Amnesia Chapter 27:

The Disaster

Kisshu ran to the door and opened it. A young woman nearly fell into the room, and Kisshu caught her. As soon as she was steady, he let go and said, "Where's the attack happening?"

"They're attacking this mansion!" the young woman said.

Kisshu looked at Ichigo, who nodded and said, "Tokyo Mew Mew! GO!" She and her teammates transformed, and Pai and Kisshu teleported them to the front of the mansion.

There, they saw the guards fighting with a bunch of creatures that looked like mutant humanoid butterflies. As Haroshi-sama had said, they were abnormally fast, zipping away from attacks in a blur. And their quickness seemed to be winning this battle. Kisshu and Pai took out their weapons, and flew over to help, followed by the Mews. As they got closer, they noticed all the Kuritara were holding short swords.

Ichigo drew level with Kisshu and said, "Maybe we should capture one of them, and interrogate him."

Kisshu looked at her, surprised, then nodded and said, "I'll tell Pai, and we can spread the word. You tell the other Mews."

Ichigo nodded, and fell back to her teammates, then said, "We're going to try to capture one of these guys." They all nodded, just as they reached the battlefield. They immediately split up, and started attacking.

The Mews soon noticed that Haroshi-sama had been right; while the Kuritara were ferocious toward Kisshu, Pai and the guards, they seemed extremely hesitant to attack Ichigo and her teammates. While the Mews were startled by this, they also took advantage of it. Their attacks took down several Kuritara. Suddenly Lettuce ran to Pai, blasting some Kuritara out of her way, and said something to him. He nodded, and they combined their attacks, which pretty much left the entire attack group on the ground, sparking and soaked. Everyone ran to Pai and Lettuce, and Kisshu said, "Great work, you two. Let's tie them up, and we can interrogate them."

Before they could do that, though, a voice above them shouted, "It's not over yet!" The Cyniclons and Mews looked up as one, and gasped. Two Kuritara were floating above them, carrying Haroshi-sama, who appeared to be unconscious. Then they vanished, and at the same time, all the Kuritara who they had been fighting vanished as well.

The guards who had been fighting were obviously starting to panic. "What do we do?" one asked. "They've got our leader!" This set the others off, and all Kisshu and Pai's attempts to calm them down did absolutely no good.

Zakuro went to Ichigo, and said, "Ichigo, we have to calm them down, and I think you've got the best chance of doing it. If we don't, I'm pretty certain that Kisshu and Pai will start panicking too."

"What should I do, though?" Ichigo asked.

"Use your leadership skills," Zakuro advised. "You were the one who led us when Kisshu, Pai and Taruto were still attacking Earth. You may not have a plan right now, but the first step is to get the others to calm down. Then we can all work out a plan."

Ichigo nodded, and then shouted in a surprisingly commanding tone, "QUIET!"

The Cyniclons, surprisingly, went silent and turned to her. In the silence, Ichigo said, "It's not going to help if we all panic. If we want to get Haroshi-sama back and defeat the Kuritara, we need to work together calmly and figure out a plan. The Kuritara want us to panic and be in disarray when they attack. If we panic, they've already won."

Pai sighed. "You're correct, Mew Ichigo," he said. "We need to remain calm and figure out a plan. But a hostage situation puts us in a very delicate position. What should we do?"

"May I speak?" Lettuce asked.

"Go ahead," Ichigo said.

"We need to figure out why they kidnapped Haroshi-sama," Lettuce said. "If they simply wanted to kill him, they would have done it here. They want something from us, and we need to know what it is."

"Do you think they'll send some kind of ransom demand?" Kisshu asked.

"Most likely," Lettuce said. "If we go rushing in carelessly, it will get Haroshi-sama killed. We have to figure out what they want before planning a rescue mission. If they want one of us, and that person comes on the rescue mission, we may well end up with two hostages rather than one."

"She's got a point, you should listen to her," a voice from above them said snidely. Everyone looked up as another Kuritara flung a piece of paper at Kisshu and vanished. Kisshu caught it, then opened it up. As he read, his face turned dead white. The others noticed, and Ichigo asked, "Kisshu, what's wrong?"

Kisshu didn't respond. Instead, his eyes went blank- then he collapsed. Pai teleported and caught him as Ichigo ran over. "What just happened?" she asked.

"I think there's a spell on that paper, don't touch it," Pai said.

Ichigo knelt next to Kisshu, and looked at the paper on the ground, careful not to get too close. Then she gasped. Pai left off trying to figure out what was wrong with Kisshu and asked, "What's up?"

"This paper has the ransom demand," Ichigo said. "For some reason, the Kuritara want Kisshu. The note says to bring Kisshu to them one week from today, or Haroshi-sama will die. It says the meeting place is this gate."

"That's bad," Pai said. "I bet the spell on the paper was aimed at Kisshu, to put him out of commission until they exchange with us."

Ichigo looked scared. "What do we do?" she whispered.

"We should take Kisshu inside, and put him to bed," Pai said. "He doesn't have a fever, but I can't wake him up."

"Okay," Ichigo said.

Pai picked Kisshu up and told Ichigo, "Grab my shoulder." She did so, and he teleported to their room. Once there, Pai put Kisshu on the bed and covered him with the blankets. Then he put a hand on Kisshu's forehead. A minute later, his eyes went wide, and he turned to Ichigo with a grim look on his face. Ichigo immediately got scared, and this only increased when Pai put a hand on her shoulder and said, "Ichigo- Kisshu is in a coma."

"So… there's no way to wake him up?" Ichigo asked, her voice shaking.

Pai lowered his head, and said softly, "I don't know. It might be that he'll wake up when the Kuritara need him to, but it's also possible that he'll never wake up, and they'll use this as a way to kill him. They know he's the strongest warrior on this planet, and that means they'll do everything they can to make sure he's unable to fight."

"Pai," Ichigo whispered.

"Yes?" Pai said.

"Go tell Zakuro that until either Kisshu wakes up, or the week is over, she is now the leader of Tokyo Mew Mew," Ichigo said.

Seeing she was serious, Pai simply said, "Hai," and teleported out.

As soon as he was gone, Ichigo burst into tears.

Short, I know. Don't flame me.