Tokyo: MBI Tower
Jango took a long look down from the top of the tower. It was from here that he had killed the former CEO of MBI, with not a small measure of satisfaction. Now he was back here to murder another human. This building seemed to draw more than its fair share of misfortune, from the manipulation of the other sekirei, to the several murders that he himself had committed.
He muttered to himself, while looking down to the floor that the two sekirei were on. "Haihane, Benitsubasa, prepare yourselves for a rude awakening."
Throwing caution, and himself, to the winds, he dove off of the top and used his mind to pull himself back towards the building. What brought him a modicum of amusement was that the ashikabi was standing right inside the window. In one swift movement, he crashed through the window, and kicked the askikabi in the back, directly out of the hole he had made.
He turned slowly, to both Haihane and Benitsubasa, who seemed completely dumbstruck. "Hello, having a good day so far?"
The shock wore off of Benitsubasa first, and she lunged for the hole in the glass, crying out the name of her ashikabi as if he were her lifeline, "Natsuo!"
As she was passing by, he grabbed Benitsubasa by the scruff of the neck, and simply prevented her from diving out the window after the doomed ashikabi. "Don't waste your time."
Benitsubasa flailed at him with feral fervor; "Let me go! I can still..."
A loud thud noise cut her off, which was accompanied by the sound of a melon getting squashed. He leaned out of the window, from here, all he could see was a red smear on the ground. That he had heard it up here must have meant that this "Natsuo" had landed directly on his head. He let go of the girl next to him, which soon became a mistake. Benitsubasa let loose a scream of rage and despair, and tackled him out of the window.
After a few seconds of falling he spoke. "You do realize that even if I do hit the ground, it wouldn't kill me."
Benitsubasa didn't respond, only kept trying, and failing, to punch him in the face.
He sighed, "That's enough." He grabbed Benitsubasa by the throat and mentally stopped their fall. "You're lucky I'm a psychic," and lifted them both back up to where the fall had started.
Back in the apartment, he shoved Benitsubasa towards Haihane. "Haihane, would you mind holding her still? I'd rather not injure either of you."
His slow, reasonable tone got through to Haihane at least, and she nodded slowly before grabbing both of Benitsubasa's arms.
He started to speak, "Now..."
Before he could say much of anything an ear-piercingly loud alarm cut him off.
He muttered to himself, "Great." He looked over at the two girls, and made a quick decision. "Ok, time's up, we're leaving."
Forgoing gentleness, he pinched a nerve in Benitsubasa's neck, knocking her unconscious, and threw her over his shoulder. Haihane was being more reasonable, so he tucked her under his arm and jumped right out the hole in the glass. In human words, he had just "made out like a thief in the night" in broad daylight.
Haihane asked him, while trying not to look down, "Where are we going?"
He landed on a building across the way before responding. "To visit a mutual friend of ours, Miya. And in all likelihood you are going to be getting a room at the inn with our unconscious friend here." He smirked and added, "Doesn't that sound fun?"
Number One Hundred and Four looked at him and blinked for a few seconds, before letting out a sigh of exasperation. "No, not at all."
In spite of the situation, he smiled and laughed. "I can't say I blame you. Seems like she has a very short temper."
Haihane clicked the clawed gauntlets on her hands together for a few seconds before answering; "You have no idea."
He retorted, "She tackled me out of a window."
"You killed our ashikabi." Haihane shot back.
Beaten at verbal fencing, he smiled and shook his head. "Touché. On that note, you seem to be taking it rather well." A long moment passed, he prompted, "Haihane?" He stopped moving away from the tower, dropped to street level, and set Haihane on her feet.
Haihane looked off into space for a long time before answering. "In all the time he was my ashikabi, he never looked at me once with even the slightest hint of desire." A wry smile twisted her face; "He was homosexual."
He screwed his face up in confusion. "I'm sorry, but what are you talking about? I've not heard that term before."
Haihane gave him an amused look. "Natsuo was a man that liked other men. Come to think of it, you would have been just his type."
He suddenly had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "I think I get the point; you can stop explaining now."
Haihane smirked, "What? Don't like the mental..." She was cut off when he pinched the same nerve that he had exploited in Benitsubasa.
He muttered to himself, "She's almost as bad as Yomi. Is sex all these girls think about?"
With a long sigh, he hoisted Haihane up onto his other shoulder and set off for Maison Izumo at street level. It wasn't like he was in any hurry to be back, and there was a certain young woman that made him uncomfortable within his own skin. The worst part of it, he was sharing a bedroom with her. It was far from a feeling of malice, or any kind of negative feeling, he just didn't know what to do about it. Akitsu seemed to want to spend every second of every minute of downtime with him. He would admit that he found himself drawn to her for some reason, possibly because there was something especially fragile about her. But it was his duty to protect all of his kin, with extra emphasis on the word "all."
He sighed and found himself looking up at the sky. "Why can nothing ever be simple?"
Another voice broke in on his thoughts. "Something I seem to be asking myself over and over lately."
His eyes snapped towards the source of the voice, a figured cloaked in the shadow of an alley, and he responded. "Is that so? And you are trying to answer this by seeking me out for a rematch?"
Karasuba stepped out of the shadows, with a snide smirk on her face and her sword arm in a sling. "No, I learned my lesson well enough the first time we crossed swords."
He took a mental grip upon his sword, just in case Karasuba was bluffing. "Then what do you want this time?"
Karasuba took a step closer, still smiling. "I have something you might just want to hear."
Rapture: Minerva's Den
Ivan slowly looked at his screen, trying to keep a level head. This wouldn't be the first time that he had been up against severely lopsided odds, and this time he had help. Really, he had set Minerva's Den up for the exclusive purpose of being his fortress while he remained in Rapture. The fifty splicers that were moving on his holdout were probably going to be whittled down to about thirty by the time they got within striking distance. But still, thirty splicers was nothing to sneeze at.
He picked his shotgun up and checked that it was fully loaded, then shouted, "Ok, Kazehana, Kagari, you're coming with me to hold the lot of these bastards off. Matsu, I'd like you to stay here and try to get back in contact with Minato. The rest of you-"
Musubi cut him off. "I'm going to help to!"
He snapped back, "Like Hell you are. You're going to stay right here, out of the way, where you can't screw anything up."
Matsu leaned in and whispered in his ear. "She's going to try and 'help' no matter what you say. Getting angry isn't going to help."
He muttered to himself, "Yeah, I've figured that out by now. But it makes me feel better to vent a little." He looked up at the brunette bitch. "Fine, but remember what I told you about what will happen if you fuck us over again."
Someone tapped him on the shoulder, when he looked, it was Kazehana, she spoke; "Ivan-kun, your hand is on fire."
He lifted his left hand to confirm what she was saying, then he replied. "That's just my Incinerate plasmid acting up, sometimes happens when I'm pissed off to high Heaven." He started to jog towards the door. "No more discussion, we have a miniature war on our hands."
He had constructed a small barricade in the connection tunnel from the security station to the rest of Minerva's den. That would be the best place to hold off the splicers. Hopefully the oil slick he had spread over the killing ground would still be there. If he got lucky, he could catch the majority of the splicers in the blaze when he set it off. Otherwise it would be up to his shooting skills, and whatever powers Kazehana and Kagari could bring to bear, to stop the figurative bleeding. He didn't dare put much stock in Musubi doing much that would be beneficial to group survival. Besides, all he had seen Musubi do so far was punch things, and he didn't dare give her a gun.
They arrived at the barricade and he started barking orders, as politely as he could. "Kazehana-chan, I'd like you to take cover on the right side, then you can do whatever you do. Kagari-san, take the left. I'll set up in the center." He then turned to Musubi. "As for you, stay here and don't move until I tell you to." He leaned in and added. "And if you don't, I will have absolutely no problem shooting you in the ass."
Without bothering to make sure she understood, he dropped down behind the barricade and waited. From long experience, he knew the sound of the splicers approaching, and none of them but the Houdini variety were quiet. Speaking of which, that little red haze in the air behind Kazehana was the dead giveaway. He pulled out his pistol and put two bullets into the center of the cloud. The resulting screaming from the splicer caused Kazehana to turn around. What followed was both interesting and comforting. Kazehana just raised her hand, pointed it in the general direction of the Houdini splicer, uttered a few words, and the splicer flew into the wall hard enough to dent the metal. Which, to him, was damn impressive.
Kazehana looked over at him, gave him a wink, and spoke. "Thanks for the heads up, Ivan-kun."
In spite of the situation, he found himself shaking his head in amazement. Did Kazehana always have to sound like that? Seriously, he could honestly picture, in his minds eye, her voice doing the voice-over in some kind of erotic movie. That, or some kind of seductive demoness or vampire queen. This line of thinking sounded really bad, even to himself in the privacy of his own head. He peeked over the barricade and ducked back down just as quickly. The splicers had appeared at the far end of the passage.
He crawled over to Kagari so he could whisper without alerting the approaching enemy. "Ok, there's a wet patch of floor about twenty feet past this here barricade. On the count of ten, you and I are both going to throw a fireball onto that wet patch, ok?"
Kagari glanced over the barricade and responded, with more of a statement than a question, "Oil."
He shook his head. "Close, gasoline. Makes a bigger boom when ignited. Be ready."
He pulled one of the barrels in the barricade to the side, just enough so he could see the approaching hoard. He was waiting for the first splicer to reach the close side of the fire-trap, then the ignition would catch as many as possible in the blaze.
He held up his fingers and started to put them down one by one, then he shouted, "NOW!"
At his word, both he and Kagari stood and threw fire at the gas slick. In being honest with himself, his fireball fell short by about a foot. Kagari's however, hit right on target.
He put a bullet in the head of one of the burning splicers, "Fry you bastards!"
Kagari threw another fireball before ducking down and looking over at him. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
He responded while feeding heavy rounds into his revolver. "You think? These freaks have been hunting me for two years. Hell to the yes, I'm enjoying this. If I could line all of the splicers up, and I had one tank shell to shoot, I would blow all of them away without a second of hesitation." He glanced over the barricade at the dying fire. "Speaking of blowing things away..." He wheeled about to Kazehana; "Feel free to do some "blowing away" of your own."
A few more bullets and some large gusts of wind from Kazehana took care of the remaining splicers armed with guns. He started to relax and began to waltz back towards the security station.
Musubi stood bodily in his way; "Can I help now?"
He smirked and responded. "Oh, sure. Knock yourself out." Secretly, he was seriously hoping that she really would knock herself out. He added; "Just stay out of Kazehana's way."
Musubi hurried by, and he felt reasonably safe letting her do so. From what he had seen there was really nothing present that could really go badly if Musubi got involved. So it should be just fine for him to go back to the security room and try to get back in touch with Minato.
He laughed to himself. "Poor kid is probably worried sick. I'll bet he'll be happy to find out..." A loud, deep, metallic moan caused any further words to catch in his throat, and all the blood in his body to freeze.
He raced back to the barricade. In the back, far behind the remaining splicers but approaching with the inevitability of a typhoon, was one of the titans of Rapture, a Big Daddy. From the look of it, at a distance, it seemed to be a Rosie model. The Big Daddy would go completely berserk if so much as scratched by anyone, and Musubi was heading straight for it.
He roared into the distance. "Musubi, get away from that thing! Don't even think about..." Too late, Musubi punched the Rosie right in the chest, and with absolutely no effect.
The light coming from the helmet of the Rosie turned red, the kind of red that one would see in their nightmares. The Big Daddy bellowed with the rage of a despairing father, which it was, but that made it no less terrifying. With consummate ease, the Rosie batted Musubi aside and started shooting its main gun at the brunette. Out of camaraderie, Kagari started attacking the Rosie as well. Before he could yell out a warning, the Rosie turned on Kagari, and put three, white-hot, foot-long, steel-piercing rivets into Kagari's left shoulder.
He snarled in defiance; "Screw this," and started to run back towards the security center.
Kazehana kept her head low as she made her way across the backside of the barricade over to Kagari. To her horror, there were three spikes sticking through his body, practically pinning him to the floor. There was little blood however, and the sizzling noise obviously meant that the metal was burning Kagari's flesh.
A loud, rhythmic thud drew her attention. Ivan was dragging a large piece of machinery from the direction of the security center. It looked something like a large tube, with lots of little pipes running all over it. There was also a significant section that was made entirely of glass, with crackling bits of electricity arcing around inside. Ivan, with considerable difficulty, hoisted the device onto his shoulder.
The Russian shouted; "Hey, Big Daddy!"
The metal creature at the far end of the tunnel was distracted momentarily from Musubi. Turning towards Ivan, it bellowed again.
Ivan pulled the trigger on the large device, and roared. "I'MMA FIRIN' MAH LAZER!"
A huge, crackling beam of light shot out of the device and hit the "Big Daddy." When the light cleared, Ivan was cradling the device and sitting against the wall, seven feet back from where he had pulled the trigger. The Big Daddy was simply gone. There was not even a scrap of metal left where the hulking creature had been standing. Ivan set the heavy weapon on the ground as gently as he was able and walked over to her and Kagari. Along the way, the Russian pulled a white bundle out from under his coat.
Ivan knelt next to Kagari and put a small bottle from the bundle next to Kagari's lips. "Here, drink this. It'll dull the pain for a bit while I work. Unless of course you want me to leave the spikes in, as a masochistic badge of honor."
Kagari coughed, "No, by all means, remove them."
Ivan smirked, "I thought you would see things my way." The Russian then reached over and tore Kagari's vest away, to reveal a very masculine torso. Ivan smiled, "Guess you're really a man now, complete with battle scars."
Kagari snarled, "Ok, enough with the jokes. Just fix the damn holes."
Ivan nodded in agreement, "Works for me." Then he turned to her. "Kazehana-chan, I'm going to need you to give me a hand with this one." Ivan handed her a small syringe. "When I yank a spike out I need you to spray some of that into the wound. Then I can wrap some bandages around and stop the bleeding. Got it?"
She nodded silently and helped where she was needed to patch up Kagari. She also couldn't help but look over her shoulder every couple of seconds, expecting Musubi to pop out of the ether at any given moment. Knowing how peeved Ivan was with Musubi already, there were going to be some strong words thrown about, and maybe a few fists or bullets.
Tokyo: Maison Izumo
Jango remained silent when Karasuba finished with the revelation she had promised. According to her, MBI was taking serious offense to his actions in regards to his kin, and their personnel. Plans were being made to launch a full scale attack right where he was sitting. Apparently, they still had ways of tracking every other sekirei but him.
He went over what he had heard in his head slowly, then asked. "So, how much time do we have until this is going to happen?"
Karasuba tended to her blade with a free hand. "If I had to guess, I would say the next coming evening. If you wanted a specific time, I can't help you with that."
From the tone she had used, he could tell that the conversation with Karasuba was over. He had more questions that he wanted to ask, but he doubted that Karasuba had the answers. Things like how many soldiers there would be, what kind of hardware they would be bringing; in essence he wanted the standard battlefield rundown.
He rose, and nodded politely. "Thank you for the warning."
Karasuba flippantly responded. "Yes, yes, now get out of my hair."
He smirked to himself. Karasuba was never going to change, whether bound to a human or not. The bruise to her pride from her defeat at his hands might be enough to keep her from attacking other sekirei. But he seriously doubted that it would be long before she left the inn to find some violence, any kind of violence. He turned on the ball of his heel and reached for the door. When his hand touched the knob there was the slightest of movements on the other side. He frowned, someone had been eavesdropping on a sensitive topic.
Being careful not to break the door, he kicked it open and started to speak; "Who..." He stopped abruptly when he recognized the face of the woman that had both hands cupped over her nose, with a small trickle of blood oozing through.
Alarm tinged his voice; "Akitsu!" Without thinking, he seized a small section of his left sleeve and clamped that section over her nose to staunch the bleeding.
He didn't shy away, but he did think to himself that he logically should not have reacted like that. Had it been anyone else at the door, he still would have helped whoever had been hit. But he would at least have said something about not eavesdropping and getting hit on the nose being their just desserts. With Akitsu, not a single thought had gone through his mind before he acted. A full thirty seconds passed before the bleeding stopped.
He let go slowly, and was rewarded by no more blood flow. He tried to play the moment off casually. "Well, that ought to do it. Next time, if you have something you need to speak with me about, knock first. I need to get going at the moment."
Before he had gone five steps, Akitsu stopped him in his tracks with an astute assumption. "You're planning to try taking them all on by yourself, aren't you?"
He slowly spun on his heel, and replied; "It is my duty."
Akitsu quickly countered, with a note of accusation in her voice. "It is your duty to commit suicide?"
He evaded the direct answer. "If that suicide assures the continued safety of the rest of you, then yes."
Akitsu countered again. "And how will your death help us in the long term? How could you protect us from a different threat farther down the line?"
To this question, he did not have a ready answer. Not that he had ever thought that this conversation would occur in the first place. So he simply remained silent.
A long moment passed before Akitsu asserted. "I'm going with you."
His reaction was instantaneous; "No, you are not."
A not so subtle tone of pleading entered Akitsu's voice, "Why?"
He was silent for a long time. Akitsu's question was not one that he had an answer for, nor one that he ever thought that he would need to answer.
The pleading became more pronounced in Akitsu's words, "And?"
He spoke slowly, as the words came to him. "Because if you get hurt, I suffer." He continued before Akitsu could cut him off. "I do not speak in metaphorical terms. I literally suffer for every injury inflicted upon each and every one of you. That event just now, when you were smacked on the nose. I felt it as much as, if not more than you did. I have learned to block out the pain from regular injuries, a stubbed toe for instance, but if one of you were shot, let alone a large group of you, I don't think my mind could handle that much pain." He went on; "And, if it were you specifically that were hurt, I'm not sure the pain would be wholly physical."
His admission seemed to have two immediate effects. One, in spite of the situation, a part of Akitsu seemed happy at his admission of something between them. Two, Akitsu seemed crestfallen by his logic.
He set a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. I have no intention of getting myself killed. I'm going to give them one chance to turn back, and if they don't, I crush the life out of every single one that bears a weapon."
Rapture: Minerva's Den
Minato raced around the corners in the metal warren as fast as he could. He didn't really know where he was going, so he was running on instinct. Something had to have been wrong for Ivan to get cut off like that, and knowing Rapture as he knew it now it had to be the splicers.
He was chanting to himself; "... run faster, gotta run faster..."
As was his luck up to this point, he tripped on a fallen metal grate and sprawled out flat across the floor. Not even feeling the pain from the numerous scrapes he reflexively shoved himself up. As he rose however, something on the wall caught his eyes. He wanted to run without looking, but he forced himself to look. Once he looked, he was glad that he did. What had caught his eye was an area map. He had passed the tunnel to the security center three doors ago. When he arrived at his intermediate destination, something that he hadn't noticed the first time caught his notice. It was a smell that floated out of the tunnel. A smell that, in some ways, reminded him of a badly burned piece of meat. The smell gave him a bad feeling, but whatever it was, was in the direction that he needed to go.
As he ran, a sound started to register in his ears, just on the fringe of his hearing. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but from this distance he thought that he should recognize it. It was a voice, he could tell that much, and an angry voice at that. He rounded a corner, and the sight that met his eyes was less than comforting. He saw Musubi, which was nice, but there was a man in a tattered brown coat pinning Musubi to the wall of the tunnel, with the business end of a shotgun pressed to Musubi's forehead. He froze right where he was, aware that any sudden sounds might spook the man with the gun and end Musubi's life.
Whatever words the man was speaking were incoherent, and English. "I don't even know where to start with you. You get Minato and Tsukiumi stuck in the outskirts of the city by breaking something I worked for weeks on. You got one of your patchwork family raped. You piss off a Big Daddy so Kagari gets three rivets in his torso. And to top it all off, you almost drowned everyone else before you even got to Rapture. Am I missing anything? Because I seriously hope that I..."
He had to do something. Whoever had a gun to Musubi's head sure seemed angry enough to use it without provocation. But that of course brought up the question of how he was going to get the shotgun away from Musubi's face. He was a good shot, but from this far away he wasn't confident that he could score a perfect headshot. Anything less would alert the man with the gun and Musubi would most likely die. He needed to get the man to freeze in place... freeze. He immediately glanced down at his left hand. Seemingly at the thought "freeze" the frost coating from before had returned, and promptly stuck his hand to the floor.
He pried his hand away and muttered to himself. "What did Ivan say? Just think about it with a flick of the wrist?"
He tried to visualize it in his mind, the image of the shotgun toting villain frozen solid where he stood. When he was sure he had a firm enough grasp on the idea he flung his palm open and practically prayed. What looked like a miniature cloud of snowflakes flew from his hand, but along the way it coalesced into a solid ball of ice. That flying ball struck the shotgun wielder square in the back of the head. The gunman dropped to the ground, clutching the back of his head, moaning with a frightening mixture of rage and pain. He seized the opportunity and charged, pulling out his pistol as he ran. He pulled the trigger, and his gun spat out one bullet before clicking on empty. The one bullet rewarded him with a spurt of blood that erupted from the knee of the gunman.
The man on the ground roared. "Dammit Minato, stop shooting me!"
In close quarters he recognized the voice as if he had been listening to it from birth, "Ivan?"
The Russian used his shotgun like a crutch to stand, and angrily replied; "Yeah, you think?"
His mind was a mess. "But, why were you pointing a gun at Musubi-chan?"
Ivan used his free hand to point an accusatory finger in Musubi's face. "This bitch is the root of every major problem that has occurred since you all got down here." Ivan pounded the butt of his shotgun on the ground for emphasis. "You getting stuck out in Olympus Heights, her fault. Tsukiumi being forced to trek through Hephaestus, and the resulting trauma, her fault. More recently she attacked a Big Daddy and as a result, Kagari got three metal spikes stuck in his chest. Again, her fault."
He started to object, "But..."
Ivan interrupted him. "And, if what Matsu told me is accurate, she almost capsized the boat you were all floating along on before you even got here. She would have killed everyone." Ivan's eyes were ablaze with fury. "She's a walking death hex!"
He finished his objection. "But you can't just shoot her!"
Ivan snorted; "Can't I?"
Ivan started to bring the shotgun up under Musubi's chin, and at the same time, out of reflex, he put the barrel of his pistol against Ivan's skull.
Ivan stopped lifting his shotgun and turned so the gun barrel was aimed right between his eyes. "Are you really going to shoot me Minato?"
His hand started to shake. "I don't want to, so don't shoot Musubi-chan."
Ivan glared at him, locking eyes for a very long moment. For a second, he thought that Ivan was going to pull the trigger regardless of the death threat he had unwillingly dropped. Killing splicers was one thing, they were all deranged and no longer human. Ivan might have been crazy, but he had actually been trying to help him all along.
Ivan lowered the shotgun and grabbed at his wounded leg. "Fine, she gets one more chance. But I swear on my future grave, if she endangers anyone else I WILL blow her head off regardless of whatever objection you might have."
The Russian staggered off towards the security center, muttering frustrated obscenities under his breath.
When Ivan vanished from view, Musubi flung herself on him. "Minato-kun!"
A burst of anger escaped him and he violently twisted himself out of Musubi's grip. "You were almost executed just now! Do you even comprehend that?"
Musubi just looked at him, with an utterly stupid look on her face. How had he never seen this? Looking back, had he never just tried to speak with her? Had he just been enamored by her actions the entire time? Her looks? Then it hit him, she was the first girl to ever kiss him. He had been suffering from the curse of the first, ergo, he had gotten stuck on Musubi and seeing her as perfect. Disgusted with himself, and his shortsightedness, he shouldered his way past Musubi. The flame of his dedication smothered by a single biting moment of clarity.
Rapture: Security Center
Ivan staggered over to his chair and fell back into it, favoring his holey leg. Logically speaking he wasn't going to hold it against Minato for putting a bullet through him. The wound would heal quickly enough that it wouldn't affect their escape plan for the following day. Well, when he shared that plan with the others anyway.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. "Ivan-kun, you're bleeding."
He turned his head so he could look up. Kazehana's face was still flushed from the liquor but she managed to look concerned. Among Minato's harem she seemed the most independent, to him anyway. He might have been wrong, but in the setting they were in she seemed to do her own thing more often than Matsu, or Kusano, or especially Tsukiumi. Kagari didn't count due to him being of the same sex as Minato.
He smirked while responding. "Oh stop it, you're too kind. I'll heal before we need to get out of here."
Kazehana looked down at the small hole in his knee. "How did you get shot?"
He replied honestly. "I was holding a gun to Musubi's head and was about to pull the trigger. Minato arrived on the scene and took exception to that. I don't blame him for it."
Kazehana's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "You mean Minato is here?"
He nodded, "Yes he is, I'd guide him over to Tsukiumi as soon as possible if I were in your shoes."
Right on cue Minato walked into the security center, with Musubi tagging along like a puppy unable to comprehend why it had been kicked to the curb. The instant that one of the sekirei caught sight of Minato, they all, with exception of of Tsukiumi for obvious reasons, moved en mass toward their ashikabi. It was strangely gratifying to see Musubi being excluded from the touching family reunion.
He muttered to himself; "Lucky bastard." He broke in with a shout. "As poignant as this moment is, I think there is someone specific you need to talk to."
His piece spoken, he turned back to his monitor and attempted to ignore the pain in his knee until it healed. About five minutes later, he heard a familiar voice gasp in a mixture of astonishment and joy, then immediately start crying hard enough to fracture the Great Wall of China. It certainly broke his heart to hear it.
Tokyo:
Jango sat atop Maison Izumo and watched the sun slowly sink towards the horizon, behind the concrete monoliths of the Tokyo skyline. Despite his confident words to every other sekirei that had asked, he wasn't sure if he was going to come back alive. Even if he did succeed, there was no degree of certainty that MBI wouldn't try again at a later date. Not for the first time he cursed his existence and whomever had made him what he was. But still, duty was duty nd he had more reason than usual to make sure he succeeded, regardless of whether he was alive or dead at the conclusion.
He shot a long, wan look down towards the lights in the inn, all laughing together, oblivious to what doom could fall upon them on the morrow, and sighed. "Farewell, for we might never meet again."
Then he steeled himself, and leaped off into the night. The MBI tower stretching towards the sky off in the distance like a bloody blade.
Rapture: Minerva's Den
Minato slowly opened his eyes, looked down, and noticed that all of his sekirei had clustered around him during the "night." Surprisingly, for the first time, he didn't feel scared to high heaven. Really though, compared to fighting for his life against mutated people that wanted to kill him, waking up surrounded by women, and one man, was a picnic. He felt his eyes drawn to a glow in the darkness, to Ivan's chair where the Russian was sitting, head in hand, watching him with an air of curiosity.
Ivan spoke softly, with the obvious intention of leaving the others asleep. "You know, I'm really quite amazed by you Minato. Any other man that I knew before I came down here would be a drooling lecher in your position, yet you havn't even spent a night in the same bed with any of them."
He started to protest. "Then what do you call..."
Ivan cut him off. "Not simply sleeping in the same bed. I mean, let the little soldiers march."
The euphemism was not lost on him, and his mouth flipped shut with an audible click. To be honest with himself he was amazed as well that one of them hadn't pushed him into it. Matsu or Kazehana in particular.
He sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, well, I suppose that the ah, opportunity never presented itself."
Ivan smirked, "If you don't mind me saying, you seem a bit young to start thinking of that particular activity with your little harem. Must be Matsu's perverted influence."
Taking it as the light joke it was, he chuckled lightly in response, "Maybe." He did a double take as he realized that Ivan hadn't moved from where he had been when he nodded off. "Have you even slept?"
Ivan shook his head slowly. "No, I'm too hyped up on adrenaline at the possibility of escape to even think about sleeping. Don't worry about me though, I'll be as sharp as ever when we need to make a break for it."
He gave Ivan an incredulous look. "Then, what exactly have you been doing while I've been sleeping?"
The Russian flashed him a smartass smile. "I've been staring luridly at Kazehana, thinking of all the dirty things I could get her to do when she's drunk." A short, suppressed bought of mirth escaped from Ivan. "In all seriousness though, I was reading through some of the archived issues of the Rapture Tribune."
He took an educated guess. "You were reading copies of old newspapers?"
Ivan nodded, "Exactly, that's how I learned most of what I know about Rapture. Stanley Poole was one hell of a reporter in his day. Pity how he died, all alone in that hospital bed."
He felt a spark go off inside his head. "You met Stanley Poole and he told you about Rapture. That's how you ended up down here in the first place!"
Ivan smiled at him, although there seemed to be a bit of sadness in it. "I knew you were a bright one, and you are exactly right. I read to the guy when I was thirteen for community service. He was pushing, I think, one hundred and three when he died."
He took a moment to ponder the idea of living past a hundred years. "Wow, you think he had taken any plasmids himself?"
Ivan nodded, "I know that he had. I was practically the only friend he had in his last days. Imagine my shock when he left me everything he owned. Among the contents of his personal notes was the location of Rapture, and the only way to safely get in, or out. That's where we'll be going as soon as the rest of you wake up."
Aware that he wasn't exactly going to get back to sleep, he asked the question that was practically begging to be asked. "So, where exactly is this exit? How far away is it?"
Ivan tapped a few keys and a diagram of, what he assumed was Rapture, appeared on the screen. The Russian pointed to the screen; "We are currently here in Minerva's Den. The exit is over on the far side of the Medical Pavilion, which we can bypass through a maintenance tunnel. I'll be sending every combat drone that I have left to clear the way ahead of us when we set out, but the splicers will still probably catch onto us."
He finished the thought. "So that's why you needed us."
Ivan nodded, "It would have been suicide to go alone. Even you by yourself would have made the odds of success go up by an order of magnitude. With the rest of your sekirei we should have no trouble at all. Provided of course that we don't run across another Big Daddy."
He grimaced in distaste. Matsu had filled him in on what exactly a Big Daddy was after he had heard the term from Ivan. An especially mutated and surgically altered father that slavishly looked after a little girl that had also been altered into an ADAM factory. It would be better to die than to suffer that fate.
He took a deep breath to get the image out of his head. "When are we going?"
Ivan hit a button on his screen and the monitor went dark. "If you wanted to wake up your harem we could leave right now." The Russian shrugged; "No time like the present, right?"
He smiled and shook his head. "You know, I said that right before the ship sank. It's not exactly a phrase that has carried much luck for me as of late."
Ivan smirked, "You still didn't answer the question. To wake, or not to wake?"
He glanced at the sleeping faces of the rest of his sekirei. "This city has been nothing but a nightmare for everyone here. The sooner we leave the better."
Tokyo: MBI tower
Jango stood square in the middle of the only street to lead North. The last several minutes of his time had been spent watching the huge assault force assemble before him. They could all see him where he stood beneath a street light and he knew it, yet they still hadn't opened fire on him. He had to assume that the commanding officers had issued strict orders to not fire unless fired upon. That worked for him because every second that MBI's forces remained in the square meant another second that they weren't advancing upon his kin.
He muttered to himself, more of a self-reassuring gesture than anything else. "I can wait here for weeks. How long do you have?"
A single man detached himself from the formations and started to walk slowly over to him in sharp, even strides. From the bright patch on the shoulder of the uniform he had to assume that it was the commanding officer.
The officer stopped a respectful distance away and removed his hat. "Are you here to surrender, or to fight?"
He set a hand upon the hilt his sword. "Try to go past me and we'll see."
A sad expression crossed the officer's face. "I rather not have any bloodshed."
He nodded in response; "It would seem that we share that, you and I. In that case, turn your men around and go home before I have to hurt you."
The officer shook his head, "I'm sorry, but I have my orders. Any sekirei that resists must be subdued and pacified."
He drew his blade; "Then I am sorry that it comes to this, but none of you will be leaving this square alive."
The officer waved his troops forward and dropped flat to the ground. "Open fire!"
He held up a hand and the air in front of him started to cloud up with bullets, mixed in with some variety of dart. Clearly they intended to attempt to take most of the sekirei alive. He swatted aside a tank shell into the dirt next to the prone officer, blowing the man into so many bloody fragments. He was momentarily saddened by the death, as he had almost been a kindred spirit despite being on the opposite side. Then he shoved his feelings aside and focused his entire being on the fight at hand.
Rapture: Welcome Center
Ivan paused for a second to give his knees a break. He had known that it would be a painful trip to escape from the city in the first place, but reality always seemed to have a way of taking his assumptions of negative circumstances and multiplying them by an order of magnitude. When it came to positive things however, he was usually completely wrong. In retrospect, it might have been more plausible for the entire crew to shoot their way out of the city. But he had picked this route to minimize the risks, not because it was comfortable.
He muttered to himself, complaining over his own logic process. "Doesn't mean I can't whine about it."
He forced himself to get moving again, placating himself with the fact that three of the women behind him were crawling along on bare knees.
He called back to the group behind him, then immediately winced at the echo his words created. "Everyone doing alright?"
There was a whispered chorus of affirmations from the group. The one from Minato seemed a bit strained however. It then hit him that Minato was crawling along behind Tsukiumi and her short skirt. He was forced to stifle a laugh at the thought. Even after shooting his way through dozens of splicers just to survive Minato was still uncomfortable with staring up a woman's skirt. Sure if it was a random passerby that would be awkward, but Tsukiumi was his wife, or rather, one of them.
He held up his hand, and whispered. "Hold up, we're here. Give me a second to cut the grate."
He rolled up his sleeve to prevent it from igniting and flicked on his Incinerate plasmid. Trying to keep the glow to a minimum, he grabbed the metal bars and turned up the heat. Each bar melted away in moments. He stuck his head out of the opening and gazed around, taking in the Welcome Center as he had left it two years ago. Nothing had changed, and indeed nothing should have. The vast, rubble-filled interior was still littered with random debris. Loose playing cards, empty bottles, scattered luggage, everything that had been here when he entered the city. Before Rapture had descended upon him like an avenging angel he had actually been planning on restoring the Welcome Center next. After all, he had fixed up every area of the city that was needed for self-sufficiency, the fishery, the botanical farms, the furnace, and even the Adonis luxury resort for the rich folk to have something to do. Rapture had been on the verge of true life once again. Yet in the end it was all for naught. It was hard to walk away from his dream, but fate had conspired to make it impossible to fulfill.
He was unable to suppress a deep sigh, one filled with regret. "Alone I sail upon the sea of broken dreams."
Kagari, the one behind him in the line, nudged him. "What was that?"
He crawled out and beckoned to the sekirei. "Never mind, it's all clear so far as I can see."
One by one he helped the rest of the group out of the vent, throwing a glance over his shoulder every now and then at the door to the elevator. There was no question as to whether it worked or not, it had been working without maintenance for sixty something years when he arrived. Also, immediately after he arrived he had put in a good amount of time making sure it would stay working.
He gestured to the elevator door, a slight note of melancholy in his voice. "There it is, we're out of here." He added in English; "Oh joy."
As the rest of the crew rushed towards the doors he lagged behind a bit, picturing to himself what he could have done with the place if he had had the time. In the words of a former citizen of Rapture, it could have been something magical. A modern twist on the sixty's, slow jazz music playing over the speakers in the places of relaxation. Siren Alley, the embarrassing itch of the city, could have become something respectable again. The same for Fort Frolic, well, as respectable as a place with numerous brothels could be. Rapture had represented the peak of human innovation, and still did in many places. It was nothing short of a tragedy of mankind that it slowly rot away in the depths of the ocean. But that was neither here nor there, he had to leave, and that was the end of it.
Minato called to him from the elevator. "Ivan, what are you waiting for?"
He started to reply, but stopped as a small tremor shook the floor and put him flat out on his rear end. At the same time, inside the elevator, tentacles of a disturbingly familiar hue snaked down above his friends, splayed wide like the jaws of a trap.
He roared; "Down!"
Everyone in the elevator instantly did as he said, with the predictable exception of Musubi. As such, when the tentacles snapped shut only the brunette was caught. The rest promptly fled the interior of the elevator.
Half of the way across the room, possibly out of a sense of responsibility, Minato skidded to a halt; "Musubi-san..."
He got to his feet and snagged Minato by the arm. "Hold it, do you want to get caught as well?"
Minato reflexively threw him a look, but then nodded and held his ground. Out of nowhere the sound of a single set of applause rang out, from behind them. He turned, and walking out from the shadows was a lone figure dressed in an immaculate brown suit and tie. The man had a clipped, perfect mustache, flawless complexion, and an eerily perfect gait. The kind of structure that used to be used to advertise ADAM cocktails.
The man started to speak, lightly accented and highly formal, English. "Well done, well done. I must admit I'm surprised you caught on to that when you did. The last several hundred people to enter were so focused on leaving that they let their guard down at the last minute."
He shot back; "Yeah? Well give us all medals." Then he lifted his elephant rifle. "And who are you?"
The man chuckled, English; "Oh I'm sure you've read a few articles of the Rapture Tribune about me, especially my later work with Doctor Sophia Lamb."
The light-bulb flicked on inside his head, and his eyes went as wide as saucers, English. "You, you're Gilbert Alexander! But, the reports I read..."
Gil finished the thought, English. "...That I had been fed enough ADAM to splice up the entire continent of Europe? Indeed I was, and it drove me quite mad. As the madness descended I even left a string of clues to help someone kill me. Subject Delta found those clues and found me, but could not bring himself to kill me. In his act of mercy, I found a new purpose." Gil threw his arms wide for emphasis, English. "Protecting all of mankind from the plague that is ADAM! So, you will understand if I cannot allow you to leave. Now do us both a favor and drop your weapons."
He snarled, English, "Not in a million years."
Gil rolled his eyes and sighed, English. "I see you want to do this the hard way, very well." The floor split open about two feet behind Gil, the steam that issued from the crack a clear indication that it went all the way down into Hepheastus, and the tentacles holding Musubi twined up out, English. "Either you surrender..." Gil gestured in Musubi's direction, English; "Or I pull your friend limb from limb."
Minato reacted to the gesture; "What does he want with Musubi-san?"
He took a moment to think, then responded honestly. "He wants us to surrender so he can conscript us into his splicer family. If we don't, he kills Musubi."
Minato's eyes flared, but to his credit he didn't automatically start to surrender. "What do we do?"
He glanced over at Gil, who was waiting with a smug, self-assured look on his face. "I have a plan. The instant I shoot, I want all of you to scatter."
Gil called out, English; "Well? Do you have an answer yet?"
He made a mental lock on his new target, English. "Oh, I have an answer for you all right."
He whipped up his elephant rifle and emptied both chambers. The first bullet hit Musubi square in the chest, right where her heart should have been, and vaporized it. Both arms flew off in different directions, spraying blood all over the place. A fraction of a second later the second bullet hit Musubi's suspended head in between the eyes, taking the top half away and leaving Musubi's mouth frozen open in a picture of astonishment.
He started to race for cover to avoid the retaliatory tentacle lash, shouting at Gil, English. "Hostages only work when the other people care if they live!"
Tokyo: MBI square
Jango spun on his heel and pushed away another electrically-charged net. He thought they had been serious about capturing sekirei alive when they started shooting darts at him, then they brought out gas grenades, then the electric nets. What next, sonic equipment? He wasn't sure what would be worse, being dead, or being alive and enslaved to a gentically constructed bond to some person, in all likelihood a woman, that he had never met. Even the knowledge that there were, in fact, good ashikabi out there did nothing for him. He wanted the freedom to decide for himself, just like he wanted it for every other sekirei alive.
He muttered to himself; "Better to make a choice rather than pray you get lucky.
He started to push straight through the center, when out of nowhere both his head and torso were engulfed in complete agony. Total pain, indescribable suffering, they were all words but none of them truly gave justice to the bonfire using his body for kindling. And along with the pain, a sense of profound failure. He knew, instantly, what had happened and where this pain originated. Somewhere, somehow, a sekirei had died. In a cruel twist of fate, their death might just prove to be his own undoing as several of the electrified nets landed on him while he was busy convulsing on the ground.
A couple of soldiers ran up to him and shoved gun barrels in his face. One of them decided to speak what was probably on all of their minds. "I think we could get away with killing just this one, avenge everyone that this bastard killed. You with me?"
The others nodded and took aim at his face. He closed his eyes, resigned to peaceful oblivion instead of servitude. He spared a thought for Akitsu however, she deserved that much. A collection of slick sounding impacts erupted, and no bullets entered his skull. He opened his eyes. Shards of ice were protruding from the eye sockets of every soldier that had aimed a weapon at him. Chaos erupted around him, and the battlefield that had quieted with his fall exploded with carnage.
He heard a loud slice and inclined his head in the direction of the sound. "Yomi?"
Number Forty Three flashed him a smart-ass salute, back in her usual attire which he had heard referred to as "French Maid". "Hey boss, need a hand?"
He struggled against the netting. "I think, at the moment, your scythe would be more useful than your hand."
Yomi rolled her eyes, slid the blade between the netting, and started cutting. "I'll give you three guesses as to who bitched until we all agreed to come after you. And I'll give you a hint, it was a girl."
Yomi's levity brought a smirk to his face despite the fact that he was still getting shocked by the nets. "You realize that hint didn't narrow it down at all." He held himself as still as he could to minimize the chance Yomi might cut him. "I'll need one guess, Akitsu."
Yomi yanked on her scythe, coming within an inch of cutting his ear off. "Bingo, the Ice Queen did it!" Number Forty Three looked up, taking her eyes off of her cutting and almost shaving and inch off of his arm. "Speak of the devil, here she comes."
As forecast, Akistu entered his limited field of vision and without warning latched her mouth over his.
In the background, Yomi started giggling. "Boss, remember what you promised Miya about perverted behavior."
He pulled his head away from Akistu. "Yomi, if the day ever comes that I need to take personal advice from you, I will consider myself a complete lost cause. Do me a personal favor, and shut up."
Rapture: Welcome Center
Minato watched in stunned silence from behind cover as Ivan smoothly, and calmly, executed Musubi with two bullets before sprinting off to the side and shouting something undeniably flippant at Musubi's former captor. That same captor had changed from a calm, self-assured man into a raging lunatic in the space of time it had taken for Ivan to run to cover.
The Russian shouted across the chamber at him. "Minato! Shoot out his eyes!"
He shouted back; "Why don't you!"
Ivan held up his elephant rifle; "Out of bullets." Then his shotgun; "Inaccurate."
Faced with that logic, he wasn't left with much choice. He checked his remaining number of rounds, and was alarmed to find that he only had two shots left.
Ivan yelled again; "Just be sure the shots are in quick succession. If they aren't, we're all screwed. If you miss, we're screwed. No pressure!"
He ignored the Russian and tried to calm himself. Picturing each of his living sekirei in his mind helped a great deal. He actually imagined that they were all holding the gun with him. He swung out from cover, took aim, and fired both shots dead on target. He had however, ignored the tentacle rocketing towards his chest. The impact knocked him flat, rather than impaling him. Possibly due to the damage he had done to the wielder of the tentacle?
Tsukiumi cried out; "Ivan-san, what are you doing?"
He shoved himself up. Ivan had rushed from cover and was charging Musubi's former captive like a bull. The flailing tentacles were hitting the Russian, just not stopping him. He watched, helpless, as Ivan tackled the writing mass of pink into the large crevice, vanishing from view. He slowly crept his way towards the crevice, not expecting to find anything. When he looked over the edge, he was astonished to see Ivan hanging on for dear life to a protruding section of copper pipes.
He shouted down; "Ivan!"
The Russian looked up at him, and started to smirk. "What, you didn't write me off immediately, did you?"
He laid down on the edge and started to reach; "Hang on, I'll get you out of there."
Ivan shrewdly remarked on the distance that still remained. "Well Minato, unless you have some kind of special power that lets you stretch your arms an extra two feet, I think I'm doomed."
He waved over his sekirei, all of them; "Come on, help me." He directed them; "grab my legs, lower me down."
It was a portrait of their trust in him that there were no questions. It was also a symbolic moment to show how he had, himself, matured over the course of this nightmare. He would never have even conceived of the idea of using himself as a human rescue rope before this. But now it felt just, natural.
He grabbed Ivan's hand and shouted back up; "Pull!"
Both him and Ivan were dragged upwards in one massive movement. It still wasn't quite enough to bring Ivan up all the way, so the Russian scrambled on the edge and hauled himself up.
Ivan looked back and forth between Tsukiumi and Kazehana, who were still holding onto his legs and breathing heavily from exertion. "Well, that explains why you didn't fall over the edge with me, plenty of ballast on the topside." Ivan then proceeded to laugh at his own smart-ass remark.
Kazehana and Tsukiumi both reacted to the quip in their own way. Kazehana smirked and seemed to be suppressing the urge to laugh herself. Tsukiumi however, she got up and slapped Ivan across the face, which didn't dampen the Russian's mirth in the least.
Ivan eventually stopped laughing, then shook his head in apparent astonishment. "You know Minato, I was half expecting you to leave me to die. For the sole reason of me shooting Air-For-Brains.
He took a deep breath to steady his voice. "No, I, I understand why you did it. Either way Musubi was dead."
Ivan nodded, pride apparent in his voice. "Exactly. Death comes two ways, fast or slow. The difference in this case, is that if we had gone with "slow" we would all have been sharing that fate with the deceased." The Russian jabbed his thumb in the direction of the elevator. "Now let's get out of here before splicers arrive to ruin this occasion any more."
As they all piled into the elevator for the second time, he could not help but look up with a sense of anticipation. He knew that he would never come back to Rapture, but it had made him a better person in roundabout way. He would also never be a burden to his sekirei ever again. That in and of itself made the journey worthwhile. As for Musubi's death, it saddened him, but he wasn't going to dwell on it. The living needed him more than the dead.