Author's Note: The beginning of this chapter takes place simultaneously i.e.. at the same time as Chapter Nine. Yep. Whereas Chapter Nine was from Domyouji's side of things, the first half of Chapter Ten is from Tsukushi's side of things - what is happening to her at the same time as what was happening to Domyouji during the last chapter.

Sorry for the slight backtrack, but I think it's necessary to get the whole picture...

Disclaimer: I own nothing! Except the plot. :)

Family Planning

By Onkiu

Chapter 10: Operation: Rescue Tsukushi

Tsukushi's eyes fluttered open. Her neck was hurting. She reached up a hand to give it a massage when, she found, that she couldn't. To her surprise, her hands were bound together behind her back.

She opened her mouth to scream out to whoever did this stupid prank - Mimasaka? Nishikaido? Domyouji? - to let her go immediately. But she realised she couldn't do that either; her mouth was gagged.

Just to make sure if this was real or not, she wriggled her feet. To her dismay, she realised that they, too, were bound.

This seemed to go far beyond what the F4 would deem as a decent prank. No, they'd never go this far; not on her, at least.

She pulled herself up by a lot of squirming and surveyed her surroundings, trying to make sense of her situation. She was lying on a hard bed in a small, sparsely furnished room; apart from the bed, the only other piece of furniture was a simple wooden desk and a strict looking chair. There was a door at the other end of the room, but it was closed, and there was no way she would be able to get up and open it. At the other end of the room was a window, but a blind was pulled down over it so that Tsukushi could not see the outside.

There was no use; she was immobile, and she was locked in. But her weed power refused to lose, and she found herself immediately thinking of a way to, at least, get herself untied.

But how? There was no sharp object in the room save for the blinds, and they weren't really that sharp either. As she flopped back onto the bed in despair, a hard lump jabbed at her.

It was her mobile phone, sitting in her pocket all this time!

She wriggled around in the hopes of squeezing her phone out of her pocket. She squirmed around on the bed, making various twists and manoeuvres trying to push the phone out. She finally managed to squeeze the phone out, and it fell off the small bed, landing on the floor silently.

As it fell, she tried to catch the phone, but forgot that her hands were tied behind her. As a consequence of this, she ended up toppling onto the floor after her phone with a loud, dull thud.

Her crash onto the floor alerted whoever it was beyond the door to her attempts at escaping. The door flew open, and a rather big man came in. He was plainly attired in a dark top and dark trousers, and his face was covered by a balaclava. He looked very much like a criminal. He was followed by a much smaller person whom Tsukushi supposed was a woman from her body shape. She, too, was plainly dressed, and was also covered by a balaclava. Tsukushi could see nothing but their eyes.

"Oh, so you're finally awake?" he smirked. He walked over and pulled the gag off her mouth, but did nothing to help her up from the floor.

"Who are you?" said Tsukushi. That was the first question that she could think of, despite being sprawled across the floor most unfashionably.

"Do you think I'd really tell you?" he snorted, laughing most evilly. "But if you insist on calling my something, you can call me Gin."

"Did you... bring me here?" Tsukushi couldn't bear to say 'kidnapped' because it would seem to make her reality as a captive official.

"Yes, we did," he said loftily, as if it were no big deal.

Tsukushi felt a chill run down her spine when he called her by her exact name. She didn't know who they were, yet they seemed to know who she was - her name and where she went to school, at the very least.

"I'm... I'm not Makino Tsukushi," muttered Tsukushi. Perhaps that was why they kidnapped her. Because she was Makino Tsukushi. Maybe if she insisted that they had got the wrong person, they would let her go.

"Don't lie," snapped the woman irritably, pulling out a magazine. With a sinking feeling, Tsukushi realised that it was Parenting Today - the issue with Domyouji and her on the front cover and the one featuring her debut Procreation Sensation article. "A girl who bears such an uncanny resemblance to the Makino Tsukushi on the cover, and also attending Eitoku Academy? I don't think so. We knew you were the one when you walked out the front gates. We waited for you for three hours, and not a single other girl looked so much like the Makino Tsukushi on the cover."

Tsukushi felt her heart skip a beat and cursed her luck, cursed Domyouji, cursed Domyouji's warped mine for bringing up such a stupid plan, cursed Parenting Today, cursed Domyouji Media Holdings, cursed her inability to resist Tsunami's attempts at trying to make her officially a part of the Domyouji family and cursed the fact that she had to attend Eitoku and became involved with Domyouji Tsukasa in the first place. She never would have imagined, despite how fruitful her imagination was, that a supposedly innocent article could end up causing her so much trouble.

"And now that you are awake, Miss Makino Tsukushi, we have certain business to attend to," cut in the man under the alias of Gin. "Where is your phone?"

"It's not here," lied Tsukushi, still lying across the floor, her phone hidden underneath her. She was going to cling onto her last desperate hope of escape, she was going to guard it with - she hope it did not come down to it - her life.

"Get up," said the man coolly, his ice cold eyes narrowed at her.

Tsukushi made no attempt to get up; after all, it was their fault that she couldn't. The woman rushed forward and heaved Tsukushi up and back onto the bed, and her phone was revealed. Tsukushi felt as if all hope had been drained from her.

"Your phone's not here, eh? You're not Makino Tsukushi, eh?" said Gin. "You're a cheeky one, aren't you? Nice attempt and all, but the next time you lying to me, I think I will break your fingers."

He looked pretty serious about that threat too. Picking up her phone, he flipped it open, and jabbed some buttons.

"Domyouji Tsukasa, eh," he muttered. He pressed dial and held the phone to his ear, and a few seconds later, he said, "Domyouji Tsukasa. Your girlfriend and your child is in our hands. You have forty eight hours to comply with our requests, or we will kill them."

On the other side of the phone, Domyouji was stunned by what he had heard. Was this real? Was this a lie? Tsukushi's absence was driving him crazy and he was willing to believe pretty much anything that people said to him now about her whereabouts.

But the first thing that he managed to blurt was, "Who the hell are you!"

Nishikaido, Mimasaka and Rui turned to him, stunned at this unexpected statement. They could hear none of the other side of the conversation, and to have Domyouji suddenly question who Tsukushi was rather, well, surprising.

"That's none of your business," was the cool reply. "I am the one who has your girlfriend in his hands."

"I don't believe you," whispered Domyouji, losing his nerve. Despite being powerful and influential most of the time, being without Tsukushi left him feeling hapless and sapped of power.

"You don't? Should I show you the truth?"

A ruffling noise was heard and the sound of someone being pushed against something - perhaps a wall - followed it. Domyouji heard snippets of someone talking in the background; he distinctly heard a man's commanding voice saying "Talk to him." The next thing Domyouji heard was Tsukushi.

"Dom...Domyouji?" said Tsukushi hesitantly, the phone held to her ear as she was forced from her position lying on the bed to an upright sitting position against the wall.

"Makino! Where are you? Are you okay? Are you mad at me? I... I miss you. I miss you so much that I think my heart is about to break," A flood of relief spread over Domyouji as a flood of questions came from his lips. It was a relief to know she was alive. It was a relief to know that at least she did not seem to be mad at him.

"I'm... I'm okay. I'm not hurt or anything, but I'm tied up in this really bare looking room and -"

The phone was pulled away from her before Tsukushi could give off any more details about where or with who she could possibly be.

"Enough with these details." The voice that came back on was the man. "I'll get straight to the point. If you want your beloved back, you are to agree to all my conditions without any exceptions. I want you to give me half of what Domyouji Enterprises is worth, in return for your girlfriend and your child's life. I'm not greedy. I'm only asking for a mere half, in exchange for not one, but two lives. Two lives that are precious to you. I will call you again in about six hours time. You are not to contact the police. Have a nice day."

With that, the man, whoever he was, hung up, leaving Domyouji lost for words and stunned by this new development.

"Who was that?" demanded Nishikaido. It was, for sure, not Tsukushi.

"It..." muttered Domyouji, his eyes wide, uncharacteristically paralysed with fear - fear for Tsukushi's safety. He felt his throat go dry as the words rolled lifelessly from his lips, "It was her kidnappers."

"Kidnappers?" said Rui. "Then you must tell the police."

"NO!" Domyouji cried out. "We can't! They'll hurt Makino! They might kill her!"

"Look," snapped Rui in an irritable manner which surprised Nishikaido and Mimasaka. His fists clenched Tsukushi's bag, still in his hands, trying hard to stop them from shaking so much in anger. "What the hell are you going to do if you don't tell the police! Only the police have the powers and the resources to resolve this crisis!"

"I..." sighed Domyouji hollowly, his shoulders slumped. "I... I don't know. But I'll rescue her. I'll just pay whatever they demand and get her out. Somehow. Please, don't tell the police. The kidnappers specifically said not to. "

"And are you going to listen to their demands, and fall into their trap?" retorted Rui. "Stop playing the superhero and be realistic for once. You, sir, are not invincible. Get over it. You may be invincible at school, and perhaps much of life, but not in this current situation. You are not going to rescue her alone. You can't do it. If you listen to the kidnappers and just sit around, waiting for their orders, I think that is rather selfish of you. You're not putting any effort at all into freeing her."

The gravity of Rui's words sunk in, and the truth did sting. Even Domyouji could not think of a backlash against that one. He sighed haplessly. "It's no use. It's all my fault. If I didn't make her so angry, she wouldn't've left. If she didn't leave, she would not have been kidnapped. It's all my fault."

"No, Tsukasa. It's not. We made her angry too. And it's not your fault that there happened to be people who wanted to kidnap her," said Mimasaka, putting a comforting arm around Domyouji.

"We're in this together," said Nishikaido. "We want Makino to be safe too. We'll think of the best way to get her out, okay?"

His three best friends closed in around him and their mere presence was uplifting. The encouragement from his friends seemed to revive the beast inside Domyouji, and his lethargic helplessness was replaced by a fiery resolve to take no crap from the kidnappers and get Tsukushi out safely, using whatever avenue it required.

"Domyouji Tsukasa isn't the type of person who'd take crap from anyone," smiled Rui. "Especially not the vermin that took away the one he loved most."

"Alright. Time to tell the police," said Domyouji firmly, "Screw their orders."

He walked up to the policewoman at the counter who had been waiting patiently while they had been arguing over the best way to rescue Makino. He went into a lengthy explanation of who he was, who Tsukushi was, how the article annoyed Tsukushi, where they had found Tsukushi's bag, and the eyewitness accounts and what they'd assumed to have happened from it. Domyouji elaborated on the phone call he had just received and the type of person he'd been communicating with, the minute details of the conversation. Rui then handed over Tsukushi's satchel so that it could be analysed for clues.

The policewoman absorbed it all and they were subsequently referred to a young detective, who was supposedly arising star of the police force with a genius for figuring alibis and motivations behind crimes. He greeted the F4 and then introduced himself.

"My name is Shinichi Kudo," he said, shaking Domyouji's hand. "It's a pleasure to be working with you. I've handled homicide cases before, but this is the very first time I've been assigned to an abduction."

He was a young man with dark brown hair, and he did not seem to be that much older than them. In fact, he looked to be of the same age as them, but Domyouji wasn't quite sure. His youth, however did not translate into his fashion sense; he had a rather quaint sense of style. He was dressed in a horribly bright blue suit and was wearing a dazzling red bow tie, and the brilliance of it all simply made Nishikaido and Mimasaka cringe.

"Now, let's go somewhere with some peace and quiet, shall we? You can begin by recounting everything you know so far to me."

Shinichi lead them to a rather threadbare interview room, where the F4 repeated the whole account of what had happened to him whilst he scribbled down some notes furiously. He asked them many questions; if they knew what the number plate of the car was, the number of men that came out and grabbed Tsukushi and other fine details that the F4 had not previously thought about.

Even after going over every detail, they failed to come up with answers. However, Shinichi Kudo, being the brilliant detective that he was, had by no means exhausted every avenue. He insisted on going back to the school and questioning the witnesses for more clues as to Tsukushi's last actions before she was abducted, and finally, from a consensus of the witness's statements, he had managed to come up with an accurate description of the getaway vehicle and its license plate.

"Well," said Shinichi brightly, after at least a tiring three hours of questioning witnesses and inspecting the Eitoku's grounds. "At least we have made a pretty big leap in terms of catching those thugs!"

"So, do you know who they are now?" said Domyouji hopefully.

"Of course not!" grinned Shinichi cheerfully, whereupon at that point the F4 all did a very synchronised head-desk.

"But," he continued seriously. "Knowing the number of the plate will allow us find out who the car is registered under, and we can then question the owner."

Detective Shinichi Kudo turned to one of the police officers, and said, "Inspector Megure. Could you please get Mouri to find out who this number plate -" Shinichi quickly scribbled some numbers and letters onto a sheet of paper. "- and get back to me with the name and license number of the owner?"

Inspector Megure obeyed, and once he left, Shinichi continued. "We can appeal to the public for any witnesses who had seen that car a little after the time of Miss Makino's kidnapping. With that, we plot the route that the car took, and with a bit of luck, we might end up near the vicinity where they took her."

"Oh, right. We should appeal to the public." said Domyouji, thoroughly relieved that this was finally going somewhere. But somehow, it just didn't seem right. "Wait. Did you say appeal to the public? Meaning that we will broadcast it on television?"

"That's right!" grinned Shinichi cheerfully.

"You're not doing that," snapped Domyouji.

"And, pray tell, why shouldn't I?" said Shinichi, now looking at him directly, almost as if he were challenging him.

"Because, her kidnappers will know that I've gone to the police, and then they will hurt her. I'll kill anyone who had any part in it, and that includes people who instigated the kidnappers into hurting her," whispered Domyouji dangerously, cracking his knuckles.

"Don't you want her to be free?" said Shinichi tersely.

"Yes, I do."

"Then, please, trust me. I've solved many cases like this, and I know how the mind of a criminal works. Without an appeal to the public, you're not going to get anywhere," said Shinichi. "You're worried about them hurting her, right? They won't be able to lay a finger on her, at least, they can't kill her, until you have paid her ransom."

"There's logic in that," said Rui honestly. "It's for the best to do that."

"Didn't you say that you weren't going to take orders from them?" reminded Mimasaka.

Domyouji stared worriedly from one friend to another, but they all nodded encouragingly at him, urging him to release a public appeal. Finally, he gave in, and sighed.

"Let's get on with it."

It wasn't the first time Tsukushi had been kidnapped. Being involved with Domyouji had pretty much ended her life living as a normal student. She would never have thought that one day she would be worth the effort of being kidnapped. She had been abducted three times already, and Domyouji had been involved in some way or another, either as the cause or the reason. The first culprit had been Domyouji himself, forcing a makeover on her. The second had been by Junpei, and she had been used as a decoy to take revenge upon Domyouji. The third time, she had been forcefully taken to see Domyouji Kaede so that she could be notified of Domyouji and Shigeru's pending engagement. The fourth time was by Shigeru because she had some strange, warped idea to force Tsukushi and Domyouji together that to this day, she still could not understand why Shigeru would bother.

But all three of those incidences were relatively harmless - perhaps, with the exception of the Junpei's - in comparison to this one. Domyouji and Shigeru's kidnapping was pretty much a childish prank; Junpei's was simply a high school revenge attack. But this - there was something that told her that this was serious - this was the stuff that happened to people who appeared on the news, not her!

And, unbeknownst to her, appear on the news she did.

"In a tragic development to the fairytale that has been gripping the hearts and minds of the nation, Makino Tsukushi, girlfriend of the heir to the Domyouji millions, has been abducted from her school early this afternoon," said the pretty anchor lady on the news. "Police are appealing for any witnesses who may have seen this car with this number plate at around 1 pm yesterday afternoon to contact the police on the twenty-four hour police hotline number on the screen. The news of her abduction sent Domyouji stocks tumbling down at the closing of the stock market..."

The public appeal was worth every risk that they took against Tsukushi's safety; it had been very fruitful. Many calls were made to the police hotline and from every statement, Shinichi Kudo and his fellow detective, Hattori Heiji, were able to piece together the descriptions and plot the route that the car went after it left Eitoku on a gigantic map. However, it had reached a dead end...

"... at an area around here," said Heiji, who had also been assigned to this case after the police force stepped up its efforts to rescue Tsukushi. He circled the zone where Tsukushi was most likely to have ended up in. "I guess we should just wait for more calls for now."

It had been very disappointing for Shinichi and Heiji when the results from the analysis of Tsukushi's bag came back - the only fingerprints on it were Tsukushi's and Rui's, because he had been the one to find the bag.

Their disappointment, however, was quickly countered by yet another clue to this puzzle - Inspector Megure came back with the name of the owner under which the car of concern was registered.

"Kaworu Nagisa?" said Shinichi, frowning.

"Yes. But the funny thing is, after we searched the births and deaths registry, as well as the marriage registry, is that Kaworu Nagisa is supposed to be dead," said Megure. "He died a year ago."

"Then it must be a case of identity theft," said Shinichi, getting rather excited by the growing complexity of this case.

But despite this new clue, they had, once again, reached a brick wall.

"I think we should call it a day," said Heiji. "You must be exhausted. Would you all like coffee?"

"Flat white, please," said Domyouji. He definitely needed the stimulation.

"Milk tea," said Rui.

"Definitely an iced mocha," said Mimasaka.

"Oolong tea," said Nishikaido, although oolong tea wasn't necessarily coffee.

"We only have instant coffee here. This isn't Starbucks, you know," said Heiji flatly. As he got up to make the coffee, Domyouji's phone rang again.

Domyouji looked at the screen. It was the call he had been anticipating - the instructions on depositing the ransom so that Tsukushi could be released.

"It's Makino," he said, looking at the detectives.

"Don't answer it yet," said Shinichi, and with a quick nod at Megure, they quickly and efficiently hooked Domyouji's mobile phone onto very technologically advanced looking eavesdropping and call tracing apparatus. Shinichi and Heiji quickly pulled on the headphones that were connected to the eavesdropping thingamabob that Domyouji had no idea what it was called.

With a curt nod and instructions to draw out the conversation as long as possible from Heiji, Domyouji answered his phone.

"Hello?" he said cautiously.

"Hello, Mr. Domyouji," replied the sinisterly familiar voice. "Great work going on television and all."

"YOU! Don't you dare hurt a hair of Makino's!"

"For not listening to my instructions, especially when I explicitly told you to accept all my conditions lest you might compromise her safety, I might have taken out my frustrations on her. Perhaps once or twice."

"If you killed her, I swear, I will make sure that you won't live even if you had nine lives."

"Hollow threats, big boy. Rest assured, she's still alive. I just gave her a slap or two so that she'll remember to teach her boyfriend to listen to instructions properly. Now, onto the payment details. You want to free her, right? You are to deposit the money into my foreign account, of which its details I will be sending you in a short text message after this call so that you will have no excuse about getting my account number wrong."

"Before I pay you," said Domyouji, "I would like to know how you're going to keep your end of the bargain."

"You have my word for it," said the man simply.

"I don't trust you."

"You are in no position to say whether you trust me or not."

"I will pay eighty percent of your demands first," said Domyouji, "And once you release Makino, I will pay the other twenty percent."

"And, on what grounds am I to believe that you will pay that other twenty percent? I don't trust you either. You have no right to haggle with me. Accept my conditions or accept the fact that you won't be seeing dear Miss Makino here again."

"Fine. I accept. However, I will not pay you until I can confirm that Makino is, at least alive. Let me speak to her," said Domyouji, praying hard that he would get to hear her voice and know that they had not killed her because he had contacted the police and made an appeal to the public.

"I'm a man of my word. Get her over here," said the man, and a bit of shuffling was heard in the background. The next voice on the phone was indeed Tsukushi, sounding a bit exhausted but at the very least, alive.

"Makino! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, sounding rather weary. "I'm a bit hungry, and a little scared, but I'm fine."

"Did they hurt you!"

"Just a little," she said, laughing rather cynically, "But it's nothing compared to what you Eitoku jerks put me through. You do remember who was responsible for all that, right? It was -"

Once again, the phone was cruelly snatched from her, and the kidnapper ended their conversation, "Remember. One hundred percent of the payment, and then I will send you instructions regarding her release."

With that, he hung up.

"Gotcha," grinned Shinichi, pulling off the headphones that he had been using to eavesdrop while he went about working out the x and y coordinates of the mobile phone from the signals it had been sending to the reception tower. "We've managed to trace the call, and we've sent the data to the telecom companies. She should be -" He pulled out a pin, a stuck it onto a very specific point on the map, "- right here."

"That's great and all," said Domyouji flatly. "But if I recall correctly, that's a residential apartment block that's over thirty four stories high. You know she's in that building, but that's thirty four levels you're going to have to search."

"Get me a blueprint of the building, and a list of its tenants," said Shinichi. An officer returned with them.. With the blueprint, he pointed out specific details and said, "The x and y coordinates we got should eliminate the eastern half of the building. This means that she should only be in apartments G to N of any level. That's half of the apartments we don't have to search."

"And now, the tenants list," said Shinichi. "Help me out, Heiji. See if you see any familiar names."

They scanned the names and details of each occupant living in apartment G to N of each level when they found it.

"Hah!" cried Heiji triumphantly. "I can't believe that some people can be so stupid. 'Kaworu Nagisa' lives in apartment H on the twenty seventh level. Good gracious, I can't believe that he'd use the name of a deceased man twice!"

"Now we're in action," said Shinichi. "Contact the counter-terrorism department. Tell them to get ready. We're going to get her out by force."

Next Chapter: Tsukushi is going to be rescued - in an exciting showdown of police action! Will it be successful, or will the kidnappers make sure that their trump card will not be taken away so easily? Find out next chapter! (Where endeth all drama!)

Gee, I wonder who these detectives and police officers and baddiesare named after... hmm.

Blargh. This took me so long to type up. Especially if you do it at 2 am in the morning.