Author's Note: Damn I'm a lazy bastich. Don't worry though, I will finish this story. New chapters will be shorter, but they should come in regularly every week or so.
It took only half a minute to turn the roof of the elevator into so much bullet-riddled scrap. Mousse dodged, spun, and weaved around the enclosed area, a pistol in each hand, firing while trying to avoid return fire from above. It was apparent who had the advantage in firepower from the start. An arsenal of spent guns and empty shells littered the floor of the elevator, enough to outfit a platoon of regular soldiers; or one practitioner of Hidden Weapons. His opponent however, knew nothing of the secrets of Hidden Weapons and so had to make to without them. And make do he did. In the pitch darkness (the lights had been the first victim of their firefight) Mousse was certain that the man in black above him was dodging and spinning and weaving just as he was and without the clumsiness of nerves and muscles dulled by poison.
Mousse's hands worked while he danced around the elevator, conjuring up guns, emptying them, dropping them, and then conjuring up more. Even poisoned, he felt cold, detached, and machine-like, just as he was taught when in such a situation. Well, perhaps not exactly this kind of situation; no one had ever tutored him in the fine intricacies of gunning in an elevator. But no matter, because even through the haze of poison and battle rage, he knew he had the advantage, he had the firepower, he had nerves of steel and balls of pure fucking brass and no two-bit hack of a hitman was ever going to take him down. And then he ran out.
Mousse couldn't quite believe it when it happened. He dropped the still-smoking shotgun and tried to summon another, but all he got was air. When that didn't work he tried to summon a knife. Nothing. He tried to summon anything at all. He got a nice little toaster oven. Stark disbelief settled in. Since escaping the Amazons, he had never, ever, been unarmed, not once in all the time since then. Eating, sleeping, studying, training, playing, showering, it didn't matter. He had a weapon with him at all times. It was just the way things were, an immutable fact of nature, like gravity. And now he had run out. He suddenly felt naked.
It was then he noticed that his assailant was no longer above him. His ears rang with the sound of gunshots and he could faintly hear the wail of fire alarms, but nothing from above him. He wasn't foolish enough to believe the man had died up there; he wouldn't believe the man dead unless he put a bullet in his head from half an inch away and sat by the corpse for a day or two. He was definitely not an ordinary… whatever he was. Not a run of the mill assassin, he was reasonably sure of that. If he didn't know better, he would swear that he was fighting with someone who had gone through the Agoge. A disturbing thought, but one for another time; it would be enough for now to get out alive.
He coughed. The room was choked with powder smoke. He waded through the sea of empty guns and shells littering the floor, and thought that perhaps his weapons dry spell was not so surprising; on the floor was what was left of a year of hunting down the Elders, a fraction of what he had started out with. He simply never bothered to restock, believing that one room from the munitions depot would suffice.
I got a little carried away. Then wryly: But maybe I could chuck this toaster at him.
The elevator had stopped, at what floor he couldn't tell. He stumbled to the door and paused. It was possible that while he was going through his trigger-happy orgy of shooting the hell out of the roof that the man had slipped out of the elevator shaft and was waiting for him, just outside that door, drum-fed automatic shotgun in hand, ready to check and mate him, ending the game. Burning afterimages of gunfire pulsed in the darkness before his eyes in splotches of green and orange as he pondered the outcome of such a scenario. Deciding that it wouldn't be in his favor, he jumped and punched through the tattered ceiling, grasping for a handhold. The elevator abruptly dropped a few inches, tearing him from his tenuous grip and dropping him to the ground. He landed on his back on top of spent shells. His dinner came up and he turned his head to puke off to the side.
He stood, wiping his mouth. "Piece of shit elevator," he muttered, and jumped again. He got a handhold and began tearing away chunks of elevator ceiling to create an opening wide enough to slip through. He pulled himself up through the hole and knelt on the roof, catching his breath as sweat rolled down his face. The rest of what was in his stomach tried to force its way up but he swallowed it down with a grimace. The elevator cable, once a single thick braid of steel wires held taut through a pulley, were now two thick braids of steel wires that severed where a very large caliber bullet had cut through it.
He pulled himself up with one dangling cable and staggered against the wall, his legs suddenly buckling under his own weight. Unconsciousness, as it had many times before in the past week, tried to pull him down. He threw it off savagely and forced himself to stand on his own power. He threw his head back, gulping in mouthfuls of air and staring up to where the elevator cable faded in the distance.
Climb. Came the command, so he did, hand over hand pulling himself up, not bothering to use his feet for purchase, until he could not see the elevator below him. Pitch darkness surrounded him. Outside he could hear the panicked voices and shuffling feet of hotel clients leaving the building. He waited until the sounds on the floor had stopped and decided that he had come up far enough to throw off pursuit, at least for a while. He climbed up a few feet farther in order to make the leap to the door when it opened.
Mousse squinted his eyes at the sudden flood of light. Standing in the corona of light was a tall figure wearing a long, dark coat. He didn't have to see to know who it was. He twisted to the side and let go of the rope a split second before a flat crack punched through the air. Pain seared its way across the side of his face and he fell, tumbling through empty darkness.
***
Tofu looked over the edge where his prey had fallen and listened. Faintly he could hear several thumps as his prey hit the walls of the shaft, and one sickening thud as he hit the elevator. Then came the groan of tearing metal. He looked up and saw the cable flying past as the elevator it was attached to fell. He stayed long enough to hear the faint crash as it hit the ground and then turned leisurely toward the next elevator and pressed the button for the bottom floor. He reached into his breast pocket, lit a cigarette and waited.
***
Voices. A lot of them, against a background of sirens.
"Holy-. Look at this! What the hell happened here?"
"Cripes, man! Look at those guns!"
"Oh my dear! Is he alright?"
"Someone help him!"
"I don't think we should move him when he's like that…"
"Somebody get the doctors here!"
"Is that a toaster oven?"
Darkness.
***
Voices again, two this time. He was careful to keep his eyes closed and breathing regular.
"…ready to roll?"
"Not yet. Bunch of panicked rich people blocking the way. Man, this guy reeks of something."
"I know. It almost smells like smoke. Is he burned?"
"Doesn't look like it. In spite of his injuries, he will definitely be alright." Female.
"Think so? He doesn't look too hot."
"It's not as bad as it looks. He's hurt, but they're mostly surface wounds and I stitched up the only deep one. I'm more worried about the fact that he may have contracted some sort of illness beforehand."
"Good. So what about these scars, Mai? Abuse?"
"Of the worst kind." Mousse felt a smooth finger run along the ribs on his bare flank. "I think these, the older ones, were made with a hot blade."
"Are you serious?"
The finger trailed to another scar, one farther down that ran behind his back. "Well look at them. They're old, years old, but I'd swear that whatever made these wounds cauterized instantly without burning the surrounding flesh. They're everywhere. And this nasty one around his neck. It looks like someone tied a rope around his neck and tried to hang him with it." The paramedic's voice lowered. "I don't know for sure what did this, but I do know he was a kid when whatever caused this" -the hand removed itself and he had the impression of a sweeping gesture over his body- "happened to him."
"That's sick. That's real sick," the other paramedic replied, sounding more shaken than disgusted. "So what about the more recent ones?"
"Aside from bumps from the ride he took recently, bruised face on the right side, uneven cuts (they look like scratches) on his arms and under his right eye, a smoother cut along his side, by a knife I think, I don't know what along the left side of the face, and this little hickey right along the side of his neck. I won't insult your intelligence by telling which ones took place five minutes ago."
"That's a hell of a bite. What's his hobby, wrestling tigers?"
"Not exactly. The bite mark was from human teeth."
There was silence for a few moments. "You don't think he's one of them do you?"
"What?"
"You know. From that one ward in the northeast. Nerima."
"Come on, you don't believe in those stories do you? It's probably just a rumor to drum up publicity for a dojo."
"I know, I know, but how do explain how we found him?" The paramedic's voice lowered conspiratorially. "That elevator must have fallen at least five stories and this kid gets nothing but a knocked head and a couple cuts and bruises. And did you see all those guns? Where the hell does anyone get so many guns?"
"Hey, you don't know if he was in that elevator when it fell and those were way too many guns for anyone to carry."
"It doesn't matter. The fact is that he's involved with whatever happened here. We need to take him to the police."
"Oh stop it, Shiro. You're being paranoid."
Mousse, after deciding that he was not dead but that may soon change if he stayed any longer, sat up in his gurney. He almost fell back as the blood rushed to his head. The two paramedics gawped at him, the one called Shiro frozen in the act of pointing a finger at him. He felt at the gauze taped to his cheek. He was lucky. The bullet had only grazed him. He saw that he was also naked save for his underwear and bandages wrapped around his torso, which ached more than the rest of his body. His own clothes were piled haphazardly in a corner of the ambulance. He reached for them, then paused thoughtfully.
"Are you alright, buddy?" the one called Shiro ventured. Mousse looked Shiro over. He looked about the right height. Not as wide around the shoulders, but beggars and choosers and all that.
"I'm fine," Mousse replied amicably. And then he pounced.
Outside, people would see the ambulance rock slightly and hear what sounded like a cry being muffled and then nothing. They shuffled a little farther away from it, all somehow agreeing with each other that nothing happened. Strange things were afoot this night, and though none believed they would personally be affected, it would be better not to tempt fate.
***
It didn't take long for Nabiki to be caught up in a flood of people in various states of undress rushing to the exit. Nothing quite motivates people more than the shrill wail of fire alarms, she thought, when a sweaty, corpulent man bulled her over to the side. She glared after him, and then looked away in disgust when she saw that he was wearing only briefs, which was nearly concealed under rolls of doughy flesh. He did however leave a wide swathe where he cleared away other people, and she was quick to follow in spite of the unpleasant view ahead of her.
Twenty-some flights of stairs later she reached the bottom floor, out of breath and with aching feet that she was sure were going to fall off at any moment. The rush of people continued from the elevators and the stairwells and lead outside. She didn't even try to look for Mousse among the crowd; she had the feeling he would let himself be known. But when she got outside, there was nothing out of the ordinary from what was to be expected when a tall building catches on fire. A mob staring up at the hotel, looking for smoke, police pushing the mob back, trying to establish order, firemen setting up hoses, reporters, and ambulances. She thought that he would have been the center of attention in one way or another, perhaps fighting Tofu or maybe tossing around hapless bystanders in his way. But he wasn't. So she searched the crowd, pushing past gawkers and standing on her tiptoes looking for any hint that he might be going through the crowd looking for her as well.
She started when a hand gently took her by the arm. "Looking for someone, miss?"
She turned to face a very young paramedic with a bandage taped to the side of his face and an ill fitting uniform. It only took her a moment to realize it was Mousse disguised as a paramedic. He looked steady enough, more in possession of his thoughts than he had on top of the roof, but his body looked battered, his hair in disarray and a new wound on his face to add to the number of livid scars standing out against pallid skin. Before she could say anything however, he pressed one finger against his lips in a gesture of silence and had her walk beside him. They walked at a brisk pace and she couldn't help but notice his gait was slightly uneven.
"Where are we going?" she asked quietly as they weaved through the crowd.
He scanned the crowd constantly. Several times he changed course, sometimes pushing people aside roughly, but he never paused even for a moment. Looking for Tofu, she thought, and a pang of confused sorrow went through her.
"I don't know," he answered. A man he shoved aside came back at him, cursing, but Mousse, without even looking, simply pushed him back again. The push didn't look any stronger than the last one but the man was sent flying back and bowled over several other people. Nabiki stared. Even like this, he was still formidable. "I didn't reserve any safehouses." A fierce scowl passed over his face. "I can't believe how stupid I am. I should have known something like this was going to happen."
Nabiki chose to remain silent while he vented. She saw that they were now approaching the edge of the crowd. He must have seen the same, for he fell silent as well. He pressed his index finger against his lips in the universal gesture for quiet and approached a limousine. The young chauffeur was watching the entire scene in front of his car with the same wide-eyed curiosity as the rest of the crowd. So he didn't see Mousse until he was right upon him.
"Oh, hi,"
he said, startled.
"Good evening," Mousse
replied, and then grabbed the front of his shirt and lifted until the man's
feet were dangling helplessly above the ground. "Will you drive or do I make you drive?"
"I'll drive!" he exclaimed.
Mousse turned to Nabiki. "Shall we go?"
She nodded wordlessly and followed him inside. "Drive," Mousse said. He waited until they were on the road before looking at her. "Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm alright. What about you?" she replied. "You look terrible."
He chuckled humorlessly. "It's not as bad as it looks, so I've been told." He took a deep breath and exhaled. He suddenly seemed to sag in on himself and grow smaller. "I'm so tired," he said in a barely audible whisper. "I think I'm going to close my eyes for a while…"
"Mousse?" Nabiki shook him gently. He fell over on his side, his breath coming in deep, even breaths.
"So where are we supposed to go?" the driver asked stiffly. He kept his head rigidly facing the front and didn't even look into the rearview mirror.
Nabiki sighed and watched the hotel become smaller as they pulled away. She couldn't simply dump him somewhere. Tofu would find him. There was no helping it. "Nerima," she said. "Take us to Nerima."