Warning: Contains some heavy torture, foul language, and hinting of man eyeing man.

Disclaimer: Beelzebub- Tamura-sensei.

A/N: Guys, sorry for the loooong update... very long indeed... a month or so... I'm not dead, 'kay? Just taking a break from Beelzebub to let the latest chapters piled up before reading them. And, thank you very much for Surely Blue by being an amazing beta-reader. This chapter was editied with her skill and I'm happy with it. And if you found some mistakes, it's entirely my fault since I'm the one who write this.

Ah, on to the story!

just to clear it out, italic is thoughts and on some points stress signal for words.

Chapter 3: Mercy

In the morning, Furuichi yelped out a cry of pain when he suddenly couldn't breathe. He opened his closed eyes and, in horror, found the batter guy in front of him. Sneering sadistically, his hands were gripping hard on Furuichi's sore neck.

"Agh… wha—" Furuichi choked out, but he couldn't breathe and his frantic efforts to get away were easily stalled by the others.

"Easy, easy," the batter shushed him as his grip tightened. Just about before his eyes rolled into the back of his head, the pressure stopped and Furuichi jolted up. His wheezing and coughing worsened, not only from the lack of air, but from the pain that spread across his possibly bruised ribs, abused back and arm.

"Oops, careful there, you might vomit blood," the leader said as he casually patted Furuichi's back on a spot that didn't have any wounds yet.

Furuichi turned his head and glared. As much as he hoped he could glare, the look on his face was less menacing than the other night and the leader only chuckled lightly at the attempt.

"Well, if looks could kill, yours wouldn't even hurt us," the perverted one said, his eyes still lingered dangerously on Furuichi's body. He felt sick.

"Would you care to tell us the truth now that you're awake and up?" the batter (who had just been choking him) said while now crouching in front of him. "It's just telling us where your demon friend is. We'll take care in fetching him…" the guy smiled, "You just tell us his hiding location, and voila, you're out of here," he snatched Furuichi's chin, moving it to face him, "So, what do you say?"

Damn it, they still think I'm covering for Oga? I'd rather send them to Oga and let him beat all of them to a pulp, assholes! They won't believe me even if I tell them the truth. What the hell should I do? Furuichi racked his brain, but he couldn't come up with any ideas. Should I send them to Kanzaki-senpai? No, that would put someone in danger. Aargh! What the hell should I do?!

Time's up. You'd better give us some decent answers this time." The perverted one sneered as he grabbed Furuichi's cheeks, trailing his hand downward before resting it on Furuichi's aching neck.

"I don't know where he is, really," Furuichi's hoarse voice spat out, but his answer was not good enough for the three of them and the force on his neck was back.

"One last chance for you to tell us the truth," the leader lit up his cigarette, puffed the smoke out, then said, "Or you're going to prove it to me, how hot these smokes can really get."

Furuichi looked up, "I really don't know where he is, I swear. Please don't!" He frantically wriggled in horror. To hell with begging, it'll hurt like hell if that damn thing touches me!

He exhaled the smoke out, "Maybe you're telling the truth, but, oh well…," and as quickly as it had happened, the pressure on his neck was gone and replaced by a hard grip on his shoulder and his hands. In a flash, the butt of the cigarette was pushed against his back and pain shot through him in a way he had not even imagined. His body tensed so hard, he felt like his neck would snap.

Furuichi's scream echoed for a moment. And, even though the cigarette's butt had already fallen to the ground, the burning sensation of flesh meeting fire still lingered on his back. The pain nearly left him breathless.

"You really are stupid, huh? Finish him." Of course, the leader didn't mean kill. But, between the struggle to catch his own breath and the struggle to deal with the other pain surrounding him—the thought of dying crossed Furuichi's mind.

Damn it.

And, before he knew it, rains of punches and kicks fell down on him like crazy. The pressure on his neck was back again and he couldn't get any air.

God, is this it?

As he felt his consciousness slipping away, he closed his eyes.

Damn, those assholes really did it, huh?

-0-

The trio left the place in a hurry. They decided that Furuichi really was worthless and having him on their hands would be a problem. So, they chose to just leave him there, after they untied his hands.

"It was fun while it lasted. Adieu, weakling," the leader had spat out before he finally closed the door.

After hours of being alone and crumpled down on the ground, Furuichi batted his eyes open.

"Wha—" he went to touch his (felt like) splitting head, "Eh? I'm not tied up?" He looked at his wrists and there was only the mark of rope instead of the actual rope. He slowly sat himself up and carefully held his aching chest as pain throbbed in each part of his battered body.

God, it hurts so much… After his breath evened out, he looked around, searching for any sign of his captors. Are they gone? Furuichi couldn't see anything that indicated he was not alone. Great, am I free to walk out of here? Or, will they suddenly ambush me from behind the door? Damn those bastards, Furuichi mustered his thoughts and spotted his bag on a table. Oh real nice, they went through the trouble of cutting my rope, but not placing my bag within a reachable distance. "Stupid morons," he cursed under his breath.

Leaning heavily on his left hand, he slowly propped himself all the way up. Although, he tried to do it carefully, the wounds on his back and his ribs still cried out. God damn it! He tightly suppressed any whimpers or gasps as he walked towards the table where his bag laid. The act of walking alone was so hard, and his knees buckled with the effort. Was it because they kicked my legs there yesterday? Furuichi dismissed his thoughts before grabbing his bag with his uninjured hand. He decided to quickly get out of the rundown building before his captors changed their minds.

They'll pay for what they did. Damn, how should I execute this plan? Firstly, I'll talk to Kanzaki-senpai and tell him they called him an underling, then to Kunieda-senpai— that they called her a bitch, and then… should I include Himekawa-senpai? Ah… just lie, just lie~ And Oga… Furuichi ranted in his inner monologue to distract himself from the pain. His vision blurred though he tried to holdback his tears.

Walking to the door was hard enough let alone walking to the street to look for help. But no one knew where he was (obviously except those three fools) and he just needed to meet someone. It took him a lot of effort to get to a street that didn't look deserted. He was exhausted and couldn't think of any way to distract his mind from the unbearable pain. He began to slip down and slide into the darkness when a passerby caught him. Gasping, the man had to overcome his shock at the sight of dried blood everywhere, before finally calling an ambulance.

"Ah, thank you," were Furuichi's last words to the stranger before he completely fell asleep.

-0-