STORY WARNINGS:
–Yaoi – Male/Male.
– Rating: Mature. ADULTS ONLY. Contains coarse language, explicit sexual content both consensual/non-consensual, forced/willing submission, bondage, BDSM, edging, safewords, aftercare, graphic violence, torture, adult themes, guilty pleasure fantasy where you want someone to be a bit too forceful.
A/N: Argh! I know, I hear you... But this isn't angst for angst's sake (what a mouthful). Have faith in me, that's all I can say for now. (Eek, hope I can live up to that...!) (σ_σ)
This is a 'short' one. The 6k words kind of short. People are complicated, motives are never just black and white, and the merry-go-round is topsy turvy. That's life, and I've tried to reflect some of that here. We'll see!
My other half claims there's no point in a cliffhanger if you're warned about it... So, absolutely *ahem!* no warning here *ahem!*
Hold onto your seats now...
~ Nyx ~
DISCLAIMER: The Finder series and all recognisable characters belong to Yamane Ayano sensei.
Click
Chapter 24
The lonely silhouette, backlit by the perimeter floodlights. Tall. Steadfast. Resolute. This wasn't a man who'd come to walk away empty-handed.
Mitarai approached the fence alone. There was movement in the darkness, no doubt the bodyguards milling around. He drew up on the other side of the security gate, not by choice but because of Asami's gaze.
Maybe Takaba had a point. Had Asami ever really looked at him before? Certainly not like this, dissecting his soul, with the weight of dominion. How could Takaba stand it? Mitarai would have faltered if he wasn't driven by something so painful.
He reached for the gate release. As the mesh gate slid open, two bodyguards separated from the shadows, guns drawn, quickly but carefully rushing in and securing the immediate area. Mitarai recognized the pair who'd recently taken to following Takaba around when it wasn't the big giant. He obligingly held his arms out as one of them approached and frisked him. The guard stood back and nodded to Asami.
"Thank you for accepting our invitation, Asami-sama," Mitarai nodded, the polite address a mockery considering what had brought them here.
"Pissing me off like this carries heavy consequences," Asami murmured, his voice cool and aloof in spite of the words. He still managed to look dangerous with one hand slung casually in his pocket. "Are you sure it's worth it, Mitarai?"
Mitarai smiled faintly. "I'm touched you remember my name. You always gave the impression I was just part of the furniture."
"You were never that reliable."
Irritation flickered on Mitarai's face but it soon smoothed over. "Shall we go," he suggested instead. His smile broadened to something nasty. "Before we run out of time."
The dried blood, Akihito's head and neck caked down one side, the arm locked about his neck from behind, the man with the scar –
Asami didn't know what he registered first. He stormed forwards, his gun locking on with inhuman precision down the length of the dock.
"Uh uh uhh," warned Scarface. "That's far enough."
Wakajima, Nishizuma's Shateigashira [second lieutenant]. Asami's mind leapt a mile a minute – the original hit disguised as a bounty, the myriad of interconnecting arms linking him with Wakajima and Mitarai and Akihito –
Even from thirty metres away Akihito wasn't in a good way. That blood was actually the least of Asami's concerns, even if dark and rich. Surface head wounds could bleed disproportionately to start with and often looked worse than they were. More worrying was the sheen of sweat, pallor underneath. Hazel eyes drifted to meet his, glazed with pain even with the rush of obvious anxiety for Asami and his men too. Sound carried by the water, the laboured wheeze of every breath. A sound that Asami knew all too well. One that made his blood run cold in a way that he hadn't experienced in a long time... His eyes darted down to Wakajima's fist – held at Akihito's side, half obscured behind Akihito's arm, the curious angle –
There was a knife buried in Akihito's ribs.
Asami saw red. He very nearly lost it. Eyes narrowed, his breath sharp, he clamped down brutally on his fury, a savagery that simmered barely one degree off boiling.
"This is your doing, Asami-sama," Wakajima informed him. "You forced me to take precautions after you single-handedly took out seven of our men last time. You know what this is, don't you? But let me explain it for your bully boys in case they aren't as intimately acquainted with the human anatomy as you are. If anyone shoots me, I take this knife with me and rupture the internal thoracic artery. Takaba's going to drown in his own blood or bleed out. Either way he'll only have a couple of minutes, three tops, and we're twenty minutes from the nearest hospital. I think we all get the picture."
Asami's silence reverberated like thunder.
"You steaming pile of worthless gobshite..." Hoarse and pained and exhausted, but there was nothing wrong with Akihito's vocabulary or the will to deliver them.
"See what I mean?" Mitarai had clearly been sniping about this particularly charming trait.
Scarface spared him a sneer before returning his attention to Asami. "The place is rigged with motion sensors, seeing as we're a little short-handed. I had to send everyone else into Sion. So don't try and sneak your men in around us unless you want this sweet talker to bleed out."
Scarface was a lot more talkative now than he had been earlier. Was Mitarai just intimidated by Asami, Akihito wondered, or were they actually running Scarface's agenda now?
As Asami was attempting to boil Scarface's insides with his glare, Suoh appeared at his side. "Just the two of them," he reported quietly.
He guarded Asami's flank, Nakatani covered the other side while holding onto Mitarai, with Sagano slightly behind Nakatani. It was a loose formation, open to either expand outwards or draw in tight around their boss.
"Nice of Suoh-san to join us, but where's Kirishima-san?" Scarface clearly knew how Asami operated.
"Taking care of other business."
"You expect me to believe you came here without your right-hand man? Or left-hand man, whichever?"
"I run a large business. It doesn't stop for some vermin throwing a hissy fit."
Wakajima grinned, his scar stretching. "If you say so. But in a way I hope he's calling in the cavalry. The more the merrier."
Asami finally lowered his gun, although his grip never loosened. "You've gone to a lot of trouble to get my attention," he drawled with deceptive coolness. "Your loyalty to your boss is commendable, if ill-advised."
"This has nothing to do with the Oyabun."
"Then?"
"My wife," Scarface said in that same creepily easy voice. "Wakajima Tsubasa."
"My sister," Mitarai growled from the side.
Asami inclined his head as though he hadn't already made the connection. "Ah."
"I see the name rings a bell," Scarface said pleasantly, "we can get right to it then. You can keep your guns. I'll enjoy watching you itching to use them but not being able to. Like when I cut Takaba's zip ties –" he grinned at the pale face beside his own – "your arms were free but you couldn't do anything about the knife in your side, could you?"
A muscle in Akihito's jaw twitched. It hadn't been a picnic, the blaze of pain of every movement forcing him to simply stand there while Scarface had gone to clear the table.
Asami advanced a step but he was halted again by Wakajima's warning. "Careful, Asami-sama. My hand might slip, if you make me jumpy. Now, tell your men to let Mitarai go. We have work to do."
Asami didn't immediately react. The seconds ticked by until the yakuza gave the slightest tug on the knife...
Akihito twitched unnaturally, his haggard intake of breath grating through the air.
Mitarai masked a wince. Sure he wanted Takaba dead but he didn't have the stomach for this kind of thing. He expected Asami to relent straight away – but instead the imposing man locked eyes with Takaba, the golden gaze piercing with nameless demand. Incredibly, through the fog of pain, Takaba somehow responded. The hazel eyes focused back on Asami in return, a spark lighting through the glassy haze, finding strength through their ethereal connection.
"How are you holding up, Akihito?" Asami asked with all the monotony of asking after his day.
Takaba's mouth curled in a tight, lop-sided grin. "What, this? Walk in the park."
Asami smirked. Only then did he give a subtle jut of his jaw. Nakatani released his arm.
Mitarai didn't get them at all. Not Takaba who wasn't crying and begging for his life, not Asami who refused to let him. It was a whole other level of connection or hardiness – perhaps foolhardiness – than he could grasp. Despite all their planning, Mitarai couldn't help wonder if Aniki might have underestimated. Asami was bound to have a few tricks up his sleeves...
Mitarai stepped away, glancing cautiously at Asami until he was sure he wasn't going to be stopped. He hurried down the dock and past Aniki and Takaba, going over to the table to dig into his bag. He could only follow the plan.
Mitarai pulled out his laptop and set it up.
Wakajima sneered. "I couldn't think how the esteemed Asami-sama could make reparations, until I realized you'd been showing me all along. Because in all our dealings, you revealed what you value most. What you hold most precious. Your greatest weakness." His smile was sickly. "Silence."
"Silence?" Asami intoned flatly.
"You operate beyond the reach of the law but that's only made possible by public ignorance. So we just need to put you somewhere even Chief Matsui couldn't protect you, and you'll be the architect of your own downfall."
Akihito saw what Mitarai pulled out of his bag next and dizziness struck. His horror-stricken eyes flew to Asami.
Mitarai fixed the HD long-range camera to the corner of his laptop. He plugged in the USB, clicked a few keys... And nodded to Wakajima.
The scar stretched with the smile. "We're streaming live. Asami Ryuichi, you will confess your crimes. All of Japan, and the world, will see you for the evil that you are. Let the trial commence."
For long seconds, Akihito's wheezing was the only sound on the still night air. Asami's gaze bore into him, hard and unreadable.
"Confess and he lives," Scarface spelled out. "Or tell me to fuck off and I pull the knife."
"How 'bout I tell you to fuck off?" Akihito countered, his voice strained with pain but no less bold for it.
"If you like," Scarface shrugged. "Makes no difference to me what happens to you. Though I must say I'm enjoying this start. Asami with a sidearm – the world is seeing the real man for the first time."
Asami pulled out his cigarettes and lit up without letting go of his gun. He inhaled a long, long drag, burning orange at the tip. He tasted the smoke for so long that Akihito was convinced he must be tongue-shaping smoke animals or implements of torture or something, before it was released on a thin exhale.
"You're threatening to bleed him out," Asami pointed out darkly. "You can't expect anything I say now to hold up in court."
"Once the public sees you for what you are, it's all over – your reputation and social standing will be destroyed, they'll demand criminal investigations into your dealings. And you know what they say." Scarface grinned. "The higher the climb, the greater the fall, and there are few higher than Asami Ryuichi."
Would Asami do it? No matter all of his proclamations, no matter all that had transpired and grown between them, it had only been a month. Would he really lay it all on the line for Akihito?
Swimming with pain, his vision wavering in and out of focus, but by far the worst was being unable to do anything as Scarface threatened to destroy Asami piece by piece. Akihito wasn't a violent person by any stretch of the imagination but the horrible, maddening, infuriating sense of helplessness made him want to yank the fricking knife out himself and deck the yakuza. Was this anything like what Asami was feeling? Or maybe it was worse for Asami, a magnificent image of lethal menace from the tips of his slicked back hair to the lengths of his tailored suit and the barrel of his gun and flanked by his men, but stuck too far away along the dock and hamstrung from leaping in with their usual aplomb. How Asami must hate this, forced to inaction, especially knowing what Akihito knew about him now.
Asami exhaled a puff of white. "Business dictates I let him die."
"Is that your decision?" Scarface confirmed with mocking politeness.
It was relief that made Akihito smile. He met Asami's eyes. If only they'd had more time together, he could've kept the bastard on his toes, given him some grey hairs... His relief was shadowed with longing. Both were slowly but surely being drowned out with pain.
Asami saw it all. "But this isn't business. What would you have me say?"
...Wait, what?
Scarface smiled as Akihito panicked.
"What the hell?" Akihito cried hoarsely. "Asami, don't –!" He broke off in an agonized cry as the knife was twisted the smallest increment.
"Quiet, you," Scarface hissed.
Asami's face was a striking mask of granite. His men, too, jerked as though on invisible strings, having to resist their instincts prodding, urging, screaming at them to do something already. Akihito panted through the pain, being held up by the arm slung around his neck, propping him back against the yakuza.
"It doesn't work that way," Scarface told Asami. "You'll have to come up with your confession yourself, I'm not putting any words in your mouth."
"No?" Asami snapped. "I'd argue this whole enterprise is about putting words in my mouth."
"Whenever you're ready, Asami-sama," Scarface sing-songed. "And make it convincing. Little details make all the difference, you know."
The chill wind whistled between the cargo containers. Mitarai kept his eye firmly on the webcam image, holding his breath.
Akihito was shaking his head, his eyes yelling Don't you dare –!
Asami's lips curved with a dark smirk. "A year ago, a woman came to me. She'd applied with the Tokyo Met for witness protection in exchange for evidence against a prominent yakuza Oyabun, but she'd been rejected. She knew how things worked, she said. She wanted me to give the green light and asked what it would take."
Mitarai blinked, opened his mouth, closed it again.
"I told her to drop her husband from the application. He was involved in too many cases of brutality and death in the past for the police to look kindly on his case. She denied it fiercely, argued, and left. She returned a month later with her eyes opened and an apology."
Mitarai glanced at Wakajima, and back at Asami. "Wh- Who was this?"
"She told me she couldn't leave her husband, but she continued to petition the police. The negotiations went on for months, repeatedly sticking on the fact that her husband needed to be included in the witness protection deal. It was a pity. If not for that, she could have been living safe and anonymous in some unknown place now."
Mitarai was pale, shaking his head. "Who are you talking about?"
"My contacts in the police filled me in," Asami continued, still not answering him. "There was enough for me to confirm suspicions I already had – the Oyabun had made a deal with the Diet member Kondo Tetsuya, to establish a human trafficking route linking Kyushu and Okinawa to the rest of East Asia. Unlike the police I don't require warrants. I acted against Kondo."
Asami paused. Akihito's heart thudded hard enough to almost distract from the horrible burning in his side. Even Scarface seemed to be holding his breath.
But then Asami veered away. "The woman caught it on video. Until now I'd assumed she'd tried to leak the video to the authorities but it was actually you, wasn't it, Wakajima?"
Mitarai's horrified face turned to Scarface, who stared emotionlessly back at Asami.
"Because she was smarter than that," Asami said. "She brought it to me instead, in exchange for safeguarding her brother. She swore that it would go with her to the grave if nothing happened to him. Always, her brother was her primary concern."
Mitarai made a strange noise.
Asami drew irritably on his cigarette. Exhaling sharply, he tossed the stub underfoot and ground it beneath his polished Italian loafer. He directed Mitarai a fierce look. The meaning was lost on him, but not on Akihito. "She was single-minded in protecting her sibling, and who knows, perhaps I had a moment of compassion. I decided to grant mercy."
"No..." Mitarai was white as a ghost. "She – she –"
"Yes," Asami confirmed. "Your sister, Tsubasa."
Mitarai sagged to the ground with a strangled wail.
Scarface was starting to lose patience. "I'm failing to see a confession in any of –"
"You used her, didn't you?" Asami's focus swung to him. "I'd hazard a guess that you were just after a new identity, so you could start afresh, all your records and pending investigations wiped clean. But now you're back to square one and stuck here, you're using Mitarai to make amends with Nishizuma. Mitarai couldn't have pulled this all off by himself. Perhaps he wouldn't have even tried, without you twisting his grief."
"Dream up whatever wild nonsense you want," Scarface denied peevishly, making Akihito think Asami probably wasn't far off the mark. "There's nothing to twist, we're avenging Tsubasa. It just happens to serve a bigger purpose along the way."
Mitarai mumbled something from where he huddled on the ground. It was too quiet for any of them to pick up.
"I'm doing this for Japan," Scarface said, "exposing you, both of you, to allow free and fair enterprise. All yakuza would be interested to learn that Takaba Akihito here is Z4m4 M1r0, who's been getting one Oyabun after another locked up. And you, Asami-sama – the world at large has no idea who you really are, do they? You're not only neck-deep in organized crime, you control the Japanese underworld. But you stifle the full potential of the yakuza. You suppress markets, ban lucrative opportunities –"
"You could've set her free..." Mitarai muttered, louder this time. He glared up at Asami, lost in his torment, not even following what was going on around him. "You could've set her free!"
"Mitarai –" Scarface began.
"Why didn't you?" Mitarai carried on, not hearing him. "Was it revenge? Because you were losing out on the deal with Kondo and Nishizuma and –"
"I don't profit from human trafficking," Asami snapped coldly, shooting that down straight away. He had no problems in the shift in topic and went with it. "You're overlooking the fact that once the evidence was in the open, there were no grounds for her deal with the police. There was nothing for me to decide." But the accusatory glare swung to Akihito at that, not where Asami wanted it to go. He made sure to regain Mitarai's attention. "Tsubasa understood that. She came to see me one last time, did you know that?"
Mitarai half shook his head.
"She said it wasn't mean to be, that it was a sign. They weren't meant to escape into anonymity, they had to face the music for all they'd done in the past. The Spotlight publication gave the big headlines on the Oyabun and several lieutenants, but she had copies of communication and money trails from inside the organization incriminating many others. She promised to hand it all over if her brother would be kept safe."
Mitarai was too upset to respond.
"I even gave you a job when you later applied at Sion," Asami added, full of scorn. Mostly directed at himself.
"This is all very touching," Wakajima snapped at him, "but you still haven't given us anything. We need something juicy if you want me to let Takaba go."
"I would have thought a murder disguised as suicide was plenty juicy," Asami responded coolly.
Mitarai's head snapped up. Akihito even jumped a little in surprise and hissed at the flare in his side. Scarface's arm tightened around his neck.
"What?" Mitarai breathed.
"Who was it, Wakajima? Who really killed your wife?"
"She. Killed. Herself." Scarface was trembling with emotion, the first Akihito had picked up from the creepster.
Asami applied more pressure. "You mean, she got herself killed?" And still more pressure. "Didn't the Oyabun catch wind of her planning to burn the whole group? Didn't he go after the evidence and –"
Something snapped. "She smuggled it out!" Scarface screamed, jarring Akihito, provoking a sharp gasp.
"I received the flash drive," Asami said tightly.
Shit, that USB stick? "No way..." Akihito rasped.
Mitarai dragged himself unsteadily to his feet. "But you said – you said –"
"This doesn't change anything," Scarface barked at him. "All that hope destroyed, it broke her. She refused to listen! If she'd just handed it over, the Oyabun would've let her be and she'd still be alive!"
Scarface wasn't upset, Akihito realized. He was angry. At Tsubasa. Because she'd refused him the means to buy back forgiveness from the Oyabun he'd been perfectly content to betray. Tsubasa had used an encrypted flash drive not to hide it from Asami, but from Nishizuma, and her own husband too...
"I didn't tell you because it was already so hard on you, you didn't need the distraction," Scarface said to Mitarai, gentling his voice this time until he almost sounded like he cared, and that was just plain disturbing. Akihito could see the months, maybe years, of manipulations that would have brought Mitarai to this point, distorting and poisoning his grief. "Asami could have approved the deal months earlier, Takaba could have waited on his article. They're both guilty of leading to Tsubasa's breakdown, to her death."
"That's so fucked up!" Akihito hissed, but he couldn't reach Mitarai.
Entrenched in Wakajima's conditioning and the deformed point of view he'd been fed when hurting and susceptible, Mitarai looked totally bewildered despite having the facts to hand for the first time.
Akihito's own head was reeling. He had no idea all this had been going on when he'd blithely published on Spotlight, that he'd been indirectly connected to Asami all that time. And Mitarai had gone about it in a totally cack-handed and hideous way, but Akihito couldn't help but feel sorry for the grieving dumbass. But just how far that sympathy went, he couldn't have said just then. He was in too much pain to know that.
Mitarai stared in a confused daze at Asami, the one who'd finally told him the truth, the one he was supposed to blame. Aniki didn't have it wrong, did he...?
"You're very clever, Asami-sama," Scarface said, his voice hard. "You almost turned my brother against me."
"I'm only telling it as it is. Have you ever told him the truth, Wakajima?"
"Truth is only a matter of perspective. And you're twisting things. If I'm not careful you'll talk your way out of this altogether so let me be absolutely clear."
He jerked the knife, forcing an agonized cry before Akihito managed to choke it down.
In that split second as Asami's hand trembled on the gun still hanging by his side, Mitarai saw the cracks in Asami's harsh exterior – the man was pissed off. Mad-enough-to-burn-down-hell-itself kind of pissed off. So much so, it made Mitarai pause despite his own inner chaos. Especially with his earlier righteous anger having fled, with confusion rocking the foundations of his revenge, his earlier unease crept back.
Scarface leaned his head against Takaba's temple damp with cold sweat. "If the next words out of your mouth isn't a confession worthy of a life sentence, I'm pulling this knife."
Akihito tried to shake his head. But with the fresh pain, the shivering, he could only manage an uncoordinated twitch. Asami's semblance of control eroded further.
Akihito, along with Suoh and the other men, could only stand by and watch as Asami plundered headlong into his own destruction.
"I told you I acted against Kondo. I tortured him for a full confession and shot him between the eyes. It was right there where you're standing, as a matter of fact, but you knew that. I transported his body to his home and arranged his death to look like suicide, but the police would have found a curious shortage of blood at the scene considering he was meant to have shot himself there. Is that enough for you," Asami mocked darkly, "or do you want more? Details of illegal arms deals, perhaps? Manipulating politicians? Unlawful imprisonment? Assassinations?"
Stunned silence rang in their ears.
What. The. Fuck? As in, seriously, what the fuck?! Akihito would have been yelling if he wasn't so aghast. Couldn't Asami have gone with something less... guilty-ish? Or just fibbed something? Asami could've sworn blind that it was Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candlestick and made the most hardened sceptic believe it...
The angle was reversed, but the dockyard, the glimpse of cargo crates as the camera had flown, in Tsubasa's hand, startled by the gunshot – no wonder the place was familiar.
Mitarai couldn't believe it. Asami had actually done it? Confessed to torture and murder, for Takaba? He glanced at Aniki – who was beaming with near perverse peasure as he stared at Asami.
"Tell me we got that," Scarface breathed.
Mitarai took a few seconds to realize the quiet question was directed at him. He stumbled back to the table. The tiny green light was still on on the webcam – although he didn't experience anything like the rush of triumph he'd anticipated for so long. He couldn't decipher what he was feeling. Mostly a whole jumble of confusion. "Uh, yeah. We got it."
"You have what you wanted," Asami said, his tone clipped with suppressed ferocity. "Hand Akihito over."
"How many views?" Scarface pressed eagerly.
Still half in shock, Mitarai fumbled. "Hold on." He scrolled to the view counter. And froze. "Uh..." He glanced nervously at Wakajima, and hit Refresh.
Asami was getting impatient. "Release him."
He wasn't the only one. "How many?" Scarface demanded.
"Just a sec." Mitarai stared at the reloaded page. He couldn't understand why it still read the same as before.
"Mitarai?" Scarface snapped.
Horrified was an understatement. All of a sudden, it wasn't Asami that Mitarai was afraid of but his brother-in-law. "It's – it's zero."
"Zero? You're fucking with me, right? Did you at least get it on video?" Wakajima's voice was dangerous.
"Of course. But –"
"Then get it out there! Social media, live streaming sites, I don't know, anywhere you can think of!"
Mitarai swallowed, shaking his head. "It already is. It... It's linked with all the major social networking giants, I even alerted the top TV networks. It should be viral."
Akihito's weakened laughter suddenly wheezed about them. "Oh man." He flinched at the movement, but his grin didn't fade.
Not until Scarface pressed the knife in deeper. Hazel eyes rolled back, his legs buckling –
Asami had his gun trained on Wakajima in a split moment, Suoh and his men not a fraction later.
"Think carefully," Wakajima warned. "He's still alive, but he won't be if you shoot me." He waited long enough to check that a bullet in the brain wasn't imminent before he shifted down the arm about Takaba's neck, enough to slap the clammy cheek.
"Hey. Hey!"
Akihito stirred. Blinking slowly, it took long seconds to refocus. He was staring down the barrel of Asami's gun – no, it was offset by the smallest angle, pointed at the crazy creep behind him. It was the same view as when Asami had saved him back in his apartment, one of many. Asami had just come through for him again. Asami never, never let him down. Man, Asami was the best.
Some part of Akihito was aware that his thoughts were getting a bit loopy. He wasn't level-headed enough to care.
Someone was slapping his face, jarring his already clattery head. "Ge'off," he rasped, turning away.
"What the fuck did you do?" Scarface demanded.
That jogged Akihito's memory. And the grin returned. "Oh... Yeah. Funny story," he said weakly. "Soteria, she has..." He coughed.
"Soteria did this?" Mitarai asked in confusion. At Scarface's questioning look he explained, "It's Sion's AI cyber shield that Takaba created. But what would she have anything to do with –"
"Twin. Twin sister –" Akihito spluttered – "The Force runs strong in your family..." he snickered.
"Hey!"
Akihito's voice was shaky, they all had to strain their ears to hear him. "I call her... Artemis."
Mitarai paled. Nobody else seemed to understand the significance.
"What?" Scarface grumbled. "What is that?"
"They're Greek," Mitarai said quietly. "Soteria, the goddess of safety and preservation from harm. But Artemis, she was the goddess of the hunt."
"And chastity. Don't forget. Containment, get it?" Akihito's grin was somewhat delirious. "I cloned Soteria, switched focus. Artemis hunts activities... V1P3R or Asami or me... Analysis of intent, switch to... parallel Wi-Fi, mimicry. I wasn't sure... it would actually work –" He coughed again. It sounded wet.
Wakajima shook his head. "What the fuck is he on about?"
Mitarai looked almost as white as Akihito. He'd been spot on before, to an extent. They'd underestimated, but not Asami. It was Takaba.
"Mitarai!" Scarface snapped.
Mitarai swallowed. "I don't know for sure but I'm guessing... My guess is Artemis has jacked our feed, contained it somehow and simulated it in a controlled environment. We're not live. This hasn't gone anywhere. I can't even be sure if we have a video..." Not only the technical fluency to program such an AI hunter so quickly, but to have already been close enough to V1P3R's identity to pull it off... He was staring at the pale blond in horrified awe. "Bloody hell..."
Asami's eyes flew to Akihito, who returned a shaky smile. Just a ghost of his usual cheeky defiance, the wattage insufficient.
Suoh let loose a quiet breath.
Scarface was showing frighteningly little emotion. He stared at Mitarai, the expected rage lacking, his eyes blank. "Then there's little else for it."
"Wakajima," Asami snarled, stepping forwards, "let him go." But he was held back by the warning look he received in return. Asami simmered, his jaw tight, furious that he couldn't leap into action, couldn't empty his gun and let his hands fly and sort this all out. Not while Wakajima still gripped that knife.
"Mitarai, go," Scarface said.
"But... They're still armed," Mitarai said quietly.
"We talked about this. Go, get started," Scarface ordered. "I'm right behind you."
Mitarai nodded, then looked at Akihito. Really looked, eye to eye. He almost looked sorry... Then he was off, heading towards the end of the dock and presumably climbing down a ladder.
That look, as though there was no helping it anymore –
Akihito's mind kicked into whirlwind flight, shifting through the bits and pieces picked up by his concussed brain, an impossible jigsaw puzzle of a clear blue sky. Find the corners, find the edges –
– a hundred kilos – narrow margin – plenty – Margins? More than Akihito's 60 kilos, but less than two men –
– but the whole – up to here – Where he was standing? Something nearby?
– We can't have everyone painting him like a saint in his obituary, can we? – Well it wasn't Akihito that anyone was going to paint as a saint, that was for sure –
The ground covered in fresh plaster, the weird walkie talkies that weren't walkie talkies, the wires, Mitarai's finality...
Abstract fragments, useless until Akihito's sixth sense grabbed them, his gut instincts that could piece together tenuous links and dream up outrageous theories...
Scarface meant to kill them the moment he stepped off the pier, probably the moment he let Akihito go. And to kill a man like Asami it could only mean one thing.
Akihito's brain froze – disconnected, clocked out, flapped – but only for a moment. An utterly insane idea took hold and he found himself remarkably calm about it all. Maybe he was losing it already. He was definitely woozy. Maybe he knew that the knife was a game-changer.
Or maybe it was because only one thing mattered now, the man barely holding himself in check some twenty metres away. But it wasn't Asami that he spoke to.
"Suoh-san, remember that time Asami stole your cake?"
"Reminiscing?" Scarface taunted in his ear. "Enjoy your farewells."
Blond Tank was frowning. "Stole my –?"
Akihito's eyes flickered, ever so slightly, then back at the big bodyguard.
Comprehension swept Suoh's face. "I'd saved it for lunch," he muttered, conveying to Akihito alone that he understood.
Still tuned into to Asami's signals but, incredibly, the guard's gaze remained fixed on Akihito, taking the young man's lead. Blond Tank – Suoh – trusted Akihito to have his boss' best interests at heart, even without knowing why, even as Akihito rapped on death's door dancing on a knife point. It was nothing short of monumental.
Akihito gave a relieved shadow of a smile, feeling bad for the rush of thoughts he could see behind Blond Tank's eyes, frantically calculating how to save them both.
He couldn't.
"Hand him over, Wakajima," Asami growled.
A powerboat engine rumbled to life somewhere nearby and underneath. That hollow, irregular knocking Akihito had heard, the escape plan.
Scarface drew Akihito back towards the edge of the dock. Sweating with pain, Akihito had to clench his jaw to stop himself from crying out. Asami and his men matched pace for pace, edging closer.
Suoh signalled behind his thigh. Sagano and Nakatani readied themselves.
"Stay back," Scarface warned.
The timelessness of instant moments. Akihito drank in the sight – dracontine gold – commanding and incensed, piercing from that stunning face – the complex, formidable man who'd crashed into his life and unexpectedly shown him what it meant to mean something to someone... What an incredible sight to send him to eternal sleep.
Asami's eyes blazed with suspicion and warning. Don't you dare –!
The same look Akihito had given him earlier, and equally as ineffective. Akihito thought of his parents and he thought of his friends, especially the two as brothers in all but blood. But mostly he thought of this incandescent man, who cared more about saving Akihito than himself.
I have to let you go.
Akihito threw the most impish grin he could muster. "Don't be too much of a bastard."
He knew he must be hallucinating now, because that looked like fear in Asami's eyes, which was impossible.
"Akihito –"
Scarface finally stepped away, half a step that meant they weren't back to chest. He still held the scruff of Akihito's top and the knife, using him as a human shield, the fucking coward, but there was space between them, just a few inches. It was all Akihito needed.
A mink's last fart, went the Japanese proverb. The last resort, the final defence.
What was it Asami had shown him? Akihito set his feet, had to scrap the stance and tightening his core right now, but he could fucking well make a fist. Going with his non-stabbed side – 'cos fuck knew where the whatchamacallit artery was and the stabby side hurt like a godalmighty bitch – he caught Blond Tank's eyes... and spun backwards with his arm hooked up and smashed a reverse elbow bullseye into Wakajima's unsuspecting face.
Knife dragged through soft tissue, he screamed, Scarface screamed, so much screaming everywhere, but Scarface had let go to clutch at his broken nose and Akihito was already giving every ounce he had left, more determined than he'd ever been his entirely life – Asami! – as he pitched through the blanketing agony and leaped – toppled – for the dark water.
Airborne – falling – he could see Blond Tank already moving –
"Go!" Suoh thundered –
"No –!" Scarface garbled, stumbled for the edge –
Sagano and Nakatani jumped –
"AKIHITO –!"
Suoh tackled Asami off the dock as the C4 detonated along the entire length of the pier. At 8000 metres per second the violent shockwave hurtled shattered concrete and concussive air and flames across the dockyard.
The world caught fire.
