Three Day Storm
#5: The Waiting Game
X X X
Takeru Teshimine had always liked the way rain felt when it landed on his skin. It washed away all the sins, whether they were his own or ones that the world had attached to him.
Storms were just a little different, though. Ever since the Advent of the Lightning Emperor, he had never been able to associate a storm with anyone but Ginji. So it was fitting that as Shinjuku's weather crippled the district, he came stepping through the streets towards a place he had never really left.
There was an invisible boundary between the fringes of the Fortress and the rest of the city, but anyone who had ever lived in that forsaken place knew the exact moment they stepped over it.
With both hands held in his pockets, Teshimine calmly crossed that line and kept on walking, the hook of an umbrella hanging off of one forearm. He probably should have started using it when he got out of the taxi twenty minutes earlier, but Teshimine was a man of practicality. The umbrella would protect him against the rain but never the wind, and they came hand-in-hand for a storm like this one.
This close to the source the formidable weather lashed at him from all sides, forcing the man to hunch his shoulders protectively as he sought an entrance into Lower Town.
Like Ban - though he did not know it - Teshimine had sensed swiftly that this bad weather had a cause that lay deep within Limitless Fortress. Likewise, it was the peculiarity of the storm that struck him - that it was seemingly confined to just one area of Tokyo and had stayed there for days on end. The government and media could not explain it, though they tried.
Gen's message had arrived only a little while after and it became obvious that Ginji and the storm were somehow connected.
He stepped further into Limitless Fortress, ignoring the warning that the lightning flashed from overhead and the shuddering growl of the thunder which followed it.
X X X
Gen's Pharmacy was, for the moment, besieged by the painful task of waiting. It was made worse by an undercurrent of anxiety that ran through the five men who were present. It varied from person to person, but was ultimately caused by the same thing. It was uncomfortably similar to the panic that came before an important event. What started as a tiny stone in the pit of your stomach blossomed into a constant presence that ruined everything because it would not leave until the problem had passed.
It was exactly that kind of feeling that drove Ban Midou to smoking in the first place and the very reason he had now chosen to chain-smoke his final cigarette. Using a match that he had found at the back of one of Gen's cupboards, Ban struck a flame and took a long drag as he settled against the wall.
Content to blow smoke rings and watch his… well, he'd call them 'associates', Ban noted with interest that neither Shido nor Kazuki had moved as far away from the bed as he had. Clearly they did not share his notion that Ginji was in the safest possible place within Limitless Fortress - and more importantly, they knew that he was.
For him, it came as a great comfort. Ban tried to write it off as the satisfaction that the main goal of the job had been completed… even though they had a growing to-do list before they could actually leave.
But if he was honest with himself, the relief lay in the fact that he had found his friend relatively unharmed. Something had definitely happened, but he didn't know what. Not yet.
Compulsively he glanced across to the bed. Ginji met the look and offered a tired smile in return for Ban's hard scrutiny. He was clearly still exhausted, one of many details that Ban inherently disliked. In the entire time he had known the electric eel, he had always kept an amazingly swift recovery time. It was beyond Ban's experience to see Ginji so weak for so long.
With little else to do, Ban flicked cigarette ash into a nearby pot plant, discreetly ignoring Gen's resigned look as he did so.
He'd always been told he was a lousy houseguest, anyway.
Gen's clattering of plates and the thunk-thump of cupboards were the only noise to be had in the Pharmac. Neither Shido or Kazuki were very talkative after the news that Teshimine was on the way, so Ginji had settled back down. Save for the infrequent, silent reassurances to Ban, he was dozing against the pillow, eyes open but thoughts a thousand miles away.
Ban was confident in the assumption that he too was waiting, if with much less apprehension. They all hoped Teshimine would bring a resolution. He and the others would worry about the nature of that direction and where it would take them, but Ginji would be happy to simply receive it.
The minutes on the clock ticked by at an agonisingly slow rate. Neither Shido nor Kazuki moved; Gen continued to flit about. Ban finished his cigarette in record time and at one stage was absolutely certain that he had heard a snore from Ginji.
He was on the verge of going to check on the Mudhead properly - just for something to do - when at long last, there came a knock at the door.
The effect was like a pebble dropping into a pond. The stillness shattered and the two Kings became alert; their Emperor carefully sat up.
Ban ignored all three, paying most of his attention to the little Pharmacist.
Gen sent a nervous look to his guests, but obligingly moved to the door. He opened it wide enough to prevent unpleasant surprises: just as those inside would see the person at the door, he would see them.
It was a storm-soaked version of the man so eagerly awaited who came stepping through the door. "I apologise for being late," Takeru Teshimine told them, as an unused umbrella was set against the wall. His pleasant smile said nothing of how he might feel about such an unexpectedly large audience.
Ban watched as Teshimine shut the door quietly before side-stepping Gen and moving further into the room. A simple hand gesture was enough to defer the questions Kazuki and Shido had both begun to ask.
"You have a knack for trouble, don't you?" Teshimine said mildly, as he approached the hospital bed that they were all guarding. He laid an affectionate hand on Ginji's brown hair. "How on earth did you manage this?"
There was a blink, then a sheepish grin from the younger man. "I don't know," he said honestly.
"Well, then." Teshimine collected a chair, twisting it so that he sat close enough for decent conversation. "We're going to have to find out. Do you remember how it happened?"
"We've been through this," Ban interjected, ignoring Shido's hiss of disproval as the words left him. He had always been willing to tolerate Teshimine, based simply on the fact that he was so influential to Ginji. Despite this, he was chomping at the bit for a course of action: sitting through another round of twenty questions was not Ban's idea of progress in the slightest.
The greying man looked over his shoulder. He smiled, then nodded. "I am certain you have," he replied diplomatically, "But it remains that I haven't heard the answers."
Ban snorted and looked away, beginning to regret that he had finished that cigarette so swiftly. He chose to say nothing else, his pride oddly subdued in the presence of someone who didn't fight back.
Under the gentle prodding of his mentor, Ginji gave the story - the same one that he had given his three friends less than an hour previous. As the conversation continued, it became obvious that he was wearing out, a tiredness seeping at the edges of him so that every movement took just a little longer to complete, and every response was just a little slower.
Just as Ban wanted give in to temptation and tell Teshimine to give him a break, the adult sat back, motioning quietly to Gen for a hot drink. After this, he sunk into thought, watching a blank space on the wall.
Ban ended up tailing Gen's actions instead, deciding that it was too unsettling to look at.
The man had finished filling the kettle with water from the sink, setting it back on the counter with a gentle 'clunk'. After checking the cord was plugged in properly, he flicked the power switch, turned to get mugs -
- and Ban's world went inexplicably black.
Any exclamations from those sharing the experience were drowned out by a thudding boom from overhead, one that made the building shake as one wave of sound joined the next.
It lasted a good minute and when it passed, Ban realised he'd been holding his breath. Surveying the apartment, he realised what had happened - a blackout.
Well, there was a simple way to get around that.
"I'll get a torch," Gen said immediately. Ban assumed he was looking for one and shook his head although the others would never see it.
"Make it a lamp," he told the Pharmacist calmly. "Right, Ginji?"
No answer.
"Ginji?"
"I'm sorry, Ban." In the darkness of the apartment Ginji's voice, although louder than anything else in the room, was heavily subdued. Ban stared at him through the darkened apartment, his world shrinking until the only thing that existed was his old retrieval partner.
He realised, in that exact moment, just what had happened to Ginji.
A quiet, "Mr. Ginji…" from Kazuki's direction told him that he was not alone in that horrible, gut-clenching realisation.
X X X
To be continued.