Alphabets 1, Chapter 3, by DarkBeta

(You will complain that these seven- and eight-year olds behave as if they're thirty at least. All i can say is, they're like that in the original too! If i didn't mention it already, kunai are ninja throwing knives or spikes.)

He wanted to head to the park, to the last place where he'd seen Imonoyama Nokoru, as if Suoh might track him from there like a hound. He'd told the Imonoyama woman of a parked dark car not far from the corner, the front angled out from the curb so it was placed to accelerate. If escape was planned beforehand, the driver knew which way he'd turn and parked for a getaway.

Velocity and aim came naturally to a Takamura. Jerking the car rightward at the corner would waste momentum. Whoever parked the car meant to go ahead, or to the left. Surely kidnappers would want instinctively to break their trail? Leftward then, which implicated one quadrant of Tokyo.

No, the park would tell him nothing now. Suoh headed for Clamp Campus security.

The offices swarmed with personnel, on-duty, off-duty, or long retired. Infiltration wasn't Suoh's specialty, but he came in from the roof and stayed undetected in the crowd. Here was a war-room full of computers and displays, probably more impressive than anything the Self Defence Forces had. (Imonoyama Industries supplied the SDF, but taxpayers couldn't be convinced to pay for upgrades quite as quickly as Clamp Campus was.)

Here were maps, with viewpoints zooming in and out as searchers were directed across Tokyo. They were looking for the same sort of building he wanted, cross-referenced with criminal organizations or with Imonoyama rivals. Suoh found a vantage point, holding himself by kunai to the ceiling. Not residences or apartment mansions; the building would have to be large enough for their prisoners to be unobserved. Not the close-built maze of the high crime area, where neighbors saw too much and would speak to money though they were silent to the police.

The vector Suoh thought likeliest held two possible sites. He hitched a ride on one of the cars, as the security forces fanned out. When they grouped for assault, he vaulted ahead.

The entrance to the first location had no familiar scent. The second, though, had wisps of familiarity. He followed them upward. The Clamp assault made his path easier. The hired soldiers went down to face it. Suoh ghosted through empty corridors and stairwells.

Imonoyama was there, in scent if not in person. Suoh catalogued smears of blood. Bitter sweat. The smell of pain. A woman chuckling to herself, halfway to madness.

"Have you come to get him back, little boy? He's gone. You won't find him. Not until he's trained. Not until he's mine, mine, mine!"

She might have been cunning, but she was soft. She struck a pose. He supposed she meant to look seductive, which was ridiculous. Certainly she was taken aback when kunai pinned her clothes to the wall. He had to jump onto the back of a chair to hold a blade to her throat.

"Where," he said.

He thrust the kunai through one dangling earring. A second blade was in his hand before her eyes turned toward the first.

"Is."

He destroyed the second earring. The third blade in his hand stopped just above her eye.

"He."

The criminal woman was only half-mad. She talked.

"Corner of Market and Canal Streets, four blocks from the harbor. Offices of Koai Import and Export."

Suoh pulled the blade back. She flinched, waiting for one more blow, but he couldn't afford to waste another weapon.

"Wait there for the police."

The worst of it was, he had to wait himself. He had no way to cross the city quickly on his own. When Clamp Campus had the right information though, once again he beat them into the target site.

The offices were empty. News of the first raid had run ahead. A phone call would have done it. Whoever that woman turned the Imonoyama boy over to, he had found out his danger and run. There might be passages, or some sort of hidden escape. Those didn't matter. What mattered was where they'd gone.

Several pads lay on the floor of a locked room. At least three were still slightly warm. A gold hair was caught on the nap of one. He was already certain the boy had been there, so he left the evidence for Clamp security to find.

Whoever had occupied these offices, he couldn't afford to leave witnesses behind. Children would be awkward burdens for men on the run.

"Four blocks from the harbor," the kidnapper had said.

The first agents into the house reported a brief dark shadow passing them.

Suoh didn't think about how the sea could swallow unwanted baggage. Failure was not allowed. When he reached the nearest wharf, he saw several moored ships, and one small freighter chugging for open water.

He sat cross-legged at the end of the whart and closed his eyes. Sight was no use right now, and salt and mud drowned out scent. He listened. Far away he heard children's voices. Frightened voices. Sounds unsuitable for a cargo ship. And the sea.

His breath slowed. His skin chilled. He would have been quite helpless if an enemy found him.

A gull decided he'd been still so long, he'd make a good perch. It was very surprised when he swept it off his hair and threw it into the sky.

The sun was nearly to the horizon. The freighter was just leaving the harbor. Suoh did not curse himself for the loss of time. It was a hazard of being a sentinel, and a Takamura who hadn't found his One.

He recognized the air and the sound of the water. He'd been in the area before. Clamp Campus had a boathouse nearby, for when the sailing teams needed more challenge than the lakes on campus.

It might have seemed foolish to think he could catch up to the freighter, but this close to shore it had to go slowly to protect dolphins and turtles. And even if he wasn't a Takamura any longer, he was still the best of his generation.

Sailboats were too visible; motorboats too audible. (And their keys were unfortunately well secured.) Suoh found a small dark canoe. A few times he was able to surf the bow waves of other ships, and once a dolphin seized a dangling hawser and dragged him in the right direction for twenty minutes or so. He reached the cargo ship several hours after dark, but that made boarding easier.

There was always something refreshing about coming out of a zone. Suoh was tired and hungry, but not as sleepy as he should have been. He dodged a few sailors carrying paint and canvas, and found the locked hold without difficulty. Undogging it seemed a very noisy process, but no-one came to investigate. He dropped a line into the darkness and let himself down it.

Light could be as much of a weapon as a blade. Suoh held a penlight at arm's length over his head. Anyone shooting for an adult's center of mass would probably miss him altogether.

"Who's there?"

The light picked one face out of the dark hold, and then several. In a few scans Suoh had a clear image of Imonoyama Nokoru standing defensively in front of a few dozen other children. Suoh shone the light on his own face briefly and then flicked it off. An instant later he was beside the Imonoyama.

"Takamura? Ah, you're one of those Takamuras! I didn't need to worry about you!"

"I'm Suoh. Just . . . Suoh. There's a boat. Come on."

He pulled at the Imonoyama's arm. The boy shifted his weight to pull back.

"We have to get the girls out of here. They're taking us to the Americas. Some of them are guides!"

"I have to take you back."

"No."

Suoh thought about just grabbing him, carrrying him up the rope and off the ship. It wouldn't be difficult, not for one raised as a Takamura. As if he understood, the Imonoyama stepped back. When Suoh flashed his light again, the blond boy was so surrounded by the other prisoners he couldn't be pulled free.

"It's just a canoe!"

"Dear girls," the Imonoyama said, "we have a chance for some of us to escape the ship. Let us work together to choose the best candidates!"

Suoh sighed. He really had hoped to be a Takamura again. Guides and sentinels protected the community though. If the Imonoyama insisted on protecting these girls, Suoh had to help.

He expected tears and disagreement and panic, but he hadn't encountered a gathering of guides before. He didn't have to block a stampede. Instead Imonoyama seemed to have difficulty finding volunteers, when those who stayed were still in danger.

They decided on a test of height. The smaller the passengers were, the more of them could fit into the canoe. Even then, Suoh found several girls trying to stand on tip-toe as they were measured.

The taller girls helped hoist the little ones up to the top of the hold. Imonoyama led them out on deck, deftly avoiding the few crewmembers, and then Suoh carried them down to the canoe. When it was riding as low in the water as he thought safe, crowded with children strapped two at a time into adult-sized lifejackets, he let the hawser fall.

They weren't as quiet as he'd like, sculling away from the ship's side, but no-one came to look. Safely clear of the wake, they drew a greenish tarpaulin over their heads. Even if the canoe was still in sight by morning, Suoh doubted whether anyone shipboard would spot them.

Now, when it was too late, he wondered why he'd gone along with the Imonoyama's plan. The others didn't have his training. It was no rescue, if they were left in worse straits.

"They're just children. They may not get back to land safely."

"They will," the Imonoyama said. "And . . . the boat is taking guides, to the Americas."

He lost his smile for a moment, but then he found it again.

"They'll tell the authorities, and then the rest of us will be rescued!"

"They'll be safer if no-one notices they're gone. Let's go back to the hold."

The Imonoyama, who'd managed to herd the smallest, clumsiest girls safely to the canoe, lost his grip on the rope as he came back down. Suoh had to run at full speed to get under him, and ended up with a sprained ankle. He limped back to the other prisoners, holding on to a very apologetic Imonoyama's shoulder.

When Suoh finally found his One, he certainly hoped that guide would be less troublesome than the Imonoyama.

They were asleep when the crew covered over the identifying numbers with a different code. Not even Suoh woke as the ship changed course.

Hours later an airborne search converged along the ship's original path. All they found was empty water.