The Alley
It could have been a shift in the earth's magnetic pull rousing Akabane the way the full moon is said to kick the tides into a frenzy. Whatever the cause, the crisp autumn night found Doctor Jackal on the prowl. There was no occasion but the occasion that was able to be made. Hunters don't need reasons. The initiative lies in the instinct. He was in a controlling mood, an exacting mood. And that night, the one element dangling beyond the mortal tips of any human grasp--Fate-- smiled upon his path and cooperated with a wink.
That's Kagami Kyoji in the alleyway taking a leak. Don't laugh, Akabane told himself. He's only human. If Babylon City started making them without such bodily functions, that would be cause for concern. Here and now, there's no reason why a professional like himself should succumb to juvenile humour and sabotage that glitch of circumstance neatly giftwrapped and handed to him with a reverent bow.
Akabane moved in tandem with the passing motion of a vehicle to mask whatever little sound he created. Before the roving headlight could remove his cover, he cut around a dumpster and slipped into Kagami's blind spot. The Babylonian could not have adopted a more prideful stance in the task of marking his territory. His impeccable posture draped the white fabric of his suit so perfectly over his taut back as though he were a plastic mannequin and not the breathing piece of obviously-metabolizing life form under those pretentious coverings. Had Akabane not ripped Kagami's clothes off so many times in the past, he would have been forever divided on whether Kagami knew the master tailor or possessed the perfect form.
Having finished his business, the man in the white suit shook himself off. His earring caught and lazily twirled the light of another passing car, so close was he to the street, and so obviously unconcerned with the idea of being discovered. What cared the lion if he pissed on an ant? Then that same cool light brought out the full set of scalpels in severe lines as they infringed on the space around his nether-regions. When Kagami felt another body pressing against his back, he'd gone as stiff as a soldier.
"How very inappropriate for you to conduct such affairs without the proper precautions," Akabane said softly over his captive's shoulder. "You, especially, Kagami Kyoji, have no excuse." The position granted him an exquisite view of that deliciously shocked expression. Night vision allowed a grainy picture of those widened eyes so tantalizing in their fear of him, lasting a full second of mortal honesty, before pomp and the self-preservation instinct forced a clamp-down on such betrayals and began the reversal of attitude. As angry as the mirror-user looked, Akabane could just barely see him blushing like a socialite of too much wine caught dancing with his pants down. How adorable. "And yet how very courteous of you to have been so prepared for my visit," Akabane added, tracing circles up Kagami's straight back with each inflection of his melodic voice. "Were you expecting me?"
There was a flicker of eyelash followed by a nervous rocking of those violet irises that were now almost as pale as the whites of his eyes. Kagami took a breath so slowly as though to make a desperate purchase of time. But when he spoke, it was with a steadiness under the pressure that Akabane found himself admiring distantly through the other much louder commands of his mind. "I may have performed shameful breaches of etiquette tonight, but you yourself are in no position to claim higher ground." That last part, punctuated with a ferocious glare, caused Akabane to be very aware of his hand now set on Kagami's firm rear end. With that shameful variable in place, they were having quite the interesting conversation.
"You deny others their privacy," Akabane shot smoothly back. "Tonight yours is violated. Should I not hold my position until this lesson in conduct is fully absorbed?" A clatter of a button later, Kagami missed the opportunity to do up his fly. One of the scalpels now traced the zipper.
"Acting the police now. Should your own law book put you to death for the deaths of a thousand others?"
"I've been waiting, with the utmost impatience, for that justice to be served."
"And yet you do not serve it to yourself. Why, Kuroudo Akabane, all you've come to prove is that might makes right. In a world like that, there is little credibility for this facade of politeness which you hold in such high esteem."
"Why Kagami Kyoji, I believe you've just shattered one of your own mirrors."
"I'll try my luck. I've got plenty more."
"You're still a high-stakes gambler."
Akabane dealt a hard flick that made Kagami jolt. There was no blood drawn but the blow drove a stake through the blonde man's pride. Kagami's lips peeled back to reveal the elegant edges of a cosmetically-shaped snarl. "Armed to the teeth and still employing the cheap tactics of a helpless girl? May there be no witnesses to the embarrassment that is to be your final fight."
A skip in his excited pulse made Akabane forget about the nipping chill in the air or the approach of winter itself. Even the most squalling winds of the most remote frozen wastelands could not stifle that inferno burning within the two of them, intensifying at every meeting. They saw to that before... Here and now, to hear such words coming from the infamous Babylonian spy made Akabane feel somewhat insulted. A part of him wanted to cultivate this spark like a passionate gardener while another part of him yearned to crush the petals in his fist until the tender juices ran down the creases of his hand. He hated Kagami so much he loved hating him. He could sense that hate returned from the thrown-back glare and the challenging hike of that shapely brow.
Silence wedged itself into the situation, monopolizing the marching passage of time like a crazy conductor silently plotting the greatest wreck in human history. Another car passed, coughing complaints of its overextended life to a passive audience of deaf ears, and with a wink of a single headlight, disappeared off the edge of the alley's wall. Shadows closed in again like the tides coming back together after the wake of an ancient mysterious beast.
In the darkness, Akabane moved. His gloved hand closed with the hunger of a Venus flytrap. Had he not mercifully retracted his scalpels he would have certainly been responsible for severe damage dealt. The grip nevertheless came oppressive, bordering on crushing, and threatening that very possibility with every marginal increment of pressure in a trial that was as psychologically tormenting as it was physical. Kagami's carefully laid surface of cool cracked down under the pressure. He was largely blind to his aggressor's expression from the angle at which he stood, held captive doubly by Akabane and his own fear-stricken imagination. Akabane enjoyed evidence of this in his captive's desperate wriggling and the erratic pulse felt deep into his hand. He enjoyed the breathy sounds of fear that resulted from Kagami's living nightmare and the way his body slid back against him in an off-balanced effort to releave the strain. He enjoyed the uncalculated way his clean shoes grated against the roughness of the still-damp asphalt where moments ago Kagami placed his feet with the deliberate sureness of a cat. It was all so very undignified, so very provocative. It was another way of undressing Kagami without making a move to take his clothes off.
With a deft flick of force, Akabane released Kagami to his left where his leg leaned as a nonchalant obstruction to his path. Already robbed of his balance and sense of perspective, Kagami tripped and accepted a sudden free-fall into the asphalt. He curled sharply around the point of connection that was his shoulder. Akabane stood over him, reminded of the classic alleyway fight in any generic gangster movie. All he lacked was a crowbar in his hand, but the invisible weapon in this scenario was medicine enough on a man who couldn't bear to be pummeled with such an unprecedented amount of humiliation. Kagami wasn't even guarded against a possible kick in the back.
Akabane celebrated his triumph with a private smirk. His trench coat rippled in Kagami's face as he turned away. He directed a flippant look towards the contents of a dumpster, idly occupied in his boring task of waiting. The dim light revealed what his other senses predicted. The dumpster carried an inoffensive load comprising mostly of old office equipment. The autumn chill tamed the degradation of anything organic that might have been possibly wedged inside. The blessing came mixed. There was ample time for the selection of some random and interesting object he could use to further humiliate his victim, but all he found were boring pieces of modern bourgeois existence. Not even a dirty diaper. Now that would've been worth a chuckle, considering. The Doctor sighed. His eyes revolved back to Kagami. "Well, are you going to get up or are you too awestruck by the scenery down there?"
No answer.
"The longer you wait, the greater the chance someone will see us like this." No sooner had the taunt left Akabane's mouth, he contemplated the possibility Kagami had already thrown visual blockades around their vicinity. In fact, it would have been strategically correct to have done it before the struggle. Akabane glanced up and down the alleyway with passing interest. There was no sure way of finding out without leaving, and he certainly didn't feel like leaving just yet. The night was young, the fresh meat still fresh.
"Just wait until the right person sees the wrong moment." Akabane knocked over something on his way back to the fallen blonde and identified the discarded chattels as a bag of fruit apparently not even fit for a hobo. He retrieved an apple and cradled it in his palm with his fingers drumming the surface, scanning Kagami's elegant anatomy for a choice target. "Then you'd be out of a job and tossed out like a bag of rotten fruit." Akabane lobbed it at the tip of Kagami's nose, forcing the guy to jerk his face a few inches off the ground. The apple ricocheted off the wall and spun in the weak light, amazingly free of worm holes and certainly signs of rot. Akabane made a motion vaguely resembling a shrug at the lesser of the great mysteries in the alley. Perhaps it was too sour.
Kagami peeled a sticky Caramilk wrapper off his knee and crushed the flimsiness out of an empty box of Pockey. He seemed about to deal similar treatment to the wobbling apple when he realized what it was. Akabane watched in curiosity as Kagami's eyes froze on the sticker label. Kagami's voice returning from its hiatus.
"This is a genetically modified fruit," Kagami said in an eerily deadpan tone.
Akabane looked into the bag. "That is correct."
"Were you aware of this?"
"Certainly," Akabane decided, would yield a more interesting response.
"You threw a piece of genetically modified fruit at me."
Akabane smiled. "You're a genetically modified fruit yourself, Kyoji--"
He tightened to a familiar burning sensation that began in his throat and peaked in his lungs. While they both knew from past experience that such an attack would not stun him for long, the resulting involuntary effect on the eyes had him frantically blinking away the tears as he coughed without control into his fist. His clearing vision brought only the dizzying maze of images, and he had lost the physical copy that was apparently playing shards of glass across his fingers like a deck of cards. Akabane savoured the taste of iron in his mouth. He coughed a rendition of his own weapon and prepared himself to face off.
They fought like a pair of alley cats, so great their fury, so cramped the space. Aside from the consideration to move their battle deeper into the shadows to avoid the street and the uncovered kitty litter, they employed minimal technique for such a couple of highly-skilled strategists. Clothes shred in the whirlwind of blades and blood intermingled in type and metal content. Close combat fighting between the likes of Akabane and Kagami lasted but for half a minute before the physically stronger of the two-- and more specialized for such unforgiving environmental constraints-- once again found dominance, darkness upon light, a single scalpel locked on target amidst the trashed beach of broken glass and dust scattered to all ends of the alley. If there was a price for losing one's temper, this was it.
"Not your day, is it?" said Akabane, slippery from fingers to elbow, one hand locked around that beautiful junction between Kagami's shoulder and neck. Both the blazer and the delicate layer or shirt lay in ribbons, and the blood had means to follow the natural lines of his body.
Some of that blood on Kagami was not his own.
"Nor is it your day, Kuroudo," Kagami said. "You're looking a little less healthy than you did a few minutes ago."
Akabane splayed his scalpels over that bared abdomen and then tickled their tips threateningly lower as a dire reminder of Kagami's last sensitive moment. "I have a word of advice for you. Sometimes it is healthier to sulk in the 'special' produce section of the supermarket than it is to pick uphill battles."
"Before you came by, I was just taking a goddamned leak!"
"Need we go into that circuitous argument again?"
"You could die of e. coli recycling your bullshit. Now that is justice served hot and steaming."
It was unacceptable, purely unacceptable. No matter how many times Akabane cut him, Kagami would resume with such unstoppable impertinence as though that quality were sealed in him by a patent upheld by a panting gaggle of biopharmaceutical super-lawyers. He had enough. Drop by drop, Akabane had been enlarging his territory of the ground until it touched every single glass shard that had flown and landed from his opponent's latest storm. With a spike of effort, the cruelest bed of needles began to materialize, catching the moonlight in unison to reflect a bright aura around Kagami's prone body.
Akabane gazed firmly into the helpless beauty beneath him. "I see you have not yet absorbed your lesson." He held that stare as he recoiled and brought his elbow down on Kagami's chest, the prickly mattress lancing up from beneath him. There were several jarring clanks. The sounds told of a protective invisible pane placed between the victim's back and the sharp needles. The stare of the Babylonian spy was as defiant as ever. The heat of battle caused his sweat to weaken the hold on his styling products, and his hair bristled wild to release the sweet smell of top-quality conditioner, a few pampered strands raking the gaunt slope of his cheek where a flying chip had nicked him.
The sight and smell of Kagami filled Akabane with some deep-seated emotion that pumped more strength into his anger. The whole effect knotted the muscles in his striking arm as though he'd stuck a scalpel in a socket. If there was one thing that prevented Akabane from simply slitting Kagami's throat in this position, it was his unyielding desire to send him into sensory Armageddon with his own goddamned glass. The blows rained harder. The steel of Kagami's limited defenses began to melt, his plight measured in the desperation of his winces and the way his pupils twitched in tune to his racing thoughts for alternatives. Akabane couldn't decide if Kagami began gasping out loud in pain, fear, effort, or all of the above. The blood continued to drain, his chest bruised, and the rattling of the protective pane must have accumulated enough needle scratches to look more foggy than clear to Akabane's eyes should Kagami have succeeded in carrying out some impossible escape from the alley's oppressive dimensions.
Impossible as it seemed, a sudden outburst of cheery laughter marked Kagami's escape from fear. The sound sent Akabane upright in an instant, where he held position there like a dumbfounded cat bitten on the nose by the mouse he'd been alternately batting and reviving for the past hour. Vertebrae by vertabrae, joint by joint, he prepared himself for some unknown attack from Kagami he had never witnessed before, and the seriousness with which he received Kagami's spontaneous laughter had him groaning with disbelief the next, feeling ever so foolish.
"To break the glass," Kagami said delicately through a smile, "you'll have to kill me the old fashioned way first. There's no way it's going to break as long as I lay flat like this." He swallowed painfully, chin painted red down a fine line, then he continued with the mirth that transcended his unfortunate position. "My my, Akabane. Even common criminals know to throw a brick into a window, not their entire bodies."
Akabane sat on his heel. His gloved hand went up to tip the edge of his hat, its shadow passing over his hot face. "A scalpel through the body..."
"... or simply into the glass beside my fucking head." Kagami groaned. "Fucking quack."
The next instant the glass shattered without much fanfare. Kagami didn't have time to utter a word before he was dumped onto the ground. The messy bed had apparently made itself, smoothed tame and sparkling, once again the trashed beach of scattered shards and dust. It was as though the hand struck midnight and the magic had died in a more graphic version of the Cinderella tale.
He looked up to a happy ending.
Akabane had gone.