Disclaimer: I do not own X. the Prison is mine though and is based (in name only) on a prison over here.

Author's thanks: to my beta, Kitsunia.

Author's notes: the ranks of wardens here go by military ranks as it is over here anyways. Plus I've aged characters that, in X, are too young to fill in the roles of this story.

Part 1

"Uh…I….don't know about this…." Sergeant Arisugawa Sorata mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck vigorously.

He was looking at the new member of his team, Private Shiro Kamui, who stood at the best attention he could give. His back was so straight it must have hurt him to keep it up for long. His arm was so high in its salute it must have been drained of blood a long time ago. His palm was so straight at the tip of his right brow Sorata wondered if it could cut like a knife.

But, as obedient and devoted to his duty as Private Shiro seemed, he was still pretty much the one person Sorata could rate as 'definitely not tough enough for this job'….after lieutenant Sumeragi that is.

Private Shiro was very lean, very thin and too girlish in appearance to be good around the prisoners of this ward.

But, Sorata guessed, their chief of staff knows what he's doing and who was he to say a word against the old man?

He reached out to the rigid boyish man and ruffled his hair "Welcome to Sharonza Heights prison! I'm sergeant Arisugawa Sorata," he burst out, dealing a heavy blow to his own chest. "But you can call me Sora, please call me Sora, and don't salute me at all, okay?"

Private Shiro stared at the bigger man for a few bewildered moments before easing out of attention. He was soon grabbed by the shoulder and practically dragged down the corridor of 3rd Ward Staff offices.

The large unit, pressed against 3rd Ward by it's extra thick walls, contained a large dining room, a long sleeping hall (where wardens caught by the night after a long shift could rest if they decided they're too tired to drive home), and the ward's commander's office.

The thick walls opened to three huge windows, overlooking 3rd Ward's strolling court, cells unit and dining hall. As he walked past the immense transoms Kamui had to wonder if these served more to constantly remind the wardens of the prisoner's presence and of their duty then as regular windows. The only slightly cheerful view possible was offered from the window opened to the strolling court and you could get that after staring out far, far away past the prison's multiple fences and walls, past the high watch towers and all the away to the rural countryside at the far end of one of man's biggest fortresses. Kamui would have tried to enjoy that far off view if he wasn't grabbed across the shoulder so powerfully by this over-cheerful man, his new comrade.

Kamui couldn't be more surprised then he was when he laid eyes on their captain, the ward's commander.

He expected a big tough guy with short-cropped hair and an angry scowl, big muscles and a sweaty shirt. But the man who called him into the office with the kindest voice Kamui ever heard from a man was anything but that.

Captain Aoki Seiichiro was tall, somewhat flabby (but not overweight in any way, no beer belly or doughnut-made love handles of any sort) with big awkward, out of fashion glasses and a well combed light brown hair parted in the middle behind some few loose strands that fell curling to the sides of his forehead. He beamed the warmest, kindest, sweetest, almost apologetic smile at Kamui who simply couldn't salute someone so….dorky….

"Oh please, don't salute me dear boy." Captain Aoki waved his palms merrily as soon as he let go of Kamui's palm from a vigorous handshake. "You've already proved yourself as a one with good stand-to-attention abilities for Sergeant Sora."

Kamui had to blink at that, speechless.

"I saw you on my security camera" Captain Aoki explained, the silly/sweet smile never leaving his face, gesturing to a small monitor on his desk "and yes we have those everywhere we could possibly have them" he carried on, as if reading Kamui's mind about the location of security devices.

His office was a small cramped space filled with what can only be called as 'mess'. Papers cluttered around on his table in an awful chaos, old coffee and tea mugs rotted away here and there across the office. The walls were dyed dark green from the bottom to mid-wall, making the tiny messy office seem stifling.

"Please, sit down, would you like some tea?"

"Uh….y….yeah…I mean, yes sir!" Kamui almost bolted out of his seat. He straightened his sitting position, stretching at his uniform shirt to make it look like it wasn't three sizes too big on him and maybe create the effect that he didn't look like a kid in a big man's costume.

"Ha ha! No need to be so formal now private Shiro, please. You'll find that ranks, formalities, even honorifics are pretty much melted into one unimportant mass and left aside. I started this policy ever since I took over this ward some three years ago, and I preach it to anyone who walks in, even guests! Now, what flavor do you want? I have….vanilla….green tea….Ceylon….and earl grey….what's this? Oh, some ginseng from dear Lieutenant Sumeragi."

"You're still using ranks sir…." Kamui had to note him. Watching his new commander flapping through tea bags in what must be his office's private coffee corner made him uneasy. He wasn't used to rules being turned so upside down in this strict environment.

Captain Aoki raised his eyes heavenwards as if seeking an answer there before he returned them, glittering and merry, back to Kamui "That's right…we might use the ranks but only verbally!"

Kamui missed the idea's meaning.

"We say 'Sergeant, Lieutenant, Private, est.' but we don't act that way! Except when the Old Man comes over for inspection that is." Captain Aoki's face darkened.

Kamui began moving uncomfortably on his seat. He didn't like people dropping the Old Man's name too often around him. His and the Old Man's last meeting was far too uncomfortable for Kamui to think about.

"So what flavor is it Private Shiro-kun? You better hurry up and make your mind because the water in the kettle might get cold."

"Uh…Ceylon I guess…."

"Very well, hot or lukewarm?"

"Steaming"

"How much sugar?"

"Six"

"….."

"I like sweetness," Kamui mumbled; slightly embarrassed at the surprised glance Captain Aoki shot at him.

"Very well, it's your cup of tea! I only wonder how you manage to keep your gir…youthful figure with so much sugar in your tea."

"Add some milk to my tea." Kamui allowed himself to be unmannerly after that last half-remark about his appearance.

"Very well, here you go! Steaming and sweet!" His commander handed him the large mug. Kamui cringed at the sight of the big happy cow doodle on the mug's side.

"My daughter picked that one out, picked the whole set in fact. She gave it to me for my last birthday, it's a whole set of farm animals mugs"

"How old is she?"

Captain Aoki almost spilled his own cup of lukewarm, one sugar, and no milk earl grey as he suddenly jerked to a framed picture right by his computer screen and flipped it for Kamui to see.

It was a picture of a small woman in her late twenties holding a girl of about three or four. Both seemed sickeningly happy and both held their hands out to greet the picture taker with their endless love.

Kamui cringed at that too. He swallowed a large gulp of scorching tea to ease his nausea and plastered a polite fake smile on his face "Your daughter looks adorable."

'You look almost her age' Captain Aoki wanted to answer but held it back. Instead he shuffled the mess on his desk looking for Kamui's personal file.

Kamui handed him the dark blue elastic folder held in his hand all along.

"Ah! Thank you so much, I'm so messy sometimes!" The kind Captain began flipping through the various pages in the folder, darting his eyes from the papers to the youth before him.

Kamui noted, with some amount of awkwardness (or was it disappointment?), that when it came to business his new commander's whole being turned from kind-slightly-silly-and-messy to the sharp, clever, and all observing commander someone in his rank and position should be.

……….and it all came crushing down the moment someone stormed into the office, flipping some pages off the messy desk with the sheer power of his entrance.

Surprised at the sudden violent gust of wind, Kamui spun around to look at the entering man.

Lieutenant Sumeragi Subaru was a tall, dark looking, slightly hunched and very thin man. Besides his external features Kamui could make nothing else out of him; he was simply unreadable.

His large green eyes were slightly swollen and reddened with the common lack of sleep infecting most of the wardens at 3rd Ward and along with his pale skin and thinness he appeared sickly. But the eyes were shut down, turned off, completely unreadable; he seemed a man powered only by duty and not by soul.

"Ah….Lt. Sumeragi….why must you storm in so violently," the higher ranking officer whimpered from under his desk where he struggled to collect all his ruffled papers on his hands and knees.

Lt. Sumeragi said not a word in response but a hushed mumble of an apology.

"I finished the new inmates welcoming party," he grumbled (or was it mumbled? Kamui couldn't tell the difference with the man's low voice)

Cp. Aoki climbed back to his chair, sorting out the escaping papers while scrutinizing the two wardens before him. Kamui was looking very confused at the Lt.'s words.

"'Welcoming party' is a slang we use for new inmate's first roll call after imprisonment process. We've had three new inmates today, you'll probably see them later on in your shift…my, you arrived early didn't you," he mumbled, looking at his wristwatch baffled.

Kamui arrived at 07:00AM sharp, as punctual as only he can be. "Is it a bad thing?"

"God heavens no! We need tidy, punctual people like you here…it's just that most new wardens, and those who just arrived out of training especially, well….they're more like 'let's go out and have fun before we get locked up' you see?"

Kamui understood and nodded. He didn't feel like he's going to be locked up like the rest of the prisoners here though, he felt like he was going to be locked up in a mad house's ward.

Sergeant Sorata poked his head into the office "Ne, Lt. Sumeragi, I need to talk to you about something for a minute"

The seemingly lifeless man nodded and walked out of the office with his mug of tea empty (he was about to prepare it when Sorata came in).

"Lt. Sumeragi…." Cp. Aoki chirped merrily.

The empty emerald eyes turned to their chief.

"Finish making your tea. I'm sure Sgt. Sora can wait until that."

"Well…." Sora was, against every fiber in his every cheerful and ever lightheaded being, very much anxious yet powerless against his commander's words.

Cp. Aoki calmed him with a fatherly slow nod.

Lt. grabbed his now brewed cup of tea and placed a cigarette in his lips as he walked towards the door and the waiting Arisugawa.

"In the smoking corner Lt. Subaru!" Cp. Aoki called after him, his voice pleading like no commander Kamui ever heard.

All this time Kamui sat on his chair trying to look a lot smaller then he is so he could blend in or at least be ignored of. He didn't like too many people around him making a lot of noise; one on one meeting in calm and silence was his favorite socializing.

"Now, where were we?" The worrying sharpness returned to the eyes behind Cp. Aoki's large glasses. "Ah yes, so, tell me a little about yourself Pr. Shiro"

Kamui cringed in his chair even more, doing his last attempt to shrink beyond seeing.

"HELLOOOOOOOOOO! You're the new girl aren't you?"

Pr. Kishuu Arashi's body decided that freeze (other then flee or fight as she thought she would) was the best method to handle the attack.

A lively young woman in her mid twenties with short raven black hair and big happy green eyes practically leaped at her from her chair in 6th Ward's staff cafeteria, her arms spread sideways, and her steps more like skips.

"Y…Yes ma'am" Arashi stretched to attention as best she could the moment she noticed the silver ranks on the young woman's shoulders.

"Oh no need for that honey! What's you're name?"

"Pr. Kishuu Arashi ma'am" something felt terribly wrong as she eased out of attention. Unlike Kamui, Arashi lived all her life caught in a tight web of rules and morals so whenever someone told her to loosen up she'd become frightened and paranoid.

"Cool! I'm Lt. Sumeragi Hokuto, but you can call me Hokuto-chan!"

Call a superior by their first name and with such an honorific! Arashi felt ice cold chills spilling down her spine.

"Oh please call me Hokuto-chan…please…" The officer drew herself as close as she could to her new recruit, putting on a puppyish pout.

Arashi stayed frozen on her spot even when the other woman neared as inches from her face. She wanted to run away from this ward, from this prison, from this country but her body was still frozen.

"Say you'll call me Hokuto-chan" the officer insisted, pouting dramatically.

"F…fine…Lt. Hokuto-ch….chan…" She had to pluck the words out of her mouth and as soon as they were out they stung, as if she hissed words of blasphemy.

"Lovely!" Lt. Hokuto threw her arms in the air merrily. "Well then," she said as soon as she calmed down a little, "I see you just arrived and since I have to go and throw a welcoming party for our new inmates I'll just show you to the commander's office and off I'll go! Quickly, quickly!"

An immense force of nature suddenly gushed at Arashi's back, pushing her towards a neat little office at the end of the long corridor that was 6th Ward staff rooms.

Just like 3rd Ward's staff quarters, 6th Ward's had the same build, same windows, same basic structure (accept the women's lavatories and shower rooms were built a little larger then the men's). There were small differences, like the lighter shade of green on the walls of 6th Ward, the big cork pin up boards on the walls with pictures of children and the toddler's various kindergarten-drawing masterpieces.

The cafeteria's kitchen had more (and more various) cookies, tea bags and cleaner cutlery then in the 3rd Ward.

The smell of nail varnish hung in the long sleeping room. On the walls of that room hung various posters of various strapping men in various levels of nakedness. As she passed the room by, Arashi couldn't help note some very explicit yaoi posters hung on the walls above several beds.

She was ushered into an office Arashi couldn't describe as anything but 'lovely'.

Cp. Kasumi Karen had long bright lilac curtains with flower patterns at their rims hung on the big ordinary window. She painted the room in the brightest, most cheerful yet not too powerful baby blue, pierced here and there only by pictures from various events in 6th Ward (a trip to some luxurious onsen, a group pictures in yukatas and old paper lanterns from a summer festival, a group picture under a big cherry tree with a sign '6th Ward's looking at the petals in spring' or something like that held by the women, a picture from a costume party, a picture from some anime fans gathering est.).

The Captain's desk was neat and clean, random piles of messy papers clotting here and there just to give the desk a more human look. Colorful stickers, hologram stickers, and cute little memo holders covered her computer.

Two plushies sat regally atop her computer screen; a simple white bunny with a flower in his hand, and a round lump with long rabbit like ears, kitzune eyes and a large pink circle on it's forehead amidst his white fur.

All and all this office seemed like the most homely, welcoming and warm place Arashi ever stepped into and wasn't her own house.

Cp. Kasumi was a beautiful woman with flaming red hair curling down to her shoulder most unruly and wild. Her big warm eyes sparkled with wisdom and love as she laid eyes on her new recruit. She wore the smallest size of uniform as she could and had two extra buttons open in her shirt, revealing the very edge of a lacy white bra. It kind of made Arashi wonder what she's trying to prove or say in this sea of women.

The woman gestured for her to sit down on the awfully comfortable office chair (3rd Ward didn't gather money amongst themselves to buy their commander such furniture and so unlike Arashi, Kamui had to sit on the usual rigid metal pipe chair)

"Welcome darling." Cp. Kasumi beamed at her. "Would you like to drink something? Hokuto-chan, welcoming party…."

Lt. Hokuto, who still hung at Arashi's side, sprung back to life, emitted a strange sounding "eep!" and vanished out of the office. Cp. Kasumi laughed the most charming silver bell laughter Arashi ever heard.

"She's so messy, Hokuto-chan is, it's very near destruction often but she's a good officer and so I try to swipe whatever mistake she makes under the carpet." She winked at Arashi, making the younger woman recognize some of the features in her beautiful make up.

"Would you like a cup of tea dear?"

"Y-yes, no please ma'am don't get up, I'll make my cup. May I make yours as well?" It was as if she was under a spell! All Arashi wanted from the moment she lay eyes of her captain was to make the woman happy and pleased with her, to be a good warden for her.

"You're a dear. I'd like some rose and vanilla, they're the awful magenta colored tea bags above the sugar jar."

At first Arashi wondered why was in necessary to be so specific of the color of the tea bag. It lasted until she took out the large wooden box on the shelf above the sugar jar and opened it. There were so many tea bags in so many colors it took Arashi a few moments to recover her shock.

"I found this huge box when I was in London the last vacation I had and I just had to bring it over here for the girls to enjoy. There's another box like that in the dining room, a bigger one though."

Arashi's head swam as she turned frightened eyes to her new commander "B…bigger ma'am?" her arms already noted her that holding the big box was beginning to take it's toll.

"Yes! A real treasure chest of three shelves and a little cap space form more tea bags," Cp. Kasumi chirped.

Arashi whipped her head back to the tea box and pulled out an awful magenta colored bag reading "Rose and Vanilla", yanked it out of it's paper wrapping and placed it inside a mug she chose for her commander.

She chose it because there was a picture of a happy group of female wardens on it with "To our beloved commander, with love from the November 2001 retiring girls" printing and she thought this might be her commander's cup.

Choosing the mug was problematic because every mug in the Captain's rake was in the same spirit; always happy and cheerful, always blessing Cp. Kasumi for her sweetness, her kindness, her lovability, wishing her well, wishing her a happy birthday, you name it! She had about 15 mugs like that on the rake. It made Arashi uncomfortable to choose a mug for herself.

"I'd start with mint and lemon for you darling, it's the yellowish-turquoise bag right by the bright beige bags." Arashi obeyed, spilling the hot water onto the two mugs.

"I'll take two sweet and lows." She obeyed again, mixing the reddening water in her commander's mug until the two round sweetening tablets finished bubbling and melted completely.

She turned around and, lecturing herself inwardly to not dare mess up and spill some of Cp. Kasumi's tea, she handed one awfully pinkish-red mug to her commander and sat down cradling her yellowish mug.

"The first thing I'd like to tell you, and this I tell every girl who walks in here, is this: ranks and age don't matter here and I mean it! I don't want you to call me 'commander' or 'ma'am' or 'miss' or anything! My name is Karen. If it'll make you feel a little more comfortable then you can call me Karen-san but nothing more, please.

"Now, you've already met with my second in command, the darling Lt. Hokuto-chan. If you ever need a hug and a shoulder to cry on, and I'm not around, you can turn to her. Also if you need your nails done or your eyebrows plucked into better shape she's your girl, oh yes!" She ran her forefinger along her elegant burning red eyebrows thoughtfully.

Arashi stared at her mindlessly.

"You think I'm kidding? I'm not. Oh honey, this is not a big tough female warden's den between these walls. You can be as tough and formal outside, in the ward itself but in here? Here we're having a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year pajama party! Please, feel at home."

Arashi's fear of life without rules and structure returned, numbing her brain and freezing her tongue. All she could say in return was "mnn" and sip her (most delicious) tea.

"That's great!" Karen-san clapped her hands merrily. She had a charming two ring set on her right hand, with two big bright blue opals on each gold band. On her left hand was a complex yet elegant and good tasted set of bracelet and ring connected by a delicate chain. The metal was gold and, once again, beads of opal and shaped gold scattered on the jewel.

Arashi suddenly became transfixed with them.

"Are you looking at these?" Cp. Karen-san flipped her hands to look at her own jewels. "They're from my lovers. I keep a few, here and there." She placed her right palm elegantly on her chin as she looked out through the window thoughtfully.

"That's very nice of them ….I mean, the jewels are lovely, you're very lucky to have them…I mean, you're very lucky that they chose you….I mean…." If she could bury herself in the ground and never rise back to the surface, Arashi would do it right now.

But Karen-san merely beamed at her and laughed lightly. "Yes I'm very lucky I'm able to keep hold of them, you're right because they could have been captured by any other woman. Oh, do calm down dear, you didn't offend me at all," she chirped like a gossiping high school girl.

She reached out across the table, gesturing Arashi to hand her the dark blue plastic folder containing her personal data from police academy. As she received it she opened a special folder for Arashi on her computer. All along Arashi's first interview she was typing personal data from the files and from Arashi's mouth onto the computer, her long delicate fingers gliding magically over the keyboard.

Despite the uncomfortably loose and laidback air here, despite the need to forget about ranks and become a giggling pajama party girl inside these thick walls, Arashi couldn't make herself say that this was going to be bad because Karen-san was here and no one in the world could be around Karen-san for three seconds and not feel happy and calm.

"So, Arashi-chan, tell me a little about yourself." Her new commander and goddess smiled at her.

Three new inmates joined 3rd Ward on the day in which Pr. Kamui joined its staff.

They were Kigai Yutu, Shiyu Kusanagi and Monou Fuma.

Kigai Yutu and Shiyu Kusanagi came from the same place, yanked from the same scene of crime while Monou Fuma was brought over after a long pursuit and trial.

Kigai Yutu came here to serve ten years (up for parole in 8) for acting as a pimp in a bordello who specialized in delivering fresh young girls to it's costumers. Basically he was a pimp who dealt for pedophiles. He and his coworker scanned the streets of Osaka County's various cities in search of beautiful young girls and offered those adventures and big bucks in the big city of Tokyo.

He walked through the imprisoning stages with an air of calm and relaxation, as if he was registering into a new town and not into one of Japan's top security prisons.

Shiyu Kusanagi was here to serve five years (up for parole in 3) for visiting the bordello regularly. Actually he was only there once, for his first visit of a place such as that, but it was an unlucky time that he chose to come in. The police made him into a lying pervert and condemned him for what he's done.

His only comfort was that he was not caught and sentenced by his Self Defense force's MPs or he'd do time in a military prison which was, to say the least, a lot less luxurious then this prison.

Unlike his two other 'delivery' men he was by far the most nervous, most miserable and most regret-filled man. He was on the verge of tears all the time, from the moment the police raided the bordello to the moment he walked into his lonely prison cell.

Monou Fuma was here to serve 30 years (up for parole in 15) for the gathering charges of assault, burglary, vandalism, sabotage, drug dealing, random pimping and an attempted bombing of a high school in Okinawa.

He walked through the imprisoning stages with high spirits of scorn and carelessness, shooting evil glares and sexually harassing looks at both male and female wardens in his path.

This was not his first time in prison, in fact it was his fifth since he was at an age to be imprisoned, so he was pretty much used to it all. The moment he walked into his cell he began calculating its weak spots should he attempt escape.

The three men were homed in three cells one by the other, their bulletproof glass walls giving each of them zero privacy.

Each cell contained a bed, a small desk a small sink and a toilet seat with curtains allowing them to hide themselves only from their neighbors but not from their wardens, who's lookout spot was stationed before the four storied wall of cells.

Kusanagi hurried to curl on his bed and cry, hiding his tears as best he could.

Yutu took his time to register his room before he wondered out of it in search for the ward's library.

Fuma dropped on the bed and fell into a long lazy slumber. Withdrawal from the various drugs he used to take back in the free world forced him to try and be unconscious a lot, unaware of pain and needs as much as he could.

Two new inmates joined 6th Ward on the day that Pr. Arashi joined its pajama party of a staff.

They were Kazahaya Kanoe and Yatoji Satsuki.

Kazahaya Kanoe was there to serve a sentence of ten years (up for parole in 8) for the same charges as Kigai Yutu.

She was his co-worker and the actual manager and collector of their little army of young girls. If Japan's justice system weren't so bent on blaming the man rather then the woman for this horrible crime, Kanoe would have served more; she was basically the brain and claws behind each of the bordello's gathering operations. She would be the bigger sister and the mother for these girls, turning to become their warden as well might they threat to escape or tell the police about it.

She was horribly disheveled when she walked into the prison, shocked at the fact that her brilliant planning had a hole in it big enough to allow this catastrophe to happen.

What will become of her in the prison, she did not know and dreaded to think. But whatever her emotions were she kept them well hidden under an iron mask of calmness and cool. She walked around as proudly as she could, as dignified as she could after a night of tossing and turning ruffling her hair.

Yatoji Satsuki was there to serve a sentence of 25 years (up for parole in 20) for her various computerized bank robberies; her constant escapes and virus poisoning of the police computers whenever they attempted to arrest her.

At her high time she plagued and emptied the computerized vaults of up to fifty four different bank branches, often making whole companies of them collapse within a night's time. She also managed to sabotage the police's computers so bad that three counties were thrown back to paper and pen level for long months before the systems were thoroughly cleaned.

She was a frozen ice doll, emotional and careless, from the moment she was finally arrested, through her trial and all the way up to her prison cell.

She was indeed emotionless besides the constant self-consuming regret that she did not do her best to avoid arrest. She could have sabotaged the traffic light system on the way to her home and make such a big pile up of police cruisers she'd be able to see it from her bedroom window. But she did not; she still had some glimmering faith and love for humans to kill them so selfishly. She had that glimmer at the time. By the time the police finished venting its anger at her, by the time her extremely media-covered trial ended she was perhaps the biggest misanthrope to ever walk the face of the earth.

Kanoe walked into her cell and immediately ran to the mirror above her sink (the 6th Ward advantage for prisoners above the 3rd Ward's, other then that the cells were exactly alike) to fix her hair and put on her make up.

Then she took a deep breath, fought back tears of panic, and strolled out to become familiar with other the girls in her ward.

Satsuki scanned her room, scanned the awfully populated ward outside (only 20 other prisoners, but even that was too much for her), and decided to stay indoors.

Boredom came to Satsuki faster then to any other human on the planet and it often drove her insane (it drove her to her crimes) so the only way she could fight it was to shut down completely. She snuggled into her bed and forced a deep sleep upon herself to shut off the human world outside.

There was another ward in Sharonza Heights: the high security isolation ward.

It was a huge hall with long arches running along the ceiling, giving the modern times underground ward a somewhat medieval-torture-prison look.

It contained one tiny cell of thick metal walls with one bulletproof glass wall, where prisoners who committed a crime within the prison walls could be locked up as punishment. This cell, for now, was vacant.

The other was a huge apartment sized cell made of bulletproof glass with metal floor and ceiling where the prison's most dangerous prisoners were held.

Today, and for the next 75 years (up for parole in 68 years from now), it was the home of Sakurazuka Seishiro who served two lifetimes for the death of some twenty men and women (and probably more if only the police could find their remains in the deep hole he dug under his huge cherry tree in his back garden).

He was a sorcerer, using yin yang magic to hunt down and kill his victims, then bury them deep under his immense cherry tree. He used magic to escape the police for some twenty years now and was thought of as the most dangerous prisoner in all of Japan's history. He was offered to plead insane but he resigned, claiming to do his every act of murder in clear mind.

He was a complete gentleman to his wardens and soon his good behavior made security around him slacken and slim until it was the job of only one warden on an 8 hour shift, each connecting to form security around the clock.

The prison's psychologist who, in the long nine years of his imprisonment so far, managed to make absolutely zero effect on Seishiro or squeeze out any information as for where he learnt his magic and why he killed so many people regularly visited Seishiro.

His apartment of a cell had no sharp objects of any kind (might he extract blood from himself and use it for casting a spell as he did the 15th time the police tried to capture him), no means of starting a fire and contained a simple, but relatively luxurious single bed, single sofa, small coffee table, a partially hidden shower and lavatory. There was another room with some gym equipment which Seishiro won with good behavior and repetitive promising that he would never hurl it at the walls of his cell and try to break them.

Seishiro was a prince locked in a high tower suite, roaming it regally as only he could.

He was known to either flirt with the wardens until they claimed they must be moved out of the prison might they do something stupid, or completely ignored his watchers. He never played mind games with anyone to try and break their spirit or abuse them verbally though he was known to throw a few nasty remarks at wardens who treated him with scorn or disgust.

"When you enter a shift with Sakurazuka you have to bear in mind that he is something completely different then anything you've ever known. Treat him with respect and he will treat you with respect" are the first words every warden heard in briefing before each shift down at the basement.

Wardens would sit in a small cubicle above a large window allowing fresh air into the room through four layers of bars (the other floors had three layers, two or even one on their windows) with a small desk to put your feet up on and a coffee machine.

Lt. Sumeragi Subaru never walked down to the basement. It was about to change, that's what Sgt. Sora yanked him out of Cp. Aoki's office for.

"Lt. Segawa came down with an awful flue and we ran out of officers to watch the guy you know?" Sora tried not to sound to apologetic. Often he wondered if he should bother adding emotions to his voice at all when speaking to Lt. Sumeragi, the man was so cold and vacant.

"I see, that's fine. My shift starts now?"

"Yeah, Lt. Segawa tried to go down to the basement but he fainted from the fever, you know how hardworking he is, he didn't succumb to the disease until it came and grabbed him real hard!"

"I see."

"So, it should be real easy and you can smoke there you know."

That did cheer Lt. Sumeragi up after he began thinking of how dreadful it would be to get stuck for 8 hours in a rank basement with some psycho who thinks he's something out of D&D.

"Very well. Goodbye then Sgt," he said before he walked down the steps to the basement.

That day will be remembered as the day in which the prison, its prisoners, and wardens had a change of destiny.

(tbc)