Author's Notes: Well, I'm sad to say I didn't get any more reviews. sniffle Even with an extra week due to a family emergency, nobody voted. Ah well. Just means you, my loyal readers, all three of you, get the next chapter. It's short, it's violent, it's the last we'll see of Akabane for a while. Now things are really gonna pick up, plot wise. Eventually. Man, I'm a tease.

Disclaimer: Get Backers belongs to Aoki, Ayamine and Team Get Backers. X-Men and canon characters belong to Marvel and the God who is Stan Lee. Felis is mine. Don't bother suing. I'm not worth it. I'm not kidding. That family situation broke me.

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"What makes you say that, Lady Neko?" Kagami asked, cocking his head to the side.

"Because it is true."

"Intelligent, exotic. Let's see how you fight." Kagami withdrew one hand and waved it in front of him. Perfect mirror images sprang into existence, creating two rows of ten. Felis' ears twitched and she laughed.

"What is this, some kind of test?"

"Correct," Twenty Kagamis said, making the room echo a little. "Did you really think Kuroudo-kun would bring you here on a whim?"

"I see." Felis shrugged and closed her eyes, her ears twitching. Illusions meant nothing to the ears and nose. She sniffed delicately and felt a sting. The sting traveled down to her lungs and pricked them. She winced. Some kind of particulate, no doubt to incapacitate an opponent before they penetrated the trap. She let her regeneration take over and kept searching. He wouldn't have stayed in the same place.

"What are you doing?" The voices asked and something came whistling in on her right. She jumped to the left and forward, right into a cloud of particles. Her eyes popped open and she turned to look. The Kagamis had turned to face her. She blinked, her eyes shifting. Only eighteen. So much the better. She dropped into a flat crouch, balancing on her fingers and feet. The sting was back and much stronger. Her lungs were aching.

"Testing the air," She answered, ears twitching.

"You're in a cloud of diamond dust. In seconds it will shred your lungs and internal organs."

"Diamond dust? What a clever use of stones." Felis dipped her head to the floor, took one big breath and sprang to her left, claws outstretched. She landed with a piece of glass embedded in her right forearm and scampered clear of the cloud. Turning, she took another breath and attacked again, in a different direction. Kagami's illusions may reflect his voice, but they didn't reflect his breathing. That and his scent helped her pinpoint his location. She bounced around the room, staying out of the cloud as much as possible. He was as fast as Akabane! No matter how quickly she turned and leaped, he was out of the way, embedding glass in her flesh. The diamond dust was slowing her down further, her lungs burning with the pain. Her regeneration ability, unable to handle so many wounds at once, shifted the focus entirely to keeping her insides intact.

Three more passes. Three more shards. Kagami was now in the middle of the cloud, a mere two illusions disguising his presence to the eye. Felis landed two feet beside him, glass decorating her arms and legs in a bizarre, shimmering pattern. Blood dripped to the floor, a soft counterpoint to her sudden bout of coughing. She had inhaled too deeply and the diamond dust was tearing her lungs.

"You lasted longer then I expected," Kagami said, turning to face her. The illusions distorted and broke. He raised one hand. Two shards flew at her, ripping through her ears, tearing the delicate flesh and leaving gaping holes. She screamed, a high pitched roar not unlike a mountain lion, and fell to her knees. The glass in her shins and knees broke on impact, sending bits and pieces further into muscle and veins. Blood began pooling slowly around her. She shook her head, sending twin red sprays out from her ears like a sprinkler. Kagami ducked out of the way.

"All hail Darwin, Writer of the Law," Felis choked out. Blood trickled from her mouth as she fell forward, a perfect faceplant into the concrete floor.

Akabane walked out of the shadows, both hands in his pockets. Strolling over to Felis' limp form, he knelt and turned her over, deftly avoiding the sticky pool beneath. Her eyes were open and glassy, mouth slack, one canine broken. Blood continued to seep out from her wounds, the glass slowly turning crimson.

"Next time, bring someone actually worthy of me," Kagami said coldly. Akabane threw four scalpels in the direction of the voice and sighed when he heard glass shatter.

"He always gets away. How very annoying. I find myself in the awkward position of needing to apologize, Lady Neko. I had thought, with your mutant abilities, that you would survive the Limitless Fortress." Akabane quickly and efficiently searched the body, then sat back and frowned, calling his scalpels back and flexing his fingers.

"You were much too clever. Not a thing on you to give you away. Except that," He observed as her clothes sparked and faded into a gray and black outfit with a red and black X on the chest. "A holographic suit. Intriguing. MakobeX would have found a good use for that. But how am I going to return you to your hotel?" Akabane cocked his head, smirked and reached into his coat. He took out a card and flipped it over. The name of an expensive hotel and a room number was on the back.

"Yes, entirely too clever. A pity. I should have been the one to kill you. One hunter to another, not a coward who hides behind glass. How unfair. Come along." Akabane reached underneath Felis' corpse and deftly lifted her onto his shoulder.

"What kind of jackal would I be if I left anything behind for the rats?" With that pleasant thought, he walked out of the Limitless Fortress.

It didn't take him long to find the hotel and the balcony Felis had left from. The sliding glass door was open, the only one on that side of the building. Akabane pushed it open further and walked in, carefully setting Felis down on the empty bed. Glancing around, he studied the room. Ban was on the second bed, sprawled carelessly. Ginji had curled up on the floor between the beds. Akabane chuckled to himself. It would be rude to leave without some kind of explanation. He slithered around, dodging around the carelessly stacked trays and dishes until he found some hotel stationary and a pen. Writing a quick note, he folded Felis' hands neatly over her chest and propped the note on her fingers. Her eyes glowed in the faint light from the street.

"Thank you for an enjoyable evening." With that, Akabane left the room.