Author's Note: I'll be changing the title of the story to "Running Up That Hill" :D I was listening to the song again all day yesterday and really love it. It really fits my fic. O_O So yeah, after this chapter it has been renamed.

"Chapter 2: Hidden"

Ikuto's eyes opened slowly, blurring as he slowly regained consciousness and meeting darkness. For a moment, he wondered if his eyes were open, but then realized he was in a dark room, lying on cold concrete. He raised his head slightly, when his head gave a sharp throb, and he groaned, instinctively raising a hand to it - but found that he couldn't. Blinking in surprise, he felt his arms being held in place behind his back by what felt like a tight, thick rope. No way... they bound him? He struggled to remember what had happened, but wasn't having much luck, his head was pounding painfully. He blinked quickly, trying to clear his foggy head. He'd gone to Kazoumi's office as ordered, and then...

"No.." His eyes widened as he recalled Amu's fearful face, her terrified pleas for help. Easter had taken her... and she was now hidden... who knows where. The teen looked around in the darkness. First things first, he had to find a way out of here. Where was Yoru, anyway?

"Yoru?" He called out.

"Ikuto? You awake, nya? You okay?"

"I'm fine," Ikuto answered immediately. "Where are you?"

"Those jerks trapped me in my egg, nya! I can't get out!" The small chara's voice was panicked. "What do we do, Ikuto?"

Ikuto finally noticed Yoru's egg lying in the middle of the room. Luckily his legs were free, but his body was too sore and beaten up to move. This position he was in only made it worse. He swallowed saliva. "First... we need to get out of here. Then we have to find Amu and get her safely away. I don't know if we can take her home, and she definitely can't go to my place. Maybe the Kiddy King or one of her Guardian friends or someone can hide her, at least for awhile. Easter won't let up so easily.."

"Got that, nya."

Ikuto examined the room more thoroughly. "I see a door a few feet from me, but I won't be able to grab the knob since my hands are tied, and they most likely have it locked tight. We'll need to find an alternate route out of here, somewhere not nearly as exposable as a door." He looked up at the ceiling. "Wait. I see a vent at the top of the wall beside me. If we chara change, we can go through the building and get to Amu."

"But we can't chara-change, nya!"

"I have an idea," Ikuto smiled slightly. "Roll your egg forward, then to the right. All I need is my fingers to pry your egg open. Then you can untie me and we can get out."

"Good idea, Ikuto!" Yoru chirped, and obeyed. He reached the edge of Ikuto's shoe before stopping. "Your shoe's in the way, nya!"

He chuckled. "Roll around it. Just a little more back and I can reach you. Unfortunately, my hands are tied behind me."

"Is that by your butt? Because if -- "

Ikuto sighed impatiently. "Just do it."

"Okay, just don't fart on me, nya!"

Ikuto rolled his eyes. "As if I would do something like that, Yoru.."

"F-fine."

He felt the cold egg against the tips of his fingers, and groaned as he lifted his head so he could see it. He began trying to pry the egg open, but it was hard trying to open something when his body was lying at a strange angle and his fingers were working backwards. He grunted, his hands growing clammy and sweaty from his effort. Then his fingers slid inside, and he pulled the egg apart with as much strength as he could muster. The little cat grinned as he was freed, and immediately began untying Ikuto. Once the ropes were completely off, Ikuto used his hands to get into a sitting position and affectionately patted Yoru's head. "Thanks, Yoru."

"N-no problem, nya." The little cat blushed, and then came up to Ikuto's face, pawing gently at it, and began licking his owner's wounds. Ikuto closed his eyes softly at the relief it brought.

"You really take such good care of me, Yoru."

He opened his eyes again as the chara stopped, and gently cupped him into his hand and placed him on his shoulder while staggering to his feet. "All right. If those idiots think just locking me up is going to stop me from saving Amu, they really are stupid. Just like if father thinks I'm going to let him keep my violin, he's got another thing coming."

"That's right, nya! Chara change!"

The cat ears and tail popped out, and Ikuto's cat-like speed and agility refurbished and in a swift movement, he had torn off the shaft covering the vent and darted inside.

___________________________________________

Her face was bruised and dirty, her arms and legs scratched and bloody. She lung limply from the chains binding her in shackles to the high wall, her head hung low. She struggled to keep her eyes open. Her body was aching, and the wounds they'd inflicted as soon as they brought her in still lingered on her skin. She didn't know what time it was - had hours passed? Days? or merely minutes? - and wondered if her mother and father had called the police by now. She couldn't call them or anyone else to tell them what was going on; they'd confiscated her cell phone. She had no other means to reaching somebody. Tears threatened to well in her eyes, but she refused to let them spill. She'd done enough begging and crying to the vile assholes who'd tortured her.

She felt as if she were trapped in an unwakeable nightmare; She was in the hands of the enemy, and who knew what else they would do to her to make her talk, or give information on the Guardians. Hell, they might not want information at all. Had she really been that much of an obstacle to them, to have them target her like a prey? She was terrified. If they didn't want information, what did they want? Her lock? Her charas? To hurt and punish her? Kill her...?

That last thought made her heart pound in her throat.

She was still young... a young girl. And her life could be ended just for something so simple as searching for the Embryo. Was Easter that powerful, to destroy those all around them should they stand in their way? And Ikuto... Ikuto had gotten hurt trying to save her. Where was he now..? Was he all right? Would he somehow manage to overcome them and save her? One thing she knew for sure; she couldn't depend entirely on Ikuto. If something happened to him where he couldn't reach her... why give herself false hope? She had to depend on herself and her strength in order to make it out of this alive. Although her charas had been snatched from her, as well as the lock, she still had one thing: Her will. She believed in herself and in her own radiance, and if those bastards wanted to try and break her... she'd stand strong until the end, even if she was afraid, because she expected nothing less of herself. No more begging and crying, letting them see her weakness and how breakable she was; She was still the Cool N' Spicy Hinamori Amu, and it was time to give them a full dose of some of that spice.

____________________________________________

"Is the girl still unconscious?"

Ikuto stopped in the small space, listening carefully. Kazoumi was speaking to three guards in his office.

"The last time we checked, which was around twenty minutes ago, she was."

"Hmph. See to it that she awakens. We wouldn't want to accidentally kill her, would we?" His chuckle was filled with unmerciful venom.

Ikuto hissed lowly in the vent. That asshole...

"O-of course not," One of the guards spoke. "We'll check on her immediately."

"If she is, make sure she's coherent and can answer questions. A confused little girl would do us no good. Once you check on her, all three of you are to check on the boy; he most surely is awake by now, and I want you to knock him back out so he stays out of our way while we question her."

Good luck with that, Ikuto thought sarcastically.

"Yes, Boss." The men nodded their head and exited. Ikuto quickly moved to follow the sound of their footsteps, but could have sworn he saw Kazoumi's eyes drift up to where Ikuto was hiding, as if he knew he was right there.

He stayed silent as he moved as quick as a cat through the vent, his ears strained as he kept track of the men's footsteps. He couldn't afford to lose them for even a single second or he would lose the course to take him to Amu. He heard the ding! of the elevator and 'tcched'; of course they wouldn't keep her just one floor higher than they'd kept him. She had to be on one of the lowest levels, but he had no way of figuring out what floor they were going to inside this vent!

Frustrated and frantic, the boy reached the end of the vent of the hallway and cursed his luck; there was no way for him to go down to the lower levels, and the elevator was making it's way down already...

Pushing the vent door completely off it's hinges, Ikuto hurriedly sped to the staircase; it was a long shot, but he had to make it to Amu. He could not afford for her to stay any longer here, or for himself to get caught again. But even though he was now speeding down the stairs at break-neck speed, he still had no idea where the guards had gone!

"Dammit!" He hissed. He would have to take a wild guess, and even then he could be wrong; he could get caught easily. His mind raced; where was the most predictable place to hide a captive in a high corporation? One would usually think the highest floor, as it's farthest from an exit, but then again the Easter employees besides him and Utau when she'd been here were all incompetent. He halted suddenly when he heard a voice outside the door just paces from where he'd stopped. It was Tsukumo, the annoying idiot scientist, and he seemed to be talking to someone.

"So you got the girl with the lock?"

Ikuto listened more closely.

"Yeah, Boss wanted her for some reason he didn't explain to us. She's down in basement now."

Ikuto could almost jump for joy. These people were complete idiots! Darting for the stairs again, he sighed in utter relief. "Their incompetence sure does help me out. I'll have to 'thank' them one day." He reached the last staircase pretty quickly, and swallowed before attempting the knob; He was nearly surprised to see it was locked pretty good, with how stupid these workers could be. But then, they had locked his door, too. "Or that I know of," He mumbled. "I didn't try it.."

With a swift, solid kick he kicked the door open, and immediately his eyes rested on a pale face as Amu's head snapped up in fright, before her golden-eyes softened. "I-Ikuto!"

"Shh," Ikuto hushed her, running forward to the startled girl. She'd obviously just woken from being unconscious or had conked back out. "I'm here now, I'm going to get you out of here."

He began trying to unhinge the chains from the wall so he could free her, and Amu could only stare at him with those honey-colored eyes. "Y-you... really came."

"So you were hoping?" He teased lightly. Amu blushed, but since her skin was so pale, it was barely a tinge. "I have no idea where to take you... somewhere, and I'll have to come back for your charas. Do you know where they hid them?"

"N-no," Amu's eyes watered slightly. "They just snatched those three and the Humpty Lock before locking me up in here. What do they want..?"

Ikuto's eyes softened at her. The poor girl... "I don't know, but I won't let them do whatever it is they want to you. They may have me, but they won't have you." He freed the short, pink-haired girl from her bounds and carefully scooped her small, weak frame into his arms. "I need to find a way we can escape undete -"

"IKUTO, LOOK OUT!" Amu's eyes went wide with terror and a blow came so fast to Ikuto's right shoulder he cried out, collapsing to his knees and dropping Amu. A hand pulled at his back collar, choking him, another was pulling on his hair. Just from the vice-like grip, he knew it was his step father.

"So you thought your little adventure inside my vents could go undetected, did you? That you could get to her without me knowing, did you?"

He was thrown onto his back, his character change being expelled. He glared up at the man with extreme loathing. "You bastard," He hissed.

A kick to his stomach made him double over, giving a hard cough from the blow. His shoulder felt as if it were on fire, and it was only now that he saw, on his shoulder, a needle had been injected. What ever it was inside it was making his body grow weak fast, and unconsciousness was threatening to overcome him. As the liquid spread like wild fire through his system, he felt pain he'd never experienced in his life. His head spun with dizziness, the room darkened, and the last thing he heard before he passed out yet again was Amu's scream of fright and a sinister laughter.

__________________________________

Poor Ikuto. :( He's just getting the short end of the stick, isn't he? But then, so is poor Amu-chan. O: Evil step dad needs to die a slow and painful death. (Anger!) Yeah, I'm not violent at all. ^^ Lol, I'm just spouting this fic out like crazy. xDD Am already writing the third chap. :D