Still more interesting material is coming out of the GB manga, changing how we all think of our favorite people. All the most powerful versions of our guys are starting to be shown. Unfortunately GB is not getting any easier to comprehend. All the stuff coming out really makes me hope someone at Studio Pierrot is thinking of doing a second round of GB. It's not a far stretch, considering that there are plenty of sequels being made nowadays.
Sorry for the very long delay. Horrible story block. To those who read Acid Dream, thank you very much. Chatty chapter, sorry.
………………….
He could not think.
Strange, really. How blocked he was just then, thinking of how to work around what his partner had done. Maybe his friend's random, useless suggestions actually made him think. And, to give the blonde, blundering, exasperating irritation some credit, many of his suggestions were actually worth something. So not having them at all, and finding that his friend was getting along fine without him…….made him feel odd.
Maybe it was the feeling of no longer being needed, by anyone. He would have actually liked that a few years ago. Nobody needed him, thus he was tied to nobody. But with Himiko being alright on her own, and now Ginji capable enough to not need him...he could disappear, and no one would know.
He could disappear, none the wiser about who he really was.
He went to the large bedroom mirror and just faced himself.
"You don't need friends, sir," a voice said.
He looked around. "Who said that?"
"Over here."
He looked around again, walked around the large room and all its smaller rooms, as well as out at the balcony. He still found no one, not even hiding behind anything. He finally walked back to the large bedroom mirror. He just saw himself.
Well, not exactly. The man in the mirror was him, but not him. The one in the mirror had white hair, and a white Chinese suit.
"Finally." The man gave a smirk.
Ban lowered his glasses to get a closer look, and blinked several times. The image smartly lowered his own dark spectacles. And he spoke again. "That thing you call friendship – it will delay you, bring you down. What you need are alliances…..but not friends."
"So what's new?" Ban challenged.
"And you need a reason to keep working for a goal. Revenge, sir. One of the best driving forces in the human soul."
Ban just smirked at his doppelganger in the mirror.
"Why the smirk?" the image asked. "You do have reasons to seek revenge, yes? People have wronged you, people have killed those you loved."
"You don't understand. Among other things, it is I who have killed someone others have loved." His mind when back to that scene, his bloody hands, and his friend sprawled on the wall under a window.
"It was one of the means to an end, yes? A way to avenge what people have done to you. Parents who deserted you. So-called friends who abandoned you."
The man had a point. But as Ban looked up at his image from at least a century ago in the mirror, he noted a tinge of regret.
He had to ask. "You keep talking about revenge. You lived your live for revenge. ...Are you any better for it?"
The image kept looking at him, and chuckled sadly.
"All those years with the organization, driven to end the flame in that red dragon? Frankly…I was miserable." The image cocked up his dark purple glasses. "It was annoying to me, to see how the world moved on, how HE moved on……when I couldn't. Don't you agree, you who look so much like me?"
Ban had to look away for a few seconds. It was true. For years he had harbored anger against people in his life. And yet, there were days he failed to see the point in that anger. Those were the days he finished a whole cigarette pack in an hour.
"I actually envy you, sir," the image cocked up his glasses, and gave another sad smile. "I was feared, as you are. But I was never trusted."
"Come again?" he interrupted.
"Your minute is over."
The glass of the mirror shattered.
Ban stumbled and fell to the floor, trying to avoid the broken pieces. But when he looked again, the mirror was completely fine.
He needed to sleep, REALLY sleep. This way of dreaming while awake, was horrible.
He washed his face, forcing himself not to look at the bathroom mirror as he did at the one in the bedroom. He then went out to the balcony, and tried to think over what he should do.
Normally a stick or two got him going well enough to think over the movements of several hours. But tonight, as he paced the living room, sat on the sofa, and paced again, and sat again, nothing was making him think.
The Jade Dragon was stolen. Ginji and his friends stole it. Being Ginji, he would probably keep it close to him, then maybe give it back to the rightful owner, Kitano Kaoru and her grandson, without getting a cent out of them. That much was obvious. But how would he explain that to their original client, Chan Feilong? When Chan finds out, what would he do, not much to himself, but to Ginji? Does Chan even need to know about this? What is this was just a normal robbery to him, one he did not need to tell Chan about? Should he play up being the White Tiger, or drop everything now and be Ban of the GetBackers? What should he do?
No ideas were coming to mind.
He sighed...and used up his trump card. He took up his cellular phone, and dialed.
It was answered quickly. "Hey, Ban-chan."
He did not know how he felt, and how to answer. "Hey." He did not know what else to say, and left dead air for half a minute.
The other end of the line therefore asked, "What do I do now?"
"Whatever you want." He said it in a monotone. He had no will left for emphatics.
"WHAT! You gotta be kidding, Ban-chan!"
"You heard me. And hey….."
"Yeah?"
"Good job."
"Um, thanks."
He ended the call.
He knew it was crazy, leaving it all to his partner. The dunderhead could not even plan out his lunch without him. But he could not think anymore. He no longer knew what to do. He had no other option left but this.
Ginji can handle this. Somehow.
He gave a final sigh of relief, closed his eyes, his head leaned on the sofa's armrest. His arm dropped down, and he dropped the cellular phone onto the carpet.
And he began to sleep the dreamless slumber of the weary.
……………………………
A call came through to his suite. He groaned, and fumbled for the phone.
The message was straight to the point. "Emergency meeting. Assembly in half an hour. Usual place."
He sat up and groaned again. "What time is it already?"
Almost half past 1 in the morning, by his watch. He swore against the lateness of the hour, as he headed to the bathroom.
He managed to reach the warehouse in the allotted half-hour, hair still wet from the shower, and rather flat around his head. He slumped onto one of the large leather arm chairs. Chan was already seated at the head of the board table.
"Your place is now secure, White Tiger," the wiry man told the younger one. "If you want it."
"I've already told you," Ban ran a hand through his hair. "I won't be anyone's puppet."
"Who said you would be a puppet, sir?" the older man placed both elbows on the table, and leaned his head on his hands. "Think it over tonight."
Chan could say nothing more about it, as the other board members began to file into the large room, and the assistants lined up behind their masters.
Ban did notice that many of the older members had some inkling of the agenda. They began to give him odd side-glances and stares. He raised his glasses over his eyes, and kept looking down at his lighter, trying to avoid their stares.
The man at the head of the table stood, and addressed the board. "We have good news, gentlemen," Chan told the assembled group. "The genuine Jade Dragon has been found."
It was as Ban thought. The claps among the elders were half-hearted, the more fervent ones coming from the younger members.
"Of course, we have to see the statue for ourselves first, before we pass judgment on our newest member," the man faced Ban and gave a slight knowing smile. He motioned to a man behind him. "Send her in, please."
The assistant walked to the door, and opened it. In walked a beautiful, voluptuous woman with blonde hair. She wore a dark blazer over a silk blouse that showed a portion of her best assests. Her smooth, long legs were covered mid-thigh by an elegant A-line skirt.
"Gentlemen, this is Hevn, business manager for the GetBackers," the wiry man introduced the woman. He came only up to her shoulders.
Ban gave her just a slight smirk of recognition. She returned a little smile. She gave Chan two pictures of the statue, as preliminary proof. These were passed around the table. She did not wait for further introductions, and got to the point.
"The retriever will give you the statue on one condition, besides the payment," Hevn said.
Chan raised an eyebrow. "What is the condition?"
Hevn walked over to the table, swinging her hips and tossing her hair. She walked a semi-circle around the board members, and stopped where Ban was seated. "He requests that any plans against the Kitano household be stopped."
Chan nodded. "Done." He waved to a man behind him then whispered a few words. The man nodded, and started a call. "Will there be anything else?"
"There is one thing else." Hevn approached Chan. "Direct exchange will be done in the presence of the White Tiger. He will be the one to hand over the reward." She did not hide it that she knew the other half of the GetBackers.
Ban just smirked. It was trademark Ginji. The wiry man would see through THAT. Hevn was humoring the sparker.
Chan gave a sinister smile. "Why not? It will be as the retriever requests. In the presence of the White Tiger it is. But you do understand, my beautiful negotiator, I am the one to hand over the money."
If it was Ginji's idea that Ban would be allowed to hold the money, and thus run with it, that was easily seen and stopped. Ban cocked up his glasses. "Fair enough."
"Good, it is arranged, then," Chan said. "I and Midou-han meet with you and Amano-han tomorrow. Here. 8 pm."
"Agreed." She passed Ban's seat and caressed the White Tiger by the chin. "See you tomorrow, good-looking."
Ban swore under his breath. That was just plain corny.
"The meeting is adjourned."
The middle-aged and elderly men of the board shuffled out of the large room. Ban left, somewhere in the middle of the pack, his hands in his pockets.
He went straight out, and into a shadowy part of the warehouse. Where Hevn was waiting for him, as he expected.
"Let me make this clear. I am the business manager."
"I thought you quit," she retorted.
He ignored the comment. " 'Good-looking'? So NOT you, woman."
"I was nervous in there!" she pouted and folded her arms.
"Anything else you should be telling me?" he took out a cigarette and the lighter.
"The statue is at the Kitano house. That's all Ginji allowed me to tell you, when I left."
"His plan is too obvious." He puffed out a long stream of smoke.
She hmphed. "You have any better ideas?"
"Nope."
He could almost see the negotiator's raised eyebrows in the dark. "Mr. Idea Man is blank? What's wrong with you, Ban?"
He inhaled long and deep, and slowly let out the smoke. "Get me outta here."
He flicked what was left of the cigarette onto the street, and walked away.
……………………….
Originally I had plans to include a little scene at the Honky Tonk with this, but it didn't seem appropriate as the chapter developed, so it was deleted. Also, I am not absolutely sure if the Jagan can be used on the spellcaster. Sorry this chapter is short. I'm still a bit blank, so any suggestions are gratefully accepted.
Around the time I introduced Monsieur Thread Master into this story, I was still confused whether which romanization was correct. Eventually I found out just "z" is the most correct, but having "dz" is not exactly wrong either. Since I started using it that way, though, I figured I should be consistent with it until I am through. I apologize for the mistake.
Junyortrakr – Yeah, it was an easy heist. I don't know if I should say sorry for that, though. JML – Explanation above. What chaos are you talking about? Sailor-stardestroyer13 – Thank you. Like the anime? No way, but thanks for thinking it is. Taiy-chan – Thanks much. Hope you're doing okay. Atropos' Knife -- Thanks for that bit about the paternal grandmother, I KNEW I was forgetting something again. Why I manage to forget crucial aspects when I need them most (like that sea-urchin mistake) I don't understand. I agree with you, it's not about the money, really, it's getting to the bottom of things that attracts Ban to most cases. As for the RK fic, I've thought about doing a tea ceremony, but a quick research on it told me I can't handle it. Tenshi-sama – Hello, kabayan! (Seriously, I've been greeting Rabid Lola as a kabayan, you didn't notice?) The friendship isn't thrown out the window; I'm getting to it. Thank you for liking it so far. I was seriously wondering once where I could put "Hello, Garci?" in the narrative, but that's a big stretch. The Sinner of Anger – I do plan out the basic run of my story, but I sometimes find myself clueless while writing each chapter, and sometimes I find myself changing plans mid-story.