A/N: I don't have much to say about this one haha. I wrote most of it on my phone as I was falling asleep, so I don't know if I was completely in the write mind when I was working on it. Writing in first person takes a longer time than it does for me to write in third, I guess. Thanks for reading this far!

It took 10, maybe 15 minutes for me to get off the ground.

Most of that time was spent waiting for the pain all over to my body to subside (and it never really did). The rest of it, I just needed to sit there in awe and stare into space and ask myself if any of that was real. With the extreme absurdity and randomness of it, chances were that it -wasn't- real and I had just been dreaming. I'd wake up any second from this nightmare and take a shower, brush my teeth, make breakfast for Rin and I like any other day of the week. Maybe I'd been dreaming this entire time and haven't even had my first day of school yet, I was oversleeping and needed to wake up before Rin attacks me. I shook my head, ruffled my hair, even pinched my cheek just to see if I could make myself come out of this already. Nothing worked. Eventually, I was forced to come to the conclusion that every bit of what had just happened was real. Including my sister getting kidnapped by a maniac and her band of male swimsuit models.

I'm normally a sensible guy who can think rationally in bad situations, but I didn't do a great job of showing that by punching a nearby tree as hard as my weakened body would let me; it hurt and left splinters.

At the least, it was enough to clear the fogginess in my head and allow me to really think about what to do next. My first instinct was to call the police, to get them over here as fast as possible and chase after Miku before she was too far away to be found, but I remembered that this was a hostage situation. I had no idea what that girl was capable of, and I didn't want to take any risks and find out. She had even said something about that, I think.

…

"See you soon, Len-kun! Neru-chan will explain everything when she wakes up!" It momentarily disappeared until abruptly returning, barely audible. "Almost forgot! Don't try to tell anyone about this! If you do, you'll never see Rin-chan again! Byeeeeee!"

…

… Yeah. I wasn't going to place any bets on her word.

But that first part was important. Neru, she should be able to tell me what I needed to know before taking any sort of action. I stood up almost painlessly, grateful that the only injury to my legs were a few scrapes, and looked over at her, still laying on the ground a few feet away. I did feel a little bad seeing her like that, but not that much. This girl had gotten my sister and I involved in this mess just for a phone and put Rin's safety at risk. No, she probably knew that this would be about more than just her phone, right? Obviously, she and Miku had been at each other's throats for a while now. If Neru had even the slightest suspicion that this would involve violence, then it was wrong of her to force me to come. Still, I knew that pointing fingers wouldn't help anyone do anything, so a few seconds later, I sighed very, very loudly, tiredly, and approached her.

I surveyed the visible parts of her body and didn't see anything serious; she must have just passed out from pain or gotten knocked unconscious somehow.

"... Akita...?" I bent down to her level and shook her shoulder. She was breathing, but still unresponsive. "Akita! Hey! You can't stay like this forever!"

I continued trying to wake her up for a few minutes longer until I decided that it was a vain effort and a waste of time. Nothing I could do, alone and lacking any experience with this sort of thing, would be able to wake her up just yet. It frustrated me more than anything that I needed her to get my sister back when I had no idea who she was. How could I be sure that she wasn't a total maniac like that other girl, or even worse? What if she refuses to tell me anything about this situation? From what I'd seen of her, she wasn't exactly the most pleasant person to be around.

I exhaled exhaustedly, knowing that I didn't have the luxury to spend time worrying about all of that. What I needed to do was figure out a way to get Rin back in the quickest, safest way possible, and the first step towards that was working with Neru, no matter how much I didn't want to. I shoved my doubts and irresolution down my throat and decisively reached for the unmoving girl in front of me.

…

Carrying an unconscious girl bridal-style on the bus whilst covered in cuts and scrapes wasn't easy to explain to the driver. She was a girl this time, not the same one who had gotten into an argument with Rin, and she was pretty wary of me as I showed her my bus pass. I was worried that she wouldn't let me on since my pass only covers one person, but she just continued to eye me suspiciously for a while longer before waving me off without asking any questions.

There were more people on the bus than there were this morning, and the crowd was completely different. I saw a sleeping man on the floor in dirty brown clothing, several women in revealing clothes smoking cigarettes, an old man conspicuously staring at said women, and a cluster of boys that looked a bit older than me doing something furtively in the back corner. The rest appeared to be normal people, scattered across the bus in different places.

Neru wasn't heavy, but I knew that if I stood by and grabbed one of the unoccupied poles, I wouldn't be able to carry her with just one arm. My only other option was one of the seats, and though they were scratched up and probably hadn't been cleaned in several years, I was lucky enough to have the sweater that I'd put on still tied around my waist. It felt safe enough to sit down, even if I would need to burn it the second I got home. Neru, on the other hand, was less fortunate; the seat to our right where her legs were was empty, her waist and mid-section rested in my lap, but her hair fell on the dirty floor and her head inches away from the creepy old man I mentioned before. He glanced at her for a second, I raised an eyebrow, but he quickly grimaced and looked away.

It was almost worrying how none of the people to later arrive on the bus said anything to me. The worst were unfriendly stares and everyone eventually minded their own business, playing games on their phones, reading, or staring out the window. It was convenient for me, but should adults really be so unconcerned? I made a mental note to never let Rin ride this bus by herself.

... Except that she already did. When she followed me to school and got kidnapped by a psycho.

I cursed quietly enough for only me to hear and bit my lip. Rin. I let her get taken away so easily and helplessly. This wasn't funny or something to take lightly at all. My sister was being held hostage right at that moment, terrified, surrounded by suspicious people that she knew nothing about, with even less of an understanding of the situation than me. I don't know what they're going to do and neither does she. What if... something had already happened to her?

I froze in my seat, making a conscious effort to breathe. Everybody's dirty looks suddenly were utterly insignificant, I chided myself for worrying about it earlier when my sister was busy worrying for her life. I felt panicky, clutching Neru's shoulder and the back of her knee where my arms were still hooked underneath. My eyes fell on her face, the ground, glaring, frustrated, paranoid.

I forced myself to calm down soon enough, reasoning that they wouldn't let anything terrible happen to her for now. The hostages are their only leverage over me, so no matter what their goal is, they can't get rid of Rin. I breathed out slowly; it wasn't much better, but it served as a moment's relief. Chances were in my favor that my sister was okay, and the first thing I needed to do was cooperate with Neru once she woke up and figure all of this out.

... She would cooperate with me, right? No, she doesn't have a choice. I remembered that someone else had gotten taken along with Rin, the girl from the bus with the white hair. Haku, she's a friend of Neru's, so there's no way that she wouldn't do anything about this. I should've felt more relieved knowing that someone else was with my sister, but from the little I'd seen of Haku... she wouldn't be the most supportive or reassuring company. I groaned and leaned my head back against the window.

...

I set Neru down on our couch in front of the TV. The bus ride had taken a few over an hour, which is why I had no idea why she hadn't woken up yet. Looking at the clock I saw that it was 8:56 PM, my dad wouldn't be back for another three hours. How could I possibly explain this to him? He'll either not take me seriously or panic and call the police. I wanted to call the police, but I didn't want to endanger Rin. It was annoying, not being able to get help or do anything at all until Neru regained consciousness.

At around 9:30, I was impatient and irritated. My major cuts were disinfected and bandaged, I took a shower and wore clean clothes, I ate a ramen, I paced around the room ceaselessly in deep thought. No matter how long I waited, Neru wouldn't wake up. She couldn't have been dead, I checked her more than once and didn't see anything wrong. She was practically in better shape than I was. What else could have caused her to be knocked out for so long?

An idea suddenly popped into my head. It was impractical and very impolite to do to a girl, but I couldn't stand waiting anymore. I rose, scooping up Neru bridal-style again and carried her upstairs. Like I said before, it was no problem, she didn't weigh a thing. With both my arms busy, I had to kick the door in front of me open in order to carry her into Rin's bathroom. (One of the reasons why dad chose this house was because it had three different bathrooms, which was great - we wouldn't need to wait half an hour for Rin to get out of the shower anymore.)

So then I laid Neru down in the bath, silently apologized to her, and turned on the water to the coldest temperature it could go.

It only took a few minutes for her to wake up and start screeching like a pterodactyl from Jurassic Park. I turned off the water triumphantly, wondering why I didn't do this earlier, and leaned against the wall as I waited for her to stop freaking out. Call me evil or childish, but seeing her like that was just a little satisfying for payback, seeing as how she forced me to seemingly get her phone back when it was about something entirely different, which could've gotten me kidnapped in Rin's place if she hadn't followed me there. Did I feel guilty or unreasonable for being mad at her? Nah.

"Wh-what... the hell…" Neru stuttered, disoriented, weakly gripping the shower curtain to pull herself up from the ground. Her limbs moved languidly, trembling and shivering as if she was in physical pain. So then, yeah, I felt a little guilty for doing that to a girl, even if it was necessary. I came closer and reached out my hand for her to take. Her already sloppy bangs fell over her face and covered her eyes like a wet mop. She took my hand.

I started to apologize, "... Sorry about that, Akita. I—"

"Creep!" She pulled my wrist with gorilla-like strength and sent me sprawling behind her. As I cried out upon colliding with the wall, she slowly stepped out of the bath, but stumbled on the slippery ground and fell ungracefully. I called out after her, cursing myself for not being able to foresee this.

"Akita! Agh…" I hissed and winced from the sharp pain in my back. "This is really not what it seems like! I'm K—hey!" I dodged a flying hair dryer and an empty shampoo bottle. Common bathroom object after the other came hurtling in my direction until there were none left, most of them hitting me directly in the face. Luckily, nothing was as harmful as Rin's dryer.

But it was pretty unlucky that once it stopped, Neru was no longer in the room.

"... Damn it, Akita!" I swore, just about fed up with this entire situation. Cautious not to slip on the floor, I suppressed my frustration and ran after her.

Turned out there was no need to rush. I followed the trail of water she left and shortly found her halfway down the staircase; she appeared to be struggling with each step as if she was in desperate need of a cane. The second Neru noticed I was behind her she picked up the pace, albeit unsteadily and still kind of slow. I hurried down the steps and caught her by the arm at the base.

"Would you relax for just a second, please?! We're wasting time! I'm not going to"—I caught her wrist as a second fist flew at me—"I'm not trying to hurt you! It's me, Kagamine Len! From school!"

I could hear her heavy and short breaths start to calm. Wrenching her hands out of my grip, she pushed away the hair covering her eyes and squinted.

"... K... Kagamine. From sch-school."

"Yes!" I answered immediately and impatiently. "From school! We just met today after that blue-haired girl took your phone, which is why I need you to tell me right now wh—"

"HAKU!" Her facial expression shifted from mild confusion to fear and shock. "Shitshitshitshitshitshit, I h-have to get her!" In an instant, she stumbled away from the stairs and headed towards the door.

"Where the hell are you going now?! Wait!"

...

I had to chase Neru again for about 10 minutes before she passed out on the ground outside. Neither of us had gotten very far; both of us were wet and running around at 10:07 at night. I hadn't been wearing any shoes as a bonus, while Neru was slow to begin with. When I had caught up to her, she was unconscious on somebody's lawn. (I prayed that this wouldn't leave a bad impression on our new neighbors.) Her skin was colder than mine, but her forehead was warmer than the rest of her body. A fever. Carrying her back felt like holding a corpse, she barely moved at all, even her breathing was subtler than normal. I hurried back to my house to get out of the freezing night air.

Neru was laid down on the couch again with a little cold towel on her forehead and a blanket. She was still wearing her wet clothes, but... I definitely wasn't going to change her out of them. I changed out of my clothes again and sat across from her, waiting, thinking. Not really doing anything. What else could I do? I'm not a doctor, and I couldn't call or take her to a doctor. In reality, it wasn't any further than where I was 40 minutes ago. I hadn't progressed towards getting my sister back whatsoever since she was kidnapped and I had no idea what to do.

I got out of my chair, picked up our house phone and called the police.

A feminine voice answered. "Sorairo County Police speaking, what is your emergency?"

"I... I'm reporting a kidnapping of two girls, both 1st year high school students."

"Who are we speaking to?"

"Kagamine Len. I'm also a 1st year."

"Where are you?"

"Uhh..." I smacked my forehead for not knowing our address yet. "I-I don't know, I'm sorry. My family is new to Sorairo and I don't know the street name exactly. Hitabarashi something."

"That is not a problem, we can track you by the phone you're using, but it will take longer to get to you. Are you outside?"

"No, I'm in my house. The number is 1227."

"We will be there in 25 minutes or less. Can you tell us anything more about the kidnapping?"

"The girls that were taken... one of them was my sister. She's blonde, blue eyes, she has a white bow in her hair and she was wearing a sleeveless white shirt and gray shorts. Her hair is a little less than shoulder-length and... I think her shoes were orange. Her name is Rin." I accidentally might have rambled and wondered if the lady was still listening.

"Is that all?"

"No, the other girl's name is Haku, I don't know her last name. She's tall with maroonish eyes and her hair is white and really long. I don't remember what she was wearing."

"Were you a witness to the kidnapping?"

"Yeah, I was there when it happened about..." My eyes wandered over to the clock. "... Three hours ago."

"Did you see who took them?"

"Uhh... Her name is Miku. She has blue—"

"What did you say her name was?"

"... I said Miku. She has long blue hair in pigtails, blue eyes, I think she might be a 2nd year. She was wearing a—"

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"... Hello?" I waited for a few seconds in puzzlement for a response. We were talking just fine and then suddenly... it stopped working. I looked at the phone screen.

CALL ENDED