Akabane's vision began to fade back into functionality as he regained consciousness a few hours later. He was lying on his back on some kind of hard surface. His arms were raised above his head, metal bands tightened around his fingers. He tested the strength of the binds by tugging slightly on the chains. They did not move even slightly. A frown played over his thin lips and his pale purple eyes narrowed in contemplation.
"They were especially made for you," Fujimoto commented as he entered the room, grinning through the layers of fat hanging about his mouth. On either side, one of his thug-like assistants trailed behind. "The look on your face suggests you are just realizing now that you can't close your hands, and if you can't close your hands, you can't draw your weapons." He leaned over and grabbed Akabane by the neck, smiling. His expression soured to disappointment when he realized his pretty prisoner remained indifferent to his gloating. He'd expected to see flames of rage in her pretty eyes.
"They were made by your friend, the Artist. Of course, he didn't want to. It wasn't until we painted an impressionist rose garden in his blood that he gave in. A momentary look in your eyes betrays you- you are surprised that we were able to find out about your weapons provider. I know everything about you from the size of your bra to the birthmark you've got on your left hip. Every inch of your life and your body is mine!" he crowed.
"You are wrong," Akabane said, voice completely toneless.
"Excuse me? You beg to differ, even in your current state?" he asked, putting a hand on the restraints for emphasis.
"I do not have a birthmark. You are wrong."
He started to move forward, then backed up. "You only want me to come closer because you're planning something. You're clever, but not clever enough." He turned to the assistant standing on his left. "Watch over her while I'm out. But remember- I'll kill you if you touch her. She's mine." With that, he signaled to his other thugs to leave the room. They followed him out like obedient pups.
After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, Akabane turned his head over to face the young, nervous assistant. "Your hands are shaking. You must have some reason to be afraid of me," he grinned.
The assistant grasped his gun tighter in sweaty palms. "Don't move!" he ordered.
Akabane shrugged and rattled the restraints. "You believe that I can?" He glanced about the room. "Such a boring room. No decorations, no personality. Just grey walls."
"You can't fool me! I won't talk to you!" the frightened brunette whimpered.
"Do as you will. You should know, though, that I become very dangerous when I am bored, and this room is boring me." He grinned broadly at the boy with his mouth closed tightly, and then drew up one leg in order to flash a well-toned thigh at the boy.
The young guard hiccupped, tightening his grip around his gun until his knuckles became white ridges. The silence between them was deafening. Too loud, in fact, for Akabane's tastes. "Boy?"
The boy jumped, nearly dropping his weapon. Akabane make a sound of disappointment and shook his head. "You should pay more attention, boy. If you allow yourself to be distracted, you might end up dead." He paused. "What is your name?"
"I'm not telling you!"
"Is that so? What a pity. I was hoping we could make friendly conversation."
"You'll try to kill me! That, and the boss doesn't want me talking to you…"
"Yes, I suppose I might try to kill you. Do not take it personally. I do that to everyone."
The boy stared in confusion at the person he was supposed to be guarding. He'd been warned not to talk to his boss' hostage, lest he become drawn in as though by the song of a siren and his cold body be collected off the floor by a coroner. She didn't seem very threatening, though. In fact, she was rather quite pretty…
He shook the thought out of his head. "My boss will kill me if I talk to you," the boy whimpered.
"He did not say that we could not talk, just that you should not touch. Although… could you perhaps do me a favor?" he asked, voice as smooth as velvet.
"I'm not doing anything for you!" the boy cried, remaining firmly unwilling to get any closer to the purple-eyed woman.
"Not even pulling my skirt down? I've wiggled around until it's up higher than I'd prefer. You would not want your boss to think that was your fault, would you?"
"I… no! I'm not coming over there!"
"Please?"
"No!"
Just to be annoying, Akabane wiggled around further until the skirt really was pushed up as far as it could go without flashing a panty shot. "Your boss will not be happy with you if he thinks you are the one that moved my hemline."
"I'll tell him you did it!"
"Here is my question: Do you think he will believe you, or do you think he will jump to the conclusion that you have infringed on his rights?"
The boy did not answer, but the way he was biting his lip suggested that he was listening. Finally, with caution in his tone, he said "If I pull your skirt down, will you stop wriggling around and hiking it up?"
"Cross my heart and hope to die, if that is satisfactory to you."
The boy crept a bit closer. Well, the worst she could do was kick him… It couldn't hurt anything to take just a little peak at her panties. After all, his boss would never know…
He leaned down, trembling hand reaching for the hem. Akabane swung his legs up, wrapping them tightly around the boy's neck. The boy, realizing he'd been had, tried to cry out. Unfortunately, his voice was not faster than the speed with which Akabane was able to twist the young assistant's neck between his muscular thighs. There was a satisfying crack sound, and the teen fell to the ground with the crack of bone.
"Rule one: Never assume that just because I can not use my hands does not mean I can not hurt you," Akabane sighed, shaking his head. "Mooks are just not as much fun these days as they used to be." He looked down at the boy, blank eyes staring upwards from where he'd fallen. "At least you died with a nice view," Akabane smirked cruelly, referring to what the boy had been attempting to do in the last moments before his death.
Now came the hard part: getting out of the binds without the use of his scalpels. The boy wasn't important enough to have been given keys, not that he would have been able to unlock the restraints with his feet anyway. He was flexible, but not that flexible. If he were, well… he wouldn't need anyone else to please him sexually ever again.
This was not going to feel good at all, but it was necessary if he was going to free himself. He brought his left foot up and began kicking himself violently just about his right ankle, trying to break open his skin with the sharp end of the heel on his shoes. It took several kicks, since his skin was generally resistant to attack, but he finally managed to tear through his own flesh and start an outpouring of blood.
He rubbed the heel up against the open wound, dousing it in blood. He guessed that had to be one of the advantages of the particular form of 'blood magic' he had been trained in: the ability to transform even a high-heel into a lethal weapon with only the power of his blood came in handy in situations like that.
After getting the bloodstained high heeled shoe off of his foot, he used it as an attack weapon to go after the restraints. They were strong and held tight, requiring him to strike clumsily at them several times in a row. He was frustrated by his lack of accuracy, but he'd never actually practiced trying to attack something with the end of a shoe before.
He stood up, rubbing his wrists. The Artist had done a good job. He would not have been able to draw his weapons or break those restraints if he had actually been forced to rely only on his hands to utilize his abilities. It had pointed out a fundamental weakness in his abilities that he had never really considered before- he did have to be able to close his hands to activate his normal weaponry. Good thing he did not consider himself limited to only his usual fighting abilities or he never would have gotten out of there.
He reached out to grab the handle of the door… only for the door to come flying out and smashing him square in the face, slamming his small frame into the wall with the sheer force of the impact. "Akabane-san, we're here to rescue you!" Ginji declared, posing dramatically in the doorway. He appeared to be wearing the greasy uniform of a pizza delivery boy. Himiko, similarly clad, stood behind him. "Akabane-san?" Ginji asked, looking around.
"That's funny, I was certain I smelled his particular scent coming from this room," Himiko said, frowning.
Ginji looked all around. "Akabane-san? Akabane-ACK!" he cried when he realized there was something behind the door. He pulled the door away, only for a battered Akabane to crumple into his arms. "Akabane-san, are you all right?"
"You smashed me with the door," he answered, holding his nose. At least it wasn't bleeding. More importantly, why hadn't he heard Ginji and Himiko coming from the other side of the door? Normally he was able to pick up on such things.
"Sorry, Akabane-san! We're here to rescue you."
"If rescuing me involves breaking my nose, I think I would rather be in danger," he answered dryly.
"Nevermind your nose," Himiko said in frustration. "We have to get out of here before the guys chasing us catch up. The front door is this way," Himiko said, waving an arm in guidance.
"I thought it was that way?" Ginji asked in confusion, pointing the other direction.
"Trust me, Ginji-kun, we wish to follow Lady Poison's guidance," Akabane said, limping up next to Ginji.
"You're limping," Himiko pointed out.
"I know."
Himiko frowned and made a growling noise. "You can't run like that. Ginji, carry Akabane!"
"Me!" Ginji asked, pointing to himself in alarm.
"Jackal's ankle is bleeding. He/she can't run like that."
"I…"
"Just do it!" Himiko shouted.
Ginji let out a whimpered cry. "O… okay, Himiko-chan…" Thus, Ginji found himself running down the hallway with a wounded Akabane on his back, arms wrapped tightly around his neck. Akabane's volumous breasts were pressed against his back. Ginji could feel the movement of the warm mounds against his shoulder blades every time he jolted Akabane too hard, causing him to blush furiously. If literal steam would have been coming out of his ears, he would have whistled like a teakettle.
Himiko froze. "They're coming from both directions. Quick, duck into this room until they go past," she said, pulling open the nearest white door. The three ducked inside the darkened room, pulling the door shut and backing away in silence as the sound of angry shouts and muffled footsteps drifted in from the other side.
"I do not understand why we are running away. I could take care of them…" he threatened in a whisper. He waved a handful of blades, illuminating their faces with the light cast from the scalpels.
Without warning, Ginji suddenly grabbed Akabane's wrist tightly. "No killing," he demanded, face dead serious and threatening. A shiver ran down Akabane's spine. Now this was exciting… and also irritating at the same time. He tore himself free from Ginji's grasp.
"You would not have dared to grab me like that if I still had my male body," he hissed, still whispering.
"Shut up!" Himiko whispered, referring to the fact that voices were still coming from outside the door. After a few tense moments, the outside hall fell quiet. The three stood slowly up, Akabane still using Ginji as a crutch.
"They're gone. Let's open the window and get-"
The lights came on suddenly as the door was thrown open. Fujimoto and his thugs, armed to the teeth with guns, flooded into the room. Akabane's hand twitched, ready to draw scalpels, but none appeared. "The ball is in your court, Ginji-kun," he whispered threateningly. "Show me a reason not to kill them and I will defer to your will."
Himiko, meanwhile, was looking around in disgust at the room's decorations. Not a centimeter of the room wasn't decorated in dead animals. Hundreds of preserved butterflies, frozen wings of every color imaginable, stared out from behind glass on every available wall space. The preserved corpses of two mountain cats fought an eternal battle on a shelf. Majestic birds, positioned to look as if they were not mere dead shells, hovered on their perches as if in mid take-off.
"They're all dead," she whispered.
"Not dead, eternally alive!" Fujimoto shouted in anger, waving his arms. A tip of blue light appeared at the ready between Akabane's fingers, but before he could move further, Ginji stepped directly in front of him and stretched out his arms. From Fujimoto's point of view, he was protecting Akabane from him. From Akabane's point of view, he was projecting the thugs from him.
Fujimoto shrugged and gestured to a pair of birds near Himiko. "Only five were left in existence. I purchased these two because I had to have their beautiful feathers. When I learned the females learn their brilliant colors upon laying… well, I couldn't let that happen! So I had them stuffed and mounted to preserve their eternal beauty."
"And effectively destroyed a species for the sake of your selfish pleasures?" Himiko answered him back, enraged. She was clutching one of her poison perfumes tightly.
"Why do people keep saying that? They were only animals- much as you are. Every beautiful human has grown old and lost her glamour. That is why I must have her… to preserve her," Fujimoto said, eyes full of an odd light as he stared at Akabane. It was an expression somewhere between madness-insanity- and blinding rage. "I want her forever young and beautiful. She should thank me."
"Pre-preserve?" Ginji asked, staring. "You're sick!"
"Yes, I am sick. I am lovesick. I am sick of a world where women like her are not kept on the pedestals where they belong. Forcing her to walk around with common men like you and ugly… men-women like her…"
Himiko growled, but because she was a professional, she knew better than to attack out of anger. Fujimoto grinned at her and continued as his thugs lowered their guns. "She's MINE, and I'm not going to share her with anyone. Even if that means putting her under glass and formaldehyde! As for you two- you have imperfections. Like any decent collector, I refuse the imperfect ones. Dispose of them without hurting my butterfly!"
"Let's get out of this twisted science-fair project!" Himiko quipped to Ginji and Akabane, who nodded in agreement.
Before the three could take so much as a step forward to face the oncoming rush of thugs, Himiko suddenly reached up and grabbed her ears. "What's that sound? It hurts!" she cried. Akabane had fallen to his knees and was holding his head in a similar fashion. Ginji was lying on his side, twitching in pain.
"Do you like it?" Fujimoto laughed. "My house is equipped with ultrasonic attack equipment. My men and I wear earplugs against it." Ginji tried to get up, but the pain was just too much. It was like Akabane was shooting scalpels one after another into his brain for target practice. "Stop moving. In a few minutes your brains will bleed out your ears. Not the most pleasant death for my pretty butterfly, but once she's preserved you won't be able to te-"
Before he could finish his sentence, the window to the outside burst open. The group shielded themselves as glass flew about their skin, littering the floor in shards of crystal and drops of crimson blood.
"What was that?" Fujimoto shouted as he lowered his hands from a defensive position. He looked up, and for a second he thought he saw something like the eyes of a snake dance in his mind before the new sound began. Voices, thousands of voices gently whispering, barely louder than a soft breeze.
The head of a dead bird snapped around. Glass eyes stared accusingly at Fujimoto. "You murdered us and called it beauty!" the bird accused. Its sharp beak was pointed directly at Fujimoto.
"What- what the hell is going on?" Fujimoto asked, backing away.
"Our lives went to rot so that you could possess our pelts," one of the dead cats hissed, crawling stiffly from its perch. "Now you do it to your own kind!"
The dead insects began to twitch on their display pins. "We were living things, not possessions!" their hundred voices mournfully wailed. "You would slaughter all as though it were!"
The dead, great and small, began to rise up and stumble towards Fujimoto and his gang. The glass covering the insect cases swelled and cracked as a thousand insect bodies thrashed against it. In a shower of broken shards, the insects tore free and the room filled with a whirl of broken exoskeletons.
The assistants screamed, covering their heads and fleeing blindly. Butterflies dove at them, scratching their hands and faces open with the sharp ends of the pins sticking through their bodies. Bodies collided as thugs frantically attempted to flee the room, dead mountain cats tearing at their legs as they passed. Fujimoto, rooted to his spot, could only stare as moth dive-bombed him, sharp pin heading straight for his left eye…
Then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. All the insects were back behind glass. The cats remained in battle, the birds still posed in mock flight. "What- what the hell was that!" an assistant muttered, crawling off the floor where he'd fallen. A large wet stain was spreading from his pants to the carpeting.
"Nevermind that, where are they?" Fujimoto snarled, pointing angrily at the now empty spot on the floor. On the wall, his sonic device looked as though someone had run a car over it. The broken window was the only part of the dream that remained, and it seemed to have provided an escape route. "After them!" Fujimoto howled.
Meanwhile, Himiko shouted angrily at Ban. "We had the situation under control!"
"The situation where you didn't bother to research the houses' defense systems before storming it?" he asked her back, equally angry sounding.
"Still, you didn't have to come busting through the window like Batman and 'save' us!" Mainly, she was mad that now Akabane would be able to claim that Ban had saved him and avoid having to admit a debt of gratitude to her.
"Some thanks I get," Ban growled. "After security dogs nearly took a bite out of my pants, too!"
"What's that about researching the houses' defenses then?" Himiko mocked.
"Maybe next time I won't save you!" he argued back.
"Guys, Akabane-san is waking up! That means the Jagan is over!" Ginji shouted. "Why did you have to use it on Akabane-san, too? That was just mean!"
"It wasn't my fault he looked directly at my eyes when I came through the window. This isn't the time to be arguing anyway, they'll be coming after us with guns any second now."
The four made it to the Lady Bug, waiting outside the gates. "I'm not leaving without my bike. You guys go on ahead, I'll catch up!" Himiko shouted, running off to where she'd hidden her bike before ambushing the pizza boys.
"Are you okay, Akabane-san?" Ginji asked as he put her in the back seat. She accidentally dropped Akabane, resulting in a temporary flash of panty. He blushed. The entire time he'd been carrying her, it had felt like he'd been getting little electric shocks. That couldn't mean anything… could it?
"Ginji, hurry up!" Ban shouted. Snapped back into reality, Ginji leaped into the car as Ban burned rubber down the road. "How did you find us, Ban-chan?" Ginji asked, still blushing from having seen a moment of panty.
"When Paul told me about the guy that threw you in the trash, I knew it had something to do with that shemale," he answered. He glanced hostily back as a sleepy looking Akabane adjusted himself on the seat.
"Ban-chan, stop it." Ban missed a beat when Ginji said that. He knew defending Jackal was in Ginji's nature, but saying it so harshly…"I'm still glad you came. Ban-chan always saves me when I'm in trouble!" he grinned, his harsh demeanor suddenly dissipated into thin air.
Akabane looked down at his hands, trying to remove himself from the situation by shrinking into the seat. Ban-chan always saves you when you're in trouble. How nice for you…
"Hell!" Ban swore, jarring the other occupants of the car. "How did they find us?"
Noticing Ban's eyes uplifted to the rear view mirror, Akabane and Ginji spun around in their seats. A black car followed at break-neck speeds, Fujimoto clearly leaning out of the passenger side window. He was grinning so it looked as though his teeth might fall out of his mouth.
"Try to lose them?" Ginji suggested.
"I'm trying!" Ban shouted as they nearly clipped a semi. "They're following all my moves!" He tried diving on and off a series of off ramps, but as he reentered the highway, Fujimoto's car would appear each time. "They've got a hell of a driver…"
A flash of memory suddenly flooded like light through Ginji. It's like they're tracking us… that electrical buzz he'd felt when carrying Akabane! Kiki's words over the phone had been 'I told him I wasn't interested when I found out he'd bugged my bra so he would know if I was even talking to other men!"
"Ban-chan, I know how they're tracking us!" Ginji cried, snapping his fingers.
"Well, don't just sit there, do something about it!"
"But Ban-chan…"
"NOW, GINJI!" Ban screamed.
"Hai, hai!" Ginji cried, undoing his seatbelt and clamouring over the cup holder, scrambling as the car swerved and skidded through traffic. He held his hands up in a position as if he were to bow, then said "Forgive me, Akabane-san." Then, without waiting for an answer, he grabbed the top of Akabane's dress and tore it open from top to bottom.