A/N: Say cheese!

XXXXXX

Concentration: Part III

Like a bolt of lightning, the shuriken launched, slicing a path through the dust before its deadly spiral came to a sudden halt by hitting its mark. The instant crunch of the splintering wood squeezed a yelping gasp from Kazehana and Minato took a step back. He didn't blink once, yet the distance traveled by the projectile didn't at all alert his sense of vision. One moment it was in the ballista, the next it was buried deep in the target. Well outside the horizon of danger; the 20pt zone.

Minato wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but couldn't bring himself to as they were on a time crunch. Sweat was pouring down his head like mad. The world felt like it was spinning, going round and round just as the one he held dear. Only in the opposite direction. He felt his mind-warping, corkscrewing into a bottomless vortex deeper than that of the most stellar of black holes. He could have only imagined what that would have done to Kazehana if it had actually hit her...and he had to do that eleven more times… The doubt began to creep in and seize his life as it always had.

He shook the feeling, trying his best to ignore the knot in his belly.

Another red dot appeared. Wiping his sweat-coated brow and flicking the moisture from his finger, Minato squinted, getting a better feel for the timing needed to pull this off again…

"Now!" he shouted.

Kazehana obeyed, and again the call was good.

The storm of tension in the ronin's heart scourged; his blood pressure dropped. He almost collapsed.

Amidst the brief stagger, something steeled him. Normally, as the tape had noted, being put under extreme pressure and having to concentrate made it hard for him to think, and yet here he was, putting his doubts to rest.

He felt a grip on his shoulder and turned to face Benitsubasa with a...supportive look on her face. "Trust your judgment. You're doing well."

Minato felt a sudden relief in his mind hearing those words come from her. It's one thing for a loved one to show support and praise, but hearing it from someone that had no reason to be hopeful in your ability and hated you made it feel like his actions really did have an influence. He could- no, he WOULD do this.

"Minato!" Kazehana cried. "How many?"

"Two down!" the laser once again appeared as his thought was interrupted. "And get ready to press it again!"

"Okay!" Her thumb curled in preparation for the incoming order.

"NOW!"

*Click*

She groaned feeling a sudden gust that was all too close for comfort. It came within millimeters of her right bosom.
The bubbling in his heart dropped to his stomach. "Oh, thank god. Thank god. Thank god."

Another beam glistened to the board. "NOW!"

She pressed the button again, and the shuriken flew. A surprised 'ack' ruptured from the wind maiden's spleen as the blade nicked itself into her thigh.

"Kazehana!"

"I'm okay, Minato!" Kazehana reassured him, in an obviously pained tone. "T-that was my fault. I hesitated on that last button press."

Was Minato hearing this correctly? Was Kazehana second-guessing and not fully trusting him?

Before he could sink into another well of self-pity, Benitsubasa delivered a heavy shove to his noggin.

"Gah, what was tha-"

"Sekirei aren't all perfect, pipsqueak. You heard her yourself, that was on her. You've come this far. Don't just call it quits because there was a slipup. She's fine. You can still win."

He steeled himself and nodded. "Right."

*Click*/*FLASH!*

A bright flicker of light strobed onto the wind mistress and into the Ronin's corneas. He initially thought was lightning, but he remembered that there were no windows. The light was there for not even a fraction of a second, but unless one blinked at just the right moment it was impossible to miss. There was another flash, and the now confused Sahashi youth tilted his head to the opposite side of the game room.

He found its source.

A polaroid camera. That freak in the cage with her was taking mementos and now had the camera down to his chest to observe his work.

"You…" Minato couldn't believe this. The shrouded brute had the nerve to mock their suffering as if what they were already going through wasn't enough. Not even Jigsaw did that. "You are pure evil!"

A scowl distorted by the churning in her stomach altered Benitsu's expression as the pig-headed deadbeat took more photographs. "Sick fuck…"

Benitsubasa remembered every detail of how Kazehana sent her flying across the capital like Team Rocket, just as Yume did before her. She dreamed of ways of making her pay and suffer beyond Minato's most morbid of nightmares. Now that she was brought to bear witness to it, she came to regret all of it. No amount of fulfillment was gained, watching this little bird's suffering drawn out and seeing her Ashikabi break during it all. She was...remorseful?

As her thoughts swirled about her mind, the game continued to play out as normal. Three more shurikens had launched, with none of them doing harm. He was doing well. He turned to her again for reassurance and she smirked and nodded as he took another stab at things as it were.

The pinkette honed her eyes on the newly flayed skin that had opened on the first and surprisingly only one slip up so far. It only nicked into some of the fatty flesh and came nowhere near the bone or any major blood vessels. It simply skinned her. The laceration was bleeding quite a bit though. As the pace of the wheel's revolutions quickened, it started to splatter against the walls and floor. Some of it painted her dress even.

She then looked at Minato, who was in a lapse of momentary shock as some of Kazehana's blood droplets splat against his cheek. As small as the drops were, the event seemed to trigger something in him to revert back again. Grasping at the grid fence, he hung and shook his head, taking shallow breaths. That power outage must have shorted the electricity that sent him flying moments ago.

"Don't get all mopey on me now, Minato." Benitsu spat as she grabbed him by the arm and used her glove to smear the blood droplets off his face. "That buta-hentai is trying to play mind games with you! Don't let him!" She shoved him, hard. "Keep concentrating!"

He shook the cobwebs and nodded.

The laser then beamed to life, and he called out. "Fire!"

XXX-Jigsaw's Workshop-XXX

John blinked; his light blue eyes glued to the distant silhouettes on the monitor. Dry cracks upon his visage fissured in the flickering static. His subject made another good call. The shuriken didn't even come close to the body this time.
"Something is amiss here." John Kramer said as his pupils swayed to meet the gaze of Dr. Gordon.

"What's the problem?"

"Mr. Mathis was not supposed to have met up with our subjects before this test." He informed. "And that sudden power outage when he arrived was not planned either."

"He sure knows how to make an entrance, I'll give him that." He admitted. "Are you worried?"

"Not in the least bit." He reassured him, paying his mind to the monitor once again. Another shuriken had been fired. "As I've said, my field general likes to put on a show. Best sit back and watch the magic happen."

XXX-The Game-XXX

Relief was dispersing the cloud over Minato's feelings of hopelessness. They were halfway there with just one minor mishap so far.

Another red beam marked its territory…but the wheel's rotation suddenly kicked into high gear. It was easily going twice as fast as last time, but why?!

He peeked over at the field general again, who had just released his grip on the handle he used to originally start the device. He snapped a photo of them.

*Click*/*FLASH!*

Benitsu bashed her fist into the fence. "Take a photo of me again and you will be sorry!" She grapples the grid with her fingers, shaking it wildly before finally pressing her face into it like that one scene in The Shining. "You hear me?! I'll shove that long fat lens so far up your pighole that if I start snapping photos even the sickest otaku wouldn't be able to masturbate to the result!"

Minato swallowed, and retrained his focus on the current task. "Fire it again!"

She complied immediately this time. Much to the ronin's horror, the blade flew through the air like an oversized bullet and buried itself into the Wind Mistress's shoulder. She cried out in pain, but that was expected.

"NO!" He punched the fence. He pounded into it more, harder and harder as his swearing blasted in volume. "DAMMIT! DAMMIT!DAMMIT!"

*Click*/*FLASH!*

The ronin began screaming, tearing at his scalp. "God, make it stop! Please make it stop! No more! No more!"

"For fuck's sake, Minato!" Benitsu grasped the ronin by the shoulder and spun him around. She yanked him by the collar, and pulled him in till their noses almost brushed. "Get ahold of yourself!"

"What's going on out there? Minato are you alright?!" Kazehana hissed.

"Shut your damn mouth!" She shoved Minato on his ass. "This doesn't concern you!"

"Like hell, it doesn't!" She shouted back. "Minato, talk to me, please!"

"Please, enough from the both of you!" Minato whimpered, pulling himself to his knees.

Another beam lit up. This one was close to the center. Not much margin for error.

"Fine, you did enough for now. More than I would have thought." Benitsu grumbled as she pushed him away. She focused back on the game. "Alright, from now on you press that button when I say so! Is that understood sweetheart?!"

"As if I would trust you."

The grid rattled, and she jumped back at the noise. The beast's signature black knife had lodged itself in the grid. She looked up at the shadowy figure. Shaking his head no, it cut its hand through the foggy air like a reaper's scythe and jabbed his pointer finger at the Ronin.

He was the one who must play.

She must only observe.

"Yeah, you're really tough on the other side of that barrier, aren't you?!"

Minato staggered back to his feet. "Fire it again…"

The spinning blade soared and buried itself into the board, but the edge made a clean slice through her outer bosom. Her bra tore, delicate indigo dress ripped asunder. Her right breast bounced to full view, and slid upon the razor sharp edge. It cut deep, and the fact she was rotating and couldn't move didn't help matters.

*Click*/*FLASH!*

Minato would have been sweating bullets right now if it weren't for the fact that bullets were already poised to blow his head off. He was about to say something reassuring to his beloved Sekirei, when he saw, to his utter horror, that her thumb was going for the button right now.

"Kazehana! Stop!" he shrieked, but his words came too late.

She pushed the button and Kazehana's left arm was next to be slit asunder, eliciting a cry of pain from the powerful alien.
"Kazehana!"

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Minato turned back to Kazehana, but his eyes widened when he saw her finger going for the button again.

"Don't!" he screamed, but again, he was a microsecond too late. Mercifully it submerged in the wide space between her legs…

Minato could feel his heart pounding in his chest, but Benitsubasa's words rang in his head, and he, with great difficulty, managed to steel himself. "Kazehana!" he cried. "Don't push it until I say so!"

"What?" she cried back. Had the pain made her hard of hearing? "Push it?'"

"No! Wait!"

…The second to last dagger discharged, the cruel tip slammed into its mark. A gasp erupted from Kazehana's abdomen. The ronin's winced away. He slowly inched his head up. He surveyed the scene, and sank to his knees…

"Oh thank god." he panted. "Thank God-all-fucking-mighty..."

The blade missed. It was a miracle how the contents of Minato's stomach were still inside it, and even more so that he hadn't soiled himself.

"Is everything okay, Minato?" the straining Kazehana questioned. "How many more do we have left."

"Just one…" he huffed out, swallowing a mouthful of saliva. "Just one more, and you're free…"

Another laser lit up, the roulette spinning faster than ever. "Press it now…"

He sealed his eyes shut as it soared, and missed. They had done it.

"Oh thank god it's over…" Minato sighed.

Benitsu glared a hole into the pighead. "Alright you son of a bitch, that was the last one, so let her go! Right now! Or else I'm breaking in there and forcing you!" she demanded, beating the grid with her forearm. "You hearin me?!"

The field general made good on his master's word, and pulled the lever; the splintered dartboard grinds to a lethargic halt. The pair sighed as the wind matron's person rotated upright. But soon after, they heard a slow unsheathing. Mathis had drawn another ebony-shrouded knife. The blade's tip held sternly locked in his middle and ring fingers, he lined it up between his sight and Kazehana's head.

Now it was his turn to test his accuracy.

"No please!" Minato retched forth. Jigsaw's muscle angles his arm back, preparing for the pitch. "Have mercy!"

He let the ka-bar fly, the thirteenth projectile had been released…and hit its mark; the ribbon encircling the wilted one's vision unraveled and floated down like a dove's feather. Minato had flinched away, but Benitsubasa had full attentiveness.

From where she was standing, she couldn't make out whether or not it actually went through her skull or came really close.

She asked herself, how lucky did the youth feel?

Kazehana hadn't moved a muscle since the impact…then her eyes shot open, her pupils angled to the blade, mouth widened in shock. It was literally a millimeter away from her temple.

"You can open your eyes now, Minato." Benitsu stated. Minato peeked out from the refuge of cover. "She's fine. Any closer though and her head would have split apart like a melon. Turns out thirteen is your lucky number. Either that or he was showing off."

"I think I'm going to be sick…"

The boiling spotlight's hum is silenced, and the room is once again shrouded in blackness. A moment later, the generators kick back on and the whole area lights up. Kazehana was still bound to her device, but Mathis had vanished. The grid separating Minato from his 5th Sekirei began its slow ascent to the ceiling. Though she bled, her life had not been forfeit. Minato earned her. The third trial was complete.

He rushed to her side, Benitsu following behind. He looked into her eyes as she winced in pain.

"C'mon," he said. "We gotta get those shurikens out of her before those wounds become infected."

"Right." Benitsu nodded.

…

With some careful effort, two of the shurikens were removed safely. The one in her shoulder was really hammered in though. Bentisu would have to be a bit rough to get it out. Now all they had to do was pick the little bird from her nest…but no key was left behind to release the shackles.

"Hey," Minato called out. "since the game is over, I think it's safe for you to use your powers now. Can you tear off those shackles?"

"Yeah, sure."

She grabs one and yanks it off. Bobbing her head down, Benitsu grumbled. "I have to admit, Minato, you showed some real balls during all this."

"You call me cowering and panicking like a child ballsy?" he asked, holding Kazehana's frame so she wouldn't fall.
"I'd be the same way if my Ashikabi were on the other side of that fence," She ripped off another shackle. "So I can't blame you. Telling her to press the button when that freak was standing right in front of her though," …and another shackle. "THAT was impressive."

"Well, thanks I guess."

…

"Eaaaasy now…"

With their heads tucked beneath Kazehana's arms, they helped her down to the floor. She winced and showed a clear loss of strength. How she'd be able to trudge along without any energy would be a real problem. With the clock still ticking, her wounded self could prove to only slow them down…if only there was a way to reinvigorate her…

He cradled the crying bird in a warm embrace. Though the collar Minato wore made it uncomfortable, he didn't care…and neither did she. All that mattered was they were reunited, and nothing could separate them again. Minato would make damn sure of that once this nightmare was over. Kazehana, though weak, managed to pull away from him and let herself wilt back. She gazed into her Ashikabi's watering eyes, and slipped a hand to his backside, giving it a tight squeeze.

He peeped in shock, but couldn't help but smile. That was his Kazehana alright.

Benitsubasa rolled her eyes, trying to mask the envy welling up inside her. She turned her attention back to the roulette, and locking eyes on the masked golem's weapon of choice, she gripped the hilt and began to pull.

"Why are you taking the big guy's knife?" Minato asked.

"Same reason you took the lightbulb from before." She explained. "Might have been left behind for a reason. Besides," she yanked it out from bloodstained roulette, ripping away the splinters and slipping it into her belt. "I'd rather he not get it back."

"Good point…just don't go stabbing us in the back now."

"We've been through this already, Minato-"

"I know, I know. I'm joking." He looked at Kazehana. "Can you walk?"

Without warning, Kazehana pulled his head in and locked her lips against his; her violet wings burst from behind her, and their humming brilliance soon faded.

Pulling away, she brushed her hair back with her fingers and smiled. Her strength had returned. "I can now."

Hopping to his feet, he lent the wind maiden a hand and helped her to hers. Though she wobbled, Kazehana still stood firm. As she stretched her limbs, which had healed to the point where they hadn't bled from doing so, a cassette tape fell from her dress and clattered to the floor.

The three stared at it for a moment, and Minato withdrew the tape recorder from his pocket.

"Let's see what it says…"

He picks up the tape, and relays the message.

"If you are listening to this, you have succeeded in earning back Kazehana. There is no doubt in my mind that she has most likely expressed great appreciation for you saving her, and as such, kissed you. However, I see the reinvigorating effects of this bond to give you all a rather unfair advantage. That being the case, I have limited the use of such a method down to four uses which can be distributed between all your Sekirei. If you look down, you can see, one of the red lights on your collar has gone black. This indicates that one kiss has been used. If you try to kiss one of your Sekirei after all the lights have dimmed, it will be considered game over and the collar will detonate. You can choose to kiss one four times, two twice, or one for four individual Sekirei you have winged. My advice would be to use this bond sparingly and only in the direst of circumstances. Good luck."

The tape grinds to a halt.

"One kiss down…three more to spare…" Minato thought out loud.

"Wait," Benitsu questioned, doing finger math. "Don't you have five Sekirei?"

"With Kusano gone, yes."

"So that means even if you kiss evenly between all your Sekirei…one will still be left out."

"I know." He said. "That just means we're going to have to try hard and watch each other's backs as much as possible, so as to keep damages to a minimum."

Benitsu made for the door. "Clock is still ticking you two. Let's get a move on!"

"I still have no idea what's going on." Kazehana pointed out.

"We'll explain on the way. Until then, just stay close to me, understood?"

She whispered to Minato. "Are you sure we can trust her, hun?"

"Not entirely," he whispered back. "but we've had each other's backs since this all started. I saved her life, and she saved mine. So for now, it's safe to say we're on good terms with each other."

"WELL?" Benitsu shouted, stamping her boot impatiently.

"Uh, yes, understood. Understood." Minato said, steadying Kazehana and getting her prepared to walk.

"Good. Now let's get the fuck out of this shithole."

3:38:06…3:38:05…3:38:04…

XXXXXX

John Kramer curved his chapped lips to grin at his triumphant subject. The prize he held in his arms, albeit damaged had been rightfully earned by him.

"The kid showed a lot of courage there in the face of Mathis, you have to admit." Dr. Gordon commented.

John leered his pupils at the man's words. "Indeed...but this is far from their last encounter."

The cellphone at his side vibrates. John picks it up, bringing it to his ear.

On the other end, a feminine, very stoic voice echoed. 'The package has left the capital. Do you have the footage?'

"There has been a change of plans I'm afraid." He went on. "I'd much rather deliver this message personally…"

Standing up, he snapped the phone shut. "Doctor Gordon, I'm afraid I must take my leave. As of now, you are responsible for overseeing the young man's game…"