his gonads aren't acting like it for the moment. He walks a little faster to catch up with her so that he draws level with her and can't enact any dirty fantasies while looking at her ass. The pain of the movement is probably worth it. He flinches a little as he feels the bloodstains growing bigger, spreading to his shirt from the bandage.

"We're almost there," she says in a voice that he does not even dare think of as soothing. She is looking at him, no ice in her eyes for the moment, noticing how it hurts him to walk so quickly, and this time he doesn't need to remind himself to look only at her face. Perhaps he was wrong in dismissing her so quickly. Somehow, in spite of his very offensive opinion of her and her anger, she had managed to drag up concern from the depths of her soul for him, someone who had no use for her, who almost despised her for the stereotypes she represented in his mind. This surprises him, and as corny as it sounds, Kagami loves surprises.

They arrive at a corridor that opens to the rooms of Makubex's nearest and dearest helpers and followers. Sakura unlocks the door to hers and lets him in. He thankfully collapses onto a decrepit, almost rotten rattan chair that creaks under his weight but somehow does not give way, though the promise of him getting dumped onto the floor hangs in the air. Deciding that he would rather move to a more stable chair than find himself in such an undignified position, he switches to a sturdy wooden chair. By that time, she's standing next to him, everything she needs to clean him up in the tray she's carrying while he is hunched over in silent pain, his hands gripping his knees so hard that they're starting to hurt too. Sakura puts the tray on the table and slides the shirt off his shoulders, something that gives rise to even more terrible thoughts despite her obviously professional reasons for doing so. She feels the involuntary tremble in his arms, however slight, and her hands shake just a little against her will as if in response. She does not look at him as she unwraps the strip of cloth he had hurriedly bound himself with before going to have a face-off with the intriguing hakobiya and grimaces at the aftermath of his confrontation with the deadly one. She cleans the wounds on his back first, not wanting to stir him from his current position or make anything else hurt more than it already does. When she finishes applying some medicine, she covers the gaping wounds with gauze and tapes them in place, the best she can do in so short a time. He straightens up again, and she kneels in front of him to treat that wound too. He toys with the idea of telling her she's doing things to him by being in that position while he's half-naked, but some part of him doesn't want to make her angry anymore. Some part of him wants this silence that isn't really tense and emotionally charged but isn't exactly uncomfortable and awkward either. Some part of him wants this silence that he can't really classify to stretch longer, so he can…

So he can what? Something is telling him it's so he can savour it, store what seems like a stolen moment of peace and contentment and God knows what else that he doesn't deserve away in a little box in a corner of his mind, to take out at a later date when he was alone and reflect, rethink, relive. Every other voice in his head is trying to drown out that almost terrifyingly loud one by insisting that it's so he can have more time to identify it for what it was, mark it down and file it away in a cabinet named 'Knowledge' that was stored in his brain along with 'Interesting Observations', 'People', 'Dirty Thoughts', etc.

This clamour, this uprising of different voices is not something Kagami is used to. To him, it's as good as a panic attack. I need to get out of here. At least until everything stops being so damn complicated. He takes the chance of looking at her, right into her eyes, and when she meets his gaze and he nearly goes into cardiac arrest because of the delicate, almost unnoticeable blush on her face, he instantly decides it was damn well worth it. Is this what chemistry is, minus the colourful liquids and lab technicians? It sizzles and burns and tastes like a rainbow, as far as anything can get from the cool, emotionless calm Kagami usually surrounds himself in. But whatever the hell it is, the fact that he feels like he could really enjoy it scares him almost more than anything else can.

Sakura is done bandaging his torso, doing a much more efficient and effective job than he had. Her nimble hands and quick eyes trail all over his upper body in the most professional sense of the word, checking for other wounds. He gestures towards his arm because her fingers are making the uproar in his usually cool mind worse. He hears a sharp intake of breath on her part when she sees the ugly purple and blue marks.

"It's not broken," he assures her. Then again, why should that statement assure her? Because he wanted it to? He looks away. Now is not the time to be distracted by other things, particularly women. But when she says softly, "Good," and his pulse accelerates at that one word, he knows it's too late for cautionary thoughts and preventive measures. When she finishes with his arm and sweeps his locks back from his forehead to dab ointment on the bruise there, her warm breath tickling his cheek, he knows he's too far gone for angry superiors or ruined reputations to give him pause. He knows that no matter what happens next, he'll never regret this moment and he'll never apologize for feeling that way.

Despite the few words exchanged, the silence returns as if it had never gone, and he is back in the moment that feels so right that it must be wrong, and she's in it with him. It's a thought that intoxicates him and brings his mind to places that he had never been before and causes new passions and desires he never thought he could have to flare up. The analytic side of Kagami is telling him that he just wants to fuck her and this is all the result of an adrenaline rush. The rest of him is worried that this might be a lot more than that, no matter how fast or illogical or stupid it seems. Because no matter what the gods of Babylon City calculate and study and know, emotions are too fluid and too unique to each individual to capture and dissect for a general understanding of them. Feelings are too unstable and too volatile for measurement and comparison, no matter how tightly controlled the test subjects are. No matter how much you have studied, you still never can predict exactly how someone is going to feel and how they are going to act based on that feeling. That is why Babylon City obsessively watches Lower Town. That is why the inhabitants of Raitei's former kingdom go through every situation imaginable. That is why all the scientists and doctors and damn near everyone in Babylon City eagerly observe the people down here like the last instalment of a reality show. Possibly, that is why Mugenjyou exists.

And that is why the man from Babylon City does not know what is going on in his own head, Kagami realized with a sigh that never left his lips. He has no memorized stores of data from lab reports to check for similar symptoms. He has no litmus test to tell what is making him act this way. He has nothing. He is, no matter how much he hates to admit it, in unfamiliar territory and utterly and totally lost. And that itself is something that disturbs Kagami deeply.

The man from Babylon City is lost.

"That's all," Sakura's soft voice breaks into his mental turmoil. She isn't cold or icy anymore, but pliant and flexible like her weapon. In other words, she had hidden the dignified lady with a servant girl's garments and become what he had dismissed earlier as a mindless slave again. "Unless you want me to bandage your head."

Fortunately, despite the pathetic, hormonally charged fool she's made out of him, some of Kagami remains intact. The idea of walking around with his head swathed in bandages makes him remember things like pride and vanity and other things that he was until he let himself be blown away by that one stolen moment. It's enough to make him refuse vehemently.

Sakura goes away to dispose of the bloodied strips of cloth and used cotton. She has her back to him as she begins to wash her hands. He knows this is deliberate, so that he can leave without a word if he wants to because she does not expect him to stick around now that he's good to go, and she knows that he knows, but they both play the polite game of balancing delicate egos and Lower Town courtesy well enough to pretend that they're blissfully unaware of each other's thoughts. Kagami does start to leave, picking up his shirt with dried blood on it and his white jacket, but instead of going out the door pronto he finds himself putting his clothes back on while she dries her hands. She is too well mannered to show any surprise she might have felt when she turns and sees him there, adjusting his jacket. Without a word, they begin to walk towards the base where Makubex normally is. This time, however, the room is empty and only the screens are alive, flicking from scene to scene to reveal all that was happening in Lower Town. Makubex was still with Akabane, then.

Sakura takes her place in front of the monitors, picking up the earpiece and attaching it to her head as she settles down. She does not look at him. He knows the ball is on his side of the court and she isn't going to say anything unless he does. He knows he should apologize for offending her, but somehow he can't bring himself to say that. Not yet. He struggles to cling to everything he was before the lady that she showed herself to be and that stolen moment smashed it to pieces, and the easiest shard to reach for is pride. It's like hanging on to blades of grass while hanging off a cliff. Futile as it is, you do it anyway because then you can pretend for just a little longer that you're going to make it and the fall is never going to happen. And yet, in the same way that gravity summons you downwards, something gnaws at him to say sorry.

Her gaze flits almost involuntarily from a monitor to him as she takes in the fact that he is still there. It turns him into a pre-pubescent kid confronted with the girl he's too young to have wet dreams about but is getting there anyway, racing pulse and all. He can't stand the way he's not in control of himself, but on the other hand he doesn't really care right now as long as she keeps looking at him with that beautiful quizzical expression on her face.

"Thank you."

It's not quite what he is supposed to say, but the nagging feeling dies down to some extent. He almost manages to convince himself that now that the patient has thanked the doctor, the patient will go on his way and that moment between them forged in blood and bandages is gone, along with everything that came with it, never to return. But when she smiles at him for the first time in response, hearing the apology that he never spoke and accepting it, Kagami is almost terrified that there is actually a chance that this moment is going to last much longer than any Babylon City formula can predict it to. He can't even begin to imagine all the repercussions and consequences that this feeling bubbling up in him could bring. He breaks out in cold sweat at the thought of all the rules and the sombre faces of his superiors as they told him what happened to people who broke those rules before he came down to Lower Town. The first sensations of panic begin to appear now that the foggy mirror he's been looking through begins to clear again and what he has been seeing all along hits him in the face with its enormity.

But strangely enough, there is an oasis of calm in him that remains untouched by the frenzy the rest of him is going into, and he knows, as he had earlier, that it's too late for all that to stop him. It's too late to make himself wish that moment had never happened. And at the sound of her voice when she says, "You're welcome," everything he feels simply confirms that.

A/N: Gosh, it's so hard to keep Kagami in character! I really hope I haven't butchered him up and made mincemeat out of his character in this fic. I had problems trying to keep both of them in character, and even then I'm not sure I succeeded. This story is set during the IL Retrieval arc after Himiko and Ban defeat Kagami and based on the anime. I know that Kagami started, um, stalking Himiko later, but I couldn't find anywhere to fit that angle in. But anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little story which I may continue. Reviews welcome.