(Standard disclaimers apply)
The Wake
3. Unsavoury Company
It was dark inside the trunk. So dark that he could hardly make out the hands he held out before him. It smelt funny too, with a combination of burnt aging automobile stinks and ripe garbage odours hovering in the stagnant air.
Air. He wondered if car trunks were airtight, and if they were, how long it would take for him to use up all the oxygen that was around him. His next thought was whether asphyxiation is painful. Upon finding that thought not only horribly depressing, but also totally unproductive, he terminated it. Now's not the time to think of death. Had he not survived worse situations in the past? Luck had something to do with that, but mostly it was his desperate clinging to life that did the trick. His life was close to unbearable ever since the most important part of it had been forcibly ripped apart. Even so, he would not relinquish what was left of it. For as long as he still lived, there was hope. Hope to regain a lost dream or, at least, the remnants of a shattered dream.
Strange. What had caused those memories to resurface at a time like this? He had to find a way to get out of here soon. If he continued on like this, with nothing to occupy him except his own thoughts, he would eventually drive himself mad.
He used his fingers to feel the boundaries of his small prison. His legs were folded in front of his chest and he had to reach around them to perform the task. Metal, metal, metal… and a tiny area of plastic where the taillight was. Curves, dents, corners. No matter how many times he tried, he still could not find anything that could unlock the trunk from the inside. Wishful thinking. If there was a way for him to escape from the trunk, he wouldn't be locked inside the trunk now, would he? Perhaps he could use his knife to poke a hole through the taillight… Nah. However tempting it was, for he could mentally visualize the anguish this would cause the car's owner, he decided against it because such an action would inevitably dull the blade. And he really wished to preserve that keen edge for later.
When he had suggested that they work together, the bastard had laughed. Laughed. The knife's too good for scum like him.
XXXXXX
Getting into the mansion was a cinch. All he needed was a uniform, which he managed to borrow from his old pal the detective who owed the Get Backers a favour or two for their help in solving a couple of cases in the past.
After the break-in was reported, the place had been swamped with police investigating the scene of the crime. Thanks to that, another uniformed cop paying a late visit to the owner for clarification of some details did not attract much attention. The few security guards who were able to recognize him were promptly taken care of by the Jagan. Let them imagine that the policeman walking past the gates looked nothing like the thief who knocked them out earlier in the day; that they were so badly shaken up by the ordeal that their eyes were beginning to play tricks on them. Besides, what kind of a thief would revisit the house he had broken into just hours after the deed?
The Evil Eye was used a second time in order to extract a confession from the mastermind behind the theft. Fortunately for Ban, Mr. Wazuki was all too willing to brag about his success once he thought he had both retrieval agents pinned down on the floor by his bodyguards and facing execution shortly. In reality, the crooked tycoon was generously providing incriminating evidence against himself to the police hotline. Ban trusted that all calls to the police were recorded; but just in case, he also had Mr. Wazuki's verbal confession taped; ready to be mailed to the relevant authorities or insurance firm if necessary.
One objective acquired, Ban put the receiver back in its cradle and moved on to the next one on his list. He altered Mr. Wazuki's hallucination to one where the man underwent unimaginable horrors- the least of which involved being burnt alive and having his flesh melt off like candle wax. Ban possessed a flair for conjuring up gruesome imagery; and that talent was put to good use in the creation of a personalized nightmare for his ex-client. To muffle the screams, he had stuffed a sock into the terrified man's gaping mouth. It might last only a minute in real life but Ban could make it feel like a good many hours in the mind. Even after the magic wore off, the man would still be too traumatized to form any coherent thoughts for a while.
Ban tried to feel a smidgen of guilt for what he was doing but found that he could feel no such emotion. Actions have consequences, and Mr. Wazuki would just have to pay for what he did to Ginji. Ginji. Not the brat. The severity of the brat's injuries had absolutely no influence whatsoever on the severity of the punishment he was carrying out on the client.
Ban locked the door when he left the study room. It would not do for the gagged and whimpering master of the house to be discovered too soon.
Well, maybe a little influence. But Ban would rather soak in boiling tar and roll in a mound of feathers before admitting to such a thing. The irascible brat was annoying enough without being insufferably clingy as well. Who did he think he was fooling with all that 'I'm better off on my own' posturing? That brat was so determined to deny his yearning for a sense of belonging that he had embraced his own self-delusions. Ban understood all too well what that had felt like.
He tugged his cap a bit lower as he passed by the servants in the corridor. Not suspecting that anything was amiss, they bowed courteously to him as he walked past. Leaving the mansion was proving to be less of a challenge than he expected. Once he was outside, Ban debated his next course of action. He had no wish to risk recognition by the same security guards; so he settled on bypassing the main gate by vaulting the perimeter wall. Of course, he could have easily knocked out all the guards again, but that would ruin his plan for a quiet exit. Being naturally cautious, he checked that no one was around to see him before making the leap.
What he had not counted on was the possibility of someone standing on the other side of the wall.
Right in the middle of his landing zone, as his rotten luck would have it.
Cursing, Ban twisted sharply in mid-air and kicked hard against the wall to push himself off his original course. He barely avoided landing squarely on the person's head, whoever it was. However, in a conditioned reflex to break his fall, his left hand had seized one of the wide lapels of the person's overcoat and the two of them hit the ground with a thud.
The noise was not loud enough to wake the dead but Ban was anxious to escape the scene nonetheless. He glanced at the person who had partially cushioned his fall- an old man, judging by the hoary hair and wizened face. The old man's forehead was stained with blood and, for a second, Ban panicked at the thought that he might have committed accidental manslaughter. A closer examination filled Ban with relief. The man was still alive, displaying a rhythmic rise and fall of the chest as well as palpable pulses in his carotids. Furthermore, the blood coating the old man's head was of a dried, rusty-brown colour, which signified that he was injured before Ban ever came into the picture.
It's not my fault. Not entirely anyway. Still, Ban couldn't help feeling a pinch from his conscience for having added to the old man's injuries. He briefly considered carrying the old man to his Ladybug and driving him to a hospital. The downside to that decision was that it would be too time-consuming; not to mention damned inconvenient. The old man dispelled Ban's indecision by stirring and showing signs of regaining consciousness. "What… the hell…?" muttered the old man with his eyes still shut. Threatening words that promised retribution soon followed. "When I get… my hands on…"
If he's able to get to a hospital on his own, my help will be redundant. At least that was how Ban justified his cowardly abandonment of the injured old man as he raced towards his Ladybug that was parked three blocks away. It was not that he was afraid of confronting the man. The thought of that septuagenarian being capable of harming even one strand of hair on his head was almost laughable. Ban just didn't feel like facing angry old men unless it was absolutely necessary, that's all. Why stick around and admit fault when you can take off and leave your victim none the wiser?
Ban slowed down to a walking pace when his car came into view. His disguise was soon shed in favour of his usual tank top and faded black trousers. He got into the driver's seat and threw the cap and uniform carelessly onto the empty passenger seat.
Only then did it occur to him that the emptiness of that seat was somehow very significant; as was the conspicuously quiet state of the back of his car. Grumbling about his misfortune of being lugged with bothersome brats, Ban reluctantly walked around to the car trunk and rapped the lid loudly with his knuckles. "Yo, squirt! You alive in there?"
Fifteen seconds ticked by without any sound or sign of movement from within the trunk.
Oh, shit.
XXXXXX
The sound of a key turning in its lock heralded the opening of the trunk. Like a tightly coiled spring given release, Ryuji made his move.
He struck out in that split second before the visual cover provided by the raising trunk lid was lost. His odd sense of honour forbade him from landing the blow right where it could achieve maximum damage, so Ryuji aimed his kick higher up in the abdomen. This was rewarded by a great deal of swearing and before the door to his metal prison could be slammed shut once again, Ryuji swung his knife to dislodge any fingers that were still holding onto the trunk lid. The creep who owned those fingers backed off far enough for Ryuji to complete his escape from the trunk.
"What's your friggin' problem, you blood-thirsty runt!" Porcupine-head sucked furiously on a nicked finger. That nickname was not entirely appropriate now that Porcupine-head's hair was a flattened mane very similar to his own. Regardless, Ryuji had no intention of calling that prick by his real name.
"What's my problem?" Ryuji's voice rose an octave and cracked, betraying both his agitated state and his age. It was difficult to maintain his dignity and righteous anger when he sounded like a boy barely past puberty. "You, you flea-bitten mongrel! You sorry excuse for a human being! You excreta from the bowels of the earth!" Ryuji was starting to feel light-headed, though whether from his blood loss, his near-suffocation or his excessive yelling he couldn't say. "Why d'ya think I'm attacking you!"
Porcupine-head had the gall to look offended. "I don't know. Does a rabid dog need any reasons to bite?"
Ryuji responded by lunging forward with his knife extended. Blind, hot rage pushed all rational thoughts out of his mind. If he had been in a calmer state of mind, he would have known better than to engage in a fight with Porcupine-head, especially while sporting a wounded leg that had him hobbling. As it was, Ryuji no longer cared about the strength differential between them or how extremely unwise his actions were.
Porcupine-head effortlessly dodged his stabs and swipes, looking almost bored with the exercise. "If you don't cease this… chicken dance… of yours soon, I shall start retaliating."
Ryuji reeled from the blow on his ego. "Chick…" He was beginning to regret not using his knife to cripple Porcupine-head earlier when he had the chance. Sense of honour be damned. "That does it! You're…" Ryuji forgot what dire threats he was about to utter when he noticed that they were no longer alone. His eyes grew very wide when he recognized the elderly man who was silently watching them some distance away.
Damn it. I knew I should've used a larger rock on him. Now was not the time for them to be at each other's throats. Porcupine-head, with his back to the man, did not seem to be aware that they had company. "Look behind you!" Ryuji hissed warningly, a finger raised and pointing at their sinister spectator.
Instead of paying heed to his warning, Porcupine-head seized hold of his pointing finger and bent it backwards until Ryuji was forced onto his knees. It was either that or risk dislocating his forefinger. "Never take your eyes off your opponent while you're fighting, twerp," said Porcupine-head, sounding for all the world like a teacher giving a few pointers to a particularly slow pupil. Ryuji, with his grip on his knife greatly weakened, was disarmed with ease. "And I'm insulted that you even thought I'd fall for such a first-grader trick."
Blinking away the tears of pain that had sprung into his eyes, Ryuji gasped, "You twice-damned fool! There really is someone behind…"
"The best liars continue to lie even after they've been caught. Give it up already. Are you so thick-headed that you're still expecting me to belie…" Porcupine-head, apparently in an attempt to humour him, finally turned his head and looked behind. To his surprise, Porcupine-head's expression became riddled with guilt, like that of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Crap," said Porcupine-head with feeling.
The elderly man - the assassin - levelled a steely glare at Porcupine-head. "You were the intruder who fell on me just now, weren't you?"
Porcupine-head tried to look outraged at the accusation. "I don't know what you're talking about, old man."
The assassin shifted his gaze towards Ryuji. Those cold eyes glittered like obsidian, causing an involuntary shiver to travel down Ryuji's spine. "And you're the boy I met this afternoon. One of the Get Backers, I presume?"
Before Ryuji could open his mouth, Porcupine-head burst out indignantly. "The hell he is! Get your facts straight, you ignorant old geezer! How can you possibly think that this pipsqueak has anything to do with the legendary retriever duo- the Get Backers!"
Ryuji gnashed his teeth. To add insult to injury, Porcupine-head began shaking him like a rag doll while trying to prove his point. After a few unsuccessful attempts to pry off the hateful hand that was gripping his collar, Ryuji resorted to using his teeth. With a roar and a curse, Ryuji was dropped heavily onto the ground.
Porcupine-head examined the red traces of incisors and canines left behind on his hand and scowled fiercely. "You're spending way too much time with Ginji, brat. You know that, don't you?"
Ryuji scrabbled to his feet a little unsteadily. "Let's continue our bloody war another time, okay?" He pointed at the assassin once more; but this time, he took the precaution of standing further away from Porcupine-head. "This guy is one of Mr. Wazuki's lackeys, the one who's responsible for that slash across Ginji's stomach."
Porcupine-head stared at the elderly assassin and then back at him, a look of disbelief plastered on his face. "This old geezer? He practically has one foot stuck in the grave! How could Ginji be injured by someone like him!"
"This Ginji you're talking about…" interrupted the assassin. "He's that retrieval agent who can generate electricity from his hands, is he not? What is your relationship with him?"
"Who wants to know?" snapped Porcupine-head, prickly and defensive all of a sudden.
"I don't wish to kill unless I really have to," said the assassin in a regretful tone. "If you're not involved with this underground dakkanya group called the Get Bac…"
"I am." Porcupine-head said it like a challenge. "And I'd like to see you try, old man."
The assassin locked gazes with Porcupine-head. "Then there's no point in delaying the inevitable." A thin, blue-veined hand drew out the double-edged sword that was hidden from sight before this. "Let us begin."
They charged at the same time. To Ryuji's eyes, it was as if the two of them had teleported instantaneously to clash aggressively at midpoint. Porcupine-head nimbly weaved in and out of the deadly strokes while lashing out with his clawed hands. Sparks and gravel flew where the blade made contact with the road.
That blade is going to blunt very quickly if he continues to fight like that. As Ryuji watched more closely, he discovered that the assassin was deliberately dragging his sword across the ground. Why does he keep on doing that? Ryuji suddenly felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his left shoulder. He was shocked to discover that he was bleeding from a clean cut that had penetrated his jacket and into the flesh underneath. How…?
Still in a daze as to what had happened, Ryuji heard Porcupine-head shouting, "Stand back, you annoying brat!"
When the road near Ryuji's feet started to erupt in a scatter of gravel, he hurriedly backed away from the fighting zone. Ryuji was positive that the sword had not touched him. What had cut him was more like an extension of the sword- a powerful slice of wind that could deal as much damage as the blade itself. Gingerly, he probed the wound in his shoulder and was relieved to find that cut was not very deep. He doubted that he could afford to lose any more blood that day.
His attention returned to the duel that was being fought before him. Porcupine-head had managed to dodge all the assassin's attacks so far, with nary a mark on him. However, Porcupine-head did not appear to be gaining the upper hand yet, most probably because he was effectively kept at bay by the assassin's longer-ranged weapon.
If only there is something I can do to tip the scales a bit. Ryuji reached for his knife that was no longer there, only to recall that Porcupine-head had taken it from him. He pounded his thighs with his fists. He hated this. He hated feeling so helpless; especially at critical times when he could have made a difference if only he was stronger. Porcupine-head was right. He was nothing but a liability after all.
XXXXXX
He smashed his sword onto the ground and utilized the rebound force to significantly speed up his following upward stroke. This unexpected move had been useful in decapitating many of his targets in the past. However, the teenage dakkanya was able to anticipate the move and leap out of the path of the blade in the nick of time.
Impressive. His young opponent landed a safe distance away from him, out of the range of any follow-up attacks. While using this opportunity to take a breather, he noticed that the dakkanya was not breathing heavily at all. Experienced as he was in his line of work, he realized then that his skills were insufficient to terminate his present target. Not in a fair fight.
A small smile touched the corners of his mouth. "From all your big talk just now, I was hoping that you would make the fatal mistake of underestimating me. I see now that you were merely provoking me into a rage so that I would be careless when I fight you." Not only a fighter, but a strategist as well. "You make a very dangerous enemy, young 'un."
"I've no need for that extra edge to beat an antique like you. This is me at forty percent of my full capacity. You're only good for warm-ups, gramps."
The youth's cocky confidence and boundless sense of invincibility reminded him of what he was like at that age. It was a pity that they had to kill each other. "Indeed? I guess I can't rely on normal attacks anymore." He glanced meaningfully at the boy whom the dakkanya had derided as 'pipsqueak' earlier; making sure that his intention was obvious. It was not wholly a ploy. The boy was also on his hit list. "I'll just have to execute an attack you can't dodge."
The dakkanya lazily took off his sunglasses and sniggered. "If you want to make mincemeat of that street trash over there, go ahead." Serpentine eyes bore into his like an auger. "Be my guest."
The dakkanya's response surprised him. He thought he had the young man's true nature figured out. Without hesitation, he sprang towards the petrified boy, expecting to be intercepted halfway. But he met with no resistance. Not when he reached the boy and roughly grabbed a handful of greasy, black hair. Not even when he pulled the head back and pressed the sword's edge against his victim's neck.
Hands buried deep in trouser pockets, the dakkanya made no move to stop him. "What are you waiting for, old man?"
So his ploy didn't work, but at least one of his targets was secured. "Sorry, kid," he whispered. "You should've chosen your friends more wisely." He slit the boy's throat. He let the dying body slide to the ground and backed a step to give it space to complete its death throes before becoming motionless forever. A pool of blood expanded sluggishly from the focal point that was the boy's nearly severed neck.
"Your companion is dead." He scrutinized the dakkanya's face for signs of remorse but found none. Cold-blooded bastard, aren't you? In that respect, they were very similar. "You have yourself to blame for it."
"Are you really sure he's dead?" asked the dakkanya eerily.
Before he had the chance to puzzle over that strange question, the boy's corpse suddenly rose from the ground and latched onto his legs. Pushing down the terror that was threatening to paralyze him, he attempted to kick the corpse away, but his feet felt as if they were glued onto the ground. The dead boy tilted his head upwards and he recoiled at the sight. The gaping wound under the boy's chin was like a hideous second grin aimed at him. In a desperate frenzy, he hacked off the arms holding him and managed to free himself. While retreating from the corpse, his legs moved as if they were immersed in water. Looking down, he saw that it was not water, but blood. He was knee-deep in a pool of viscous blood.
A part of his mind told him that what he was seeing could not be real; that it was all a hallucination. In his experience, dead people stayed dead. Holding onto that reassuring thought, he was able to master his fear when more zombies emerged from the blood pool. They were all corpses in various stages of decay; corpses of various people he had assassinated in the last few years. Bony, rotting hands reached out towards him and he systematically sliced them to pieces with his sword. Dealing death to the undead was no different from dealing it to living. Nothing could faze him now…
A crack appeared in his shell of emotional detachment when he caught sight of the pale, slender woman facing him from a distance. Her wind-tousled auburn locks framed a face that was brimming with sadness.
Yuuko…
His daughter was as silent as she usually was. One thing was different. Her once-vacant eyes now exuded an emotion that he had always dreaded to see. Shame. Shame at him and what he had done. Shame at what he had become. "No…" His voice trembled. "Don't look at me like that. I… I did it for you! All those people I killed… I did it out of love…"
Those eyes held no pity, no mercy, no forgiveness. Those eyes held only judgment. With that gaze, she repudiated him.
"NO!" He tried to rush towards her but multiple hands were holding him back, pulling him ever deeper into a swirling vortex of blood and death. He hadn't even realized that he had discarded his sword and that he was now at the mercy of his vengeful victims. He stopped struggling after a while. It mattered little what happened to him. He had lost the only thing that mattered to him; the only thing that he had been fighting to preserve all this time. He took comfort in knowing that Yuuko was alive once more- no longer the soulless doll she used to be.
The darkness swallowed him up.
XXXXXX
"Wha… What happened to him?"
"The same thing that's going to happen to you if you don't get your butt inside the car this instant!" It was an empty threat, he knew, for he had used up his daily allowance of Jagan already. But the brat didn't know that. "Or, if you wish, you can stay here and be turned into sashimi. Your choice."
Ban averted his eyes from the tearful man kneeling on the road. He had not expected the old man's psyche to be so fragile. Although it made it easier for him to break the man's mind, it also made Ban feel like he had waded through muck. He took no pride in what he had done.
The brat was sitting quietly in the passenger seat when he got into the car. 'How atypical,' Ban thought, but that was because he couldn't witness his own dark expression. He wanted to drive off before the minute was up, as he had no desire to finish his duel with the old man.
The brat was relentless. "You did something to him, didn't you?"
"So what if I did?" In no mood to be interrogated, Ban offered no more information.
"You… that…" A brief pause. "That was the 'dream' thing you mentioned before, am I right?"
The brat was quite perceptive, to have reached that conclusion just from observing the old man's breakdown from the side.
"So what if it was?"
"It must be nice to have a special ability that guarantees you victory in every fight, even if your opponent is stronger than you." A hint of resentment.
Nice? Ban's grip on the steering wheel tightened until his knuckles turned white. "Quit your whining, you weakling." Ban knew that his words had hit the mark when he heard the brat's sharp intake of breath.
"Yes, I'll admit that I'm a weakling." Rage was boiling beneath a thin veneer of calm. "Even so, I won't be spoken to like that! Not by you, or anyone else! Let's settle this once and for…"
"Look, twerp, you've taken advantage of my kind and sweet nature long enough. Frankly, I'm tired of having to put up with your psychotic behaviour."
"Kind and…!" There was a retching noise.
"If you hurl for real, I'm booting you out of my car without bothering to stop first. Understood?" Ban was not kidding, and he made sure that his toneless voice reflected this.
After they drove in silence for a while, the brat demanded, "I want my knife back, Porcupine-head."
Ban resisted the temptation to boot the ungrateful kid out through the window then and there, hurl or no hurl. "Don't worry. I'll give it back to you soon enough," he said through clenched teeth. "The moment I drop you off for good."
The brat eyed him suspiciously. "What do you mean, 'for good'?"
"It's time for you to leave, runt. Your attachment to the Get Backers officially ends today."
"But you can't…" protested the brat. "Need I remind you who has been paying for your nicotine fix these past two weeks? We had an agreement! Ten packets of cigs for one assign…"
"Playtime's over, brat," snapped Ban, losing his patience. "We're not dealing with missing pets or extorted lunch money anymore. Tag along with us long enough, and you'll most certainly die an early death. You're too weak. You can't even protect yourself."
"Faugh! Don't say it as if you're doing this for my safety! You're just trying to get rid of me!"
"Yes, I'm trying to get rid of you alright. So be a good boy, make like a tree, and lea…"
"Hell, I won't! Doesn't Ginji have a say in this too? You're not the only member of the Get…"
"Ginji would agree with me," stated Ban confidently.
Silence.
The kid's attitude completely changed where Ginji was concerned. He should have noticed this before. "Have you forgotten that Ginji had allowed you to join us on one condition? Once you're hurt in any serious way…"
"But he doesn't know that I'm hurt! And he doesn't have to know!"
"I know. And I'm telling him."
"You creep!" The brat cried, stamping his foot petulantly. "Well, I'm telling him about your little venture behind his back tonight!"
Ban snorted. Where pleading fails, try blackmailing? "What will you tell him?"
"That you… um… went and saw Mr. Wazuki and exacted revenge from him!"
"Ah yes, and you could see all that from the vantage point of the interior of the car trunk, couldn't you?" Ban smirked at the dumbfounded boy.
"You…" The brat's pointing finger quivered. "You did it on purpose!"
"Oh, come now. Did you really think that I locked you in the trunk by accident?"
Refusing to admit defeat, the brat plodded on. "I'll improvise then! It's not hard to imagine what atrocities you're capable of!"
"You can do that, and we'll see whom Ginji trusts more. You, the human chewing gum that got stuck to the bottom of his shoe two weeks ago; or me, his partner for the past two years."
"Two years? That's not a very long time, is it?"
"That's still more than fifty times longer than you've known him, you pint-sized punk!" Ban slammed on the brakes, forcing the car to an abrupt halt. "Out. Now."
The brat clung to the seat like a limpet. "I'm not leaving."
One swift punch on the noggin; that's all it takes… Ban sighed. "I don't know what you're running away from, brat, but clinging to Ginji isn't the solution."
The brat jerked upright and glared at him sideways. "You're the one doing the running, not me," he countered.
"Me! The almighty Mido Ban-sama never…!" Ban realized, too late, that he had been sidetracked rather cunningly.
"You ran away from your fight with the assassin just now, didn't you? With your tail between your legs, no less."
"Are you blind or something! You saw how I could have easily crushed that rickety old…"
"Then why didn't you?" asked the brat angrily.
"Because he's ancient! Not to mention bleeding from the head before we even fought. Do I look like the twisted type who enjoys elderly abuse?"
"He's not an ordinary old man. You saw how he had wounded Ginji."
So that was the reason behind the anger. "And Ginji had wounded him too; though I hadn't expected that," said Ban, frowning. "I didn't think Ginji had it in him to be that brutal towards an opponent like that."
The brat had the look of someone bearing up under a mild irritation of the bowels. "Uh… yeah."
Eyes narrowing into slits, Ban asked, "You wouldn't have something to do with that old man's injuries now, would you?"
The brat's silence was as condemning as a loud confession.
"Right," said Ban. "So, not only do you go around stealing stuff, you also do a bit of mugging as a sideline."
"I don't mug! I hit him purely in self-defence!"
"Self-defence, my ass," Ban quipped. "He'd have to be more or less unconscious for you to even get close enough to touch him. If that's the case, there's really no point in hitting him anymore. What did you do? Wait for Ginji to incapacitate him and then jump in for easy pickings?"
"You've no right to judge me!" The brat's nostrils flared like an enraged bull's. "It's all your fault that I had to do such a despicable thing!"
Ban covered his eyes with a hand wearily. "How is it my fault now?"
"If you hadn't sent Ginji off on his own to meet up with the client, none of this would have happened! Ginji wouldn't have gotten hurt, and I wouldn't have to do what was necessary to keep both of us safe!"
"By 'what was necessary', you meant the bludgeoning of a defenceless old man?"
"Yes!" declared the brat fiercely. "Because you chose not to come along with Ginji when you should have!"
"I was held up by a dozen or so security guards," said Ban, trying not to sound too defensive. "Remember?"
"I don't believe that's the reason. You could've made short work of those guards. It shouldn't be a difficult task for the almighty Mido Ban-sama, right?" The brat pronounced the honorific with a sneer. "You sent Ginji to collect the payment alone on purpose. Why?"
Why indeed? Ban was not sure of the reason himself. Perhaps it was Ginji's desperate eagerness to prove himself worthy of his role as one of the Get Backers. As if such a demonstration is necessary... the idiot. Or maybe it was the look of utter misery on Ginji's face when he was sent away. Ban had succumbed to the hidden plea in that look and changed his original order of 'wait for me and don't do anything stupid' to 'make yourself useful and go get the money'. One million yen was a lot to risk in Ginji's hands; especially with the dolt's horrendous past record of breaking, microwaving and drowning their retrieved items out of sheer carelessness or stupidity. But a partnership could not work without trust, and he had trusted Ginji to do his job; the same way Ginji had trusted him to do his.
No matter what his real reason was, Ban had no intention of sharing it with anyone. "Who are you to demand any explanations from me?" he said flatly. "You're nothing to the Get Backers, so stop acting as if you belong with us."
The brat flinched. "I'm… Ginji's friend."
"But you're definitely not one of mine." Ban threw the confiscated switchblade onto the brat's lap. "Now get out of here."
The brat did not move; not even to pick up his weapon.
Ban was about to haul the boy bodily out of the car when he heard a sniffle. No, don't tell me he's…If there was one thing Ban hated more than brats, it was a crying brat. Argh! "Crocodile tears don't work on me, bud!"
Ban had hoped to infuriate the brat into a state of tearless-ness but the plan backfired. More tears gushed forth and Ban wanted to bang his head on the steering wheel. Repeatedly. Why me? Why me? Why me?…"Will you stop that already!"
"I j-just want t-to… " The brat stammered between choked sobs. "… be w-with… some…one w-who… c-cares…"
Throwing his arms up in defeat, Ban bellowed, "OKAY! Stay if you want to! Get yourself killed if you want to! Just stop that infernal bawling at once!"
A pin-drop silence suddenly filled the air. The brat nonchalantly flicked the remaining tears off his bleary eyes. "If you say so."
I can't believe I fell for that. "On one condition though," growled Ban, more angry with himself than with the smug boy before him.
"Hey, you can't back out from your promise now! You just said that I can…"
"One carton of cigarettes for each assignment from now on," said Ban, matching the brat glare for glare. "This is a deal-breaker."
Bemused, the brat looked at him steadily for a few seconds. He then nodded. "Okay."
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Author's Note: I wasn't planning to post another chapter so soon (yes, for a tremendously slow writer like me, a two month period is considered 'soon'). This chapter is written mainly for those of you who are expecting a 'teamwork scene' from me. Originally, I was too lazy to write this part of the story; but after it's finished, I'm sort of glad that I did. Also, the long dialogue at the end of the chapter serves to (blatantly) answer a few questions posed to me in the reviews. As usual, any feedback is greatly appreciated :)