A/N: I'm sorry for posting so late, my excuse is (as usual) my random conglomeration of college exams throughout the beginning of the month.
::
They were shouting all at once, in his face, and Mamoru's hands were up appeasingly because he'd been expecting such a strong reaction from them.
"You don't even know—" Sierra's tone was accusing, her voice quivering with indignation. "Is this a joke to you?"
She advanced toward him threateningly and he moved into the older woman's space in turn, disinclined to give her the upper hand.
"No. Listen to me—"
"No, you listen to me." She prodded a finger roughly at his chest, voice seething with anger.
"Calm the fuck down." Mamoru growled, wrenching her wrist away from him. He didn't like to be touched, least of all by her.
"Honey, you need to give the man a chance to speak." Juliett reproached her, frowning.
"I don't remember asking for your opinion." Sierra snapped in return.
"Hey, hold on," Igawa raised his hands in an attempt to thwart the ensuing brawl.
"Sierra." Alpha's tone was neutral, but his voice was loud enough to cut through hers. He moved to put a placating hand on Sierra's shoulder and she scowled but didn't shake him off, as he knew she wouldn't.
"That's a very serious assumption you're making, Blade." Alpha warned slowly, eyes still on Sierra's face.
"I'm just telling you what I see."
For a few moments a disturbing silence hung in the air, and Mamoru knew it wouldn't last.
"Man, you can't see—" Foxtrot pointed out as if he had to remind the man and Mamoru sighed irritably.
"You're all behaving like children." He snapped, and the shouting started up again.
"You're the one who's trying to stir shit up!"
"Uh, I don't think—"
"How are we supposed to—"
"Guys, shut up!"
Igawa moved to stand by Mamoru's side, a deliberate motion that surprised everyone enough to shut them up for at least a few more moments. Mamoru raised an eyebrow at him accordingly and Igawa rolled his eyes.
"Shut up. They're my specs." He turned to the others and sighed, folding his arms over his chest. "And they're not wrong."
"There's always room for error." Sierra's words were cold, laced with bitterness that was directed more at herself than the others.
"Less than five percent." Igawa pointed out, careful to keep his voice low, almost soothing. Even Mamoru had to admit a five percent margin of error was impressive.
"You better hope for your sake that you're right." Sierra's lips up into a snarl and she only seemed to grow more irritated at his attempt to comfort her.
Igawa gave a small shrug before turning and staring at Mamoru curiously. "Man, where'd you even see her?" He asked him incredulously. "They don't—" He circled his hand in the general direction of Mamoru's glasses. "—just save random data. It's reliant on the user."
"You're not gonna believe me." Mamoru snorted.
"Try me."
"How did she look?" Sierra interrupted, stepping toward him again, but this time her actions felt more broken, more desperate. "Did she look okay? Was she—" Sierra froze and her voice softened. "Is she okay?"
Sierra could be a cold bitch—Hell, she was a cold bitch; Mamoru didn't doubt that. But, it was like Igawa had said—they were all here for a reason. They'd all suffered and she had her reasons for joining the network, just as he had his.
So, as much as he really fucking hated her most of the time, he could accept that her suffering was legitimized.
"She looked healthy." He could give her that much. "But I can't promise that you'll find her."
"And why's that?" Sierra's voice hardened, her chin tilting up defiantly as if she was saying, watch me.
"I know she recognized me. And she wasn't happy to see me."
"What? I don't understand. Where was she? Who has her?"
"She was at a café, alone. She—"
"The waitress?" Igawa blurted out, a horrified look on his face that Mamoru felt was justified, after his earlier probing over whether or not the woman was hot.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Sierra deadpanned.
"Fuck, that only happened a few hours ago, am I right?!" Igawa flailed his arms wildly.
"Igawa," Sierra snapped peevishly.
"She was working at a café as a waitress." Mamoru explained shortly. "They called her Runa."
"Take us to it." Alpha directed, the team already shifting to grab their gear. Mamoru straightened up. Now they were getting somewhere.
"I can't promise she'll be there." He reminded the older man.
Alpha nodded curtly in return. "It's worth a shot." Sierra affirmed, her expression serious. Everyone made toward the exit when Mamoru lifted his hand, motioning them to stop.
"Wait. Explain one thing to me." He requested. Sierra stiffened, although Alpha was calm, as if he'd been expecting this.
"Why was she kidnapped?"
::
Haruka stumbled out the back door and felt a cool breeze sweep across her flushed skin, causing tiny goosebumps to rise on her arms and the back of her neck.
She inhaled slowly, hoping that it would have a calming effect on her, but her vision distorted and she involuntarily choked mid-breath.
/
She couldn't draw in a single breath, her throat catching on short, violent bursts of air.
"Tooyama."
Someone was calling her name, but it didn't matter because she couldn't fucking breathe—
"Haruka!"
A pair of hands framed her face, palms gripping both sides of her jaw tight. She blinked as she suddenly felt calloused, warm hands pressing into her skin. She involuntarily lifted her hands to envelop them over the source of heat, inhaling and exhaling slowly.
"Tch…Calm down."
A wave of relief rushed over her. She didn't know why, but for the first time in a long, long time, she actually felt safe.
Her upper lip felt damp with something thicker than sweat—blood?—but before she could find out, someone was crouched down, holding a tissue to her nose. She unconsciously felt herself tipping her head back, but they held her chin firmly in place with a disapproving grunt.
She slowly blinked through the haze of sleep that settled thick in her skull as her adrenaline rush ebbed and found him watching her at eye level.
Oh, she thought. It's you again. It's always you. Tell me your name.
She briefly wondered if he slept with his glasses on before he pulled away from her and everything went black.
/
Haruka's heart tripped and before she knew it she was doubled over, clutching the doorframe with one hand, and spilling her stomach's contents onto the alleyway.
The only thought that drifted through her mind endlessly, as if on a loop, was it wasn't supposed to happen like this.
She hadn't been prepared for it because it wasn't fucking supposed to happen like this.
She wiped at her mouth with a shaky hand, grimacing at the…colorful mess she'd made on the ground. Well, at least I made it outside, she noted dryly. She bumped her head against the wall and locked her legs together in an effort to keep her knees from buckling.
She froze. What if he was making his way around the back right now? The look on his face—he had to have recognized her. If that wasn't recognition, then what had it been?
Oh, she was so fucked.
What good were her visions if they couldn't get her out of a situation as fucked as this one? She banged her fist against the wall in frustration. The headaches and nausea were a given, not to mention the whole spending your whole life on the run thing.
Was a little warning too much to ask for? She buried her head and in her hands and sank to the ground, knees huddling into her chest.
She didn't know what to do.
The worst part of getting caught all those years ago… It wasn't the experiments so much as it was the side effects. The permanent, "unfortunate"—she gritted her teeth as she recalled their pitying tones—side effects.
Before they screwed around in her head, her visions were just that—visions. She was a bystander in a series of unfortunate events. But afterwards, by the time she'd escaped, it'd been too late. They'd left enough lasting scars in her brain to seriously mess her up for good.
The visions became so vivid; it was as if she was immersed in them. Her mind began to think they were really happening and, as a result, she was left hyperventilating—and that was the best case scenario—afterwards.
Most of the time, with the amount of shit she saw, she either vomited or had a migraine. And that was after she'd worked her way up from fainting. It was ironic, given that her visions were supposed to give her an extra sense of security, not leave her more vulnerable than before.
And yet, she'd still managed to elude them for so long—the Yakuza, those of the Galboa Republic, all of them. Granted, she hadn't done it alone; she still had a debt to pay to a certain riddle maker. But she'd done it, she'd kept them all safe—The Wall, the detective, Aunt Serena, and the man, always looming in my visions.
It had to be almost ten years now. She stopped and let out a long breath. Geez, she'd spent ten years on the run. She passed a hand across her face slowly and her mind drifted back to the man.
Seeing him in the flesh for the first time had been so surreal. And then the vision…She had no idea what it meant—she didn't want to think about it—but it felt so familiar, and so—
She shook her head to clear her thoughts because no, she wasn't going to go there. It'd been so long since she'd had a vision of him; she'd kept herself so far away for a reason.
And she'd grown carless, so, so careless! She clenched and unclenched her hands into fists, nails briefly cutting half-moons into the skin of her palm. You should've looked, she mentally chastised herself. You're always supposed to look before you serve them, Jesus, Haruka, how have you lasted this long?
She stared into her open palms and, for the first time in a long time, hoped that their encounter was proof that the future wasn't set in stone. Her palms curled into tight fists. Who was she kidding? Even if it was proof, it wasn't enough.
She stood up slowly and removed her dirty apron, discarding it in the dumpster beside her. She would keep running for as long as she had to it, if it was enough to keep them alive.