Chapter Fifteen

"The Rail Tracer makes a stunning proposal"

Near Yorklyn, Pennsylvania

Thursday, 31st December 1931

04:30

As the Polymas were going on a dashing ride through the night sky, Yuya and the female members of his crew had reached the door at the top of the first-class carriage. If they climbed over the coal bed, they could reach the actually steam engine of the train where the drivers were. But that wasn't what Yuya was aiming for.

"You guys head down to the freight hold" he instructed the girls "Noburu's down there offloading the packages. Go help him. Then jump into the river with them once you're done. Michio should have the dining car handled."

"What are you going to do?" Meiru questioned.

"I'm going to draw the rest of them out" Yuya told her "Keep them from going after you guys."

"Yuya, wait" Yuzu placed a hand on his arm, forcing him to stand still "Take this."

She removed the eyepatch covering her right eye and reached to remove something. Whilst Meiru turned away making various gagging noises, Yuya just stood there unflinchingly. She then passed him what she had removed. On the surface, it looked like a glass eye, but in reality it was a cleverly disguised cherry bomb.

"This is the last cherry bomb I have on me" she told him "Use it to live."

Yuya accepted the tiny bomb with a smile. "Thanks Yuzu. I'll make sure to let it blow with love."

Yuzu's face turned a little pink. "My, my, Yuya. You keep saying such naughty things and I'll blush."

Before Meiru could scold them for acting so lovey-dovey at a time like this, the sound of a series of bullets ripped through the air, startling all three into seriousness.

"Go on" Yuya jerked his head towards the far end of the carriage.

The two girls wished him good luck and raced down the corridor towards the dining car.

A moment after the girls had made it to safety, Allen Kozuki pushed his way out of the suite he'd been hiding in. Looking up and down the corridor, he saw the girls making it to the dining car and Yuya's legs vanishing onto the roof of the carriage.

"You three" he gestured to Spencer and his two underlings, who had been crouched hiding in the suite opposite to escape the bomb blasts "You go to second-class and head the brat off. I'll push him towards you."

The two Lemures with Spencer went ahead, but Allen stopped his lieutenant before he could go after them.

"Wait" Allen put a hand on his arm "Get me it first."

"Hey! Mr Black Suit guy!" Yuya yelled from the rooftop, waving his tommy gun around in the air "Come and get me!"

"For the record, it's Allen."

Yuya turned to see behind him. Allen had climbed up onto the roof with him, framed from behind by the smoke from the engine funnel. He was wearing what looked like a series of oxygen tanks on his back, and was holding a hose nozzle and a button on a wire.

Yuya would admit, he had expected…well…not that.

"You have guts kid" Allen admitted "It's a pity you're not on my side."

He aimed the nozzle and fired a stream of flames right at Yuya's face.

Near Hallam, Pennsylvania

Thursday, 31st December 1931

04:45

Down the train at third-class, Yugo, Rin and Reira tumbled through the air. Just as it looked like they were go the way of Serena and Yuri, Yugo remembered the lasso he'd had tied around his waist as part of his cowboy outfit. He freed it and let it fly, having no idea how to use a lasso but having faith it would grab something that wasn't the wheels of the train to slam them down to their untimely deaths.

Sure enough, the lasso grabbed something. Or rather, something grabbed the lasso.

When they pulled up short, Rin and Yugo looked up to see what the rope had snagged. On the other end of it was one Sora Shuin'in, holding onto the rope with one hand, one of the decorative lamps on the outside of the train carriage with the other, and bracing his weight against the metalwork with his feet.

For several impressive seconds, he managed to hold onto them, and the pair thought their lives might have been spared. But suddenly Shuin'in left leg, which had been bleeding profusely, gave out, and he was forced to let the rope slip through his fingers so that he could grip the train with both hands. His look of utter despair was seared into their minds as they flew away from him towards certain death.

But chance they were saved again, as one heartbeat later, Dennis Mackfield leapt off the top of the train and grabbed their rope with both hands. He bounced off a passing signal post, and threw himself into the open door of one of the freight holds.

At the other end of the train, Yuya had run out of bullets. But Allen certainly hadn't run out of fire.

Yuya ran the cherry bomb Yuzu had given him through his fingers. 'But I have nothing to light it with!'

Taking his chances that the flamethrower was short range, he turned on his feet and fled, crossing the dining car and into second-class without hindrance.

Allen, weighed down under the heavy tanks on his back, did his best to give chase.

By the time Yuya was reaching third-class without anyone stopping him, Allen realised something had gone very wrong.

'Those guys were supposed to head him off at second-class. Where are they?'

Down in the dining car, Spencer and his two underlings had made it to the end of the carriage, but couldn't force the door open. Something was jamming it shut.

"Damn it!" Spencer swore, only for his blood to run cold when he heard the sounds of a bullet being fired behind him.

Turning, he saw the chef Michio holding a tommy gun, raised to the sky where it had been fired through the ceiling of the carriage. Surrounding him were three passengers, also pointing various discarded guns at him.

"Isn't it such a good thing you and those white guys don't bother to pick up after your dead colleagues" Michio sighed dramatically "You just can't turn your back on hostages for one minute, can you?"

Spencer growled with disappointment and he and the two others threw their guns down in surrender.

On the outside of the door, a long gun had been stuck through the handle, preventing the door from opening outwards.

Yuya ran all the way to the caboose, stopping only when he realised he had run out of carriages. Before he could swing down, he realised he was trapped. If he went down to ground level, Allen would almost certainly discover the girls and Noburu. They weren't at the river, so they weren't safely off the train yet. Until then, he had to find a way to keep Allen up top.

Taking a deep breath, he turned back to Allen, and realised the man in question was only one carriage away, grinning sinisterly at him.

Down below them in the freight hold, Noburu was busy moving crates to just inside the door of the freight hold, all containing either dummy or real bombs, ready to be offloaded for when they reached the river just before the hour.

Therefore, he was a little surprised when a man completely covered in blood came swinging through said open door.

He paused, dumbfounded for a moment, before words came to him. "You're the Rail Tracer!"

The man covered in blood didn't give him a response, simply holding the end of a taught rope out to him. When Noburu stared at him blankly, the man grabbed his collar and yanked it until Noburu's head was level with his.

"Hold onto this" he instructed him "Besides the kid, there are some fine passengers on the other end."

Before Noburu could ask, the man simply handed him the rope, released his collar and left out the entrance into the corridor. Noburu found himself surprised by the large force on the rope, stunned such a slender man had been able to hold it without visibly straining. Curious, he took a peek out of the sliding door to see what he was dragging along.

He proceeded to get the shock of his life as he saw a cowboy, a saloon girl and a young boy holding onto either the rope or each other, eyes wide as they all screamed in unison at their bumpy ride.

"Oh my god! You were serious!" Noburu found himself yelling as he tried to reel the three of them in "Hold on you guys!"

Unfortunately, his attempted to reel the three in resulted in them flying high above the train in a wide arc, right over the heads of Allen and Yuya on top of it.

"Yugo! Rin! Reira!" Yuya called out to his friends in alarm.

Allen just stared at the trio with his jaw dropped, words failing him.

Noburu finally succeed in getting the wayward rope under control, pulling them back to his side of the train so he could get them inside the freight hold. However, it meant the rope was dragged along the carriage roof, right under the feet of Yuya and Allen.

Yuya managed to jump high enough to get to safety, but Allen was still a bit too shell-shocked to be reacting like the trained assassin he was. He mistimed his jump and landed flat on his back on the roof, cannisters making an audible bang when they hit the metal roof.

"What in the blazes is wrong with this train?!" he yelled to the sky.

Near East York, Pennsylvania

Thursday, 31st December 1931

04:20

Dennis Mackfield watched from the caboose as the Polymas vanished from his view with the water tower.

"Well, that was something, huh?" he turned to Ruri "I thought that Serena girl was just plain scum like the rest of them, but she was something else entirely, huh?"

Ruri said nothing, as always, just staring impassively back at him. He didn't blame her; if he'd just seen someone perform that display in front of her he'd be spellbound into silence too.

"And now I've got a problem" Dennis admitted "See, I said I'd kill whoever survived the fight, but since I don't know if that girl survived, what do I do? You have any ideas?"

Ruri just blinked impassively. Dennis was impressed – he'd expected her to try and find a way to wheedle out of it.

"This Shun Kurosaki guy?" Dennis asked, walking over to her "He's the one you're so protective of, right?"

Ruri nodded once.

"My adopted brother used to work for him" Dennis remarked "Wonder if you ever met him."

Ruri just stared back at him, perhaps not knowing how to answer that without words.

"Anyway, this Shun guy" Dennis got back on to the point "Is he your boyfriend?"

As Ruri mulled this over, she could've sworn she saw an image of Shun standing behind this blood-covered strange. He simply nodded once.

Ruri, in turn, shook her head.

"Ok" Dennis tried not to show his glee "Is he family?"

Shun's image nodded again.

Ruri also nodded.

Dennis' face broke into a big grin. "He's your brother, isn't he?"

Shum's image nodded for a third time.

Ruri nodded twice.

"He's the one they've got locked up in San Francisco, isn't he?" Dennis guessed "They call him the Birdman. They say he sold his soul to the devil to be able to see through the eyes of bird. That he can see everything in the world using his birds' eyes. That he knows every secret there is to be told. I bet he's even watching us right now."

A crow cawed somewhere. Shun's image's eyes narrowed dangerously and placed a finger to its lips.

Ruri raised one of her knives to Dennis' throat, eyes also flashing dangerously.

"You poor doll" all the pieces clicked into place for Dennis "You think I want to use you to find your brother. That I'm going to harm him to find out all the secrets he hides; that he's been willing to go to prison on some godforsaken rock, away from you, to protect you. And that he's going to blame you for his pain."

He began to walk forward, undaunted by the knife at his throat. Ruri in turn walked backwards with his steps, her knife never moving further away from or towards his throat.

"I bet he's the only family you have left" Dennis surmised "Maybe even the only family you've ever known. You don't have anyone left to love you – he's all you got, and you'll die protecting him, no matter how much he screws up. I'm getting this right, aren't I?"

Ruri didn't indicate whether he was right or wrong, just glared up at him consistently.

"Well the fix is simple" he stopped so that Ruri's heels just scraped the edge of the roof "You just have to marry me and I'll be your brother's brother. Then as a member of the family I'd be obligated to protect him too."

Ruri's jaw probably would've dropped if she wasn't such a composed person. Her eyebrows gave her away though, climbing towards her hair like a pair of soaring birds.

"I promise you, my intentions are entirely serious" he tried to reassure her, raising both hands in a surrendering gesture "I will take care of both you and your brother. And I won't betray you like your friends dressed in black down there. I have no need of the secrets your brother possesses. I simply don't need them. I control this world, which means I simply have to want something, and it happens. I could know all of your brothers' secrets if I wanted to, so I don't have any use for him in that regard. I am a man who can never die nor want for anything. You have to believe me, I truly believe that to be the case." He smiled nervously at her. "So what do you think?"

Ruri didn't make any particular outward gestures, but she was clearly conflicted about it. Which meant she was actually considering it.

Dennis was elated. He'd never had anyone even consider one of his proposals before. He'd proposed to countless people in the past, only to receive a nervous laugh or a hand flying towards his face.

And of all the people to accept his proposal, he'd hoped it would be this girl. He remembered watching her climb to the top of the caboose, eyes flashing with rage and determination, the way she'd fought Serena in his stead for a while.

'Dennis Mackfield' he remembered one part of his brain telling him 'Here you are, face-to-face with the most beautiful girl you have ever laid eyes on. She doesn't talk back – doesn't even need to talk – and has a better grip on those knives that anyone with any weapon you've ever met. What are you going to do about it?'

'I'm going to ask her to marry me' the other part of his brain happily chirped back.

'You always ask girls to marry you. They always say no.'

'She won't. She's afraid of nothing. She's not even afraid of the Rail Tracer.'

'You're right. God, I hop she wins the fight.'

'Me too!'

However, before he could get that all important nod, he saw something twinkling in the distance behind her.

He pulled her to him, twisting her out of the way of the bullet, the shock wave of which flanked behind a split second later.

He glared at the culprit – a lady wearing glasses and a purple dress several cars up. She was pointing a rifle down the train at him – or Ruri maybe? – just peeking over the top of the roof in the hope Dennis wouldn't notice her, just like a professional sniper would do. There was blood streaming down her face. Had she taken a hit to the head recently? Well, that was no excuse for trying to harm the most recent love of Dennis Mackfield's life, in his opinion.

"I'll go deal with her" he decided, looking down at Ruri "There's a river coming up just before the hour. If you want to avoid the police, you'd best try jumping off there. Oh, but please carve your answer to my proposal into the roof of the carriage before you go." She released her from his embrace and blew her a kiss, racing across the carriages towards the sniper. "Feel free to throw your knife after me if you want! But you'll never hit me!"

Sure enough, as Dennis dodged the incoming bullets in his race up the train, no knives came after him.

Who would've thought. It wasn't Dennis Mackfield that had had his proposal accepted, but the Rail Tracer.

Maybe he'd been going about it the wrong way after all.