Target 6: Retrieval
Emiko sits in class with an extremely bored expression on her face. She already knows everything the teacher is relaying to the students and puts her head down in boredom.
'I shouldn't have come to class today…' Emiko thinks as she turns to face the person next to her, Makimoto. He looks at her with a smile plastered on his face and Emiko can't help but roll her eyes and turn her head back to the marker-board. The teacher drones on, notebook in hand and calling on students and really, Emoki could be doing something else.
'Fuck class. I got shit to do.' Emiko promptly raises her hand, a lie already forming in her head.
"Yes, Yamamoto?" Takeda-sensei points at her. He's an older man in his late forties. His hair is salt and pepper colored while his eyes remain sharp and onyx colored.
"Um… I'm not feeling too well; can I go see the nurse?" She asks, her voice sounding slightly sickly. Inwardly she applauds herself—she's gotten so much better with her sick-sounding voice. Takeda-sensei looks at her with concern before he writes out a paper pass and hands it to Makimoto.
"Makimoto, take Yamamoto to the nurse." He says and dismisses the two. Emiko slowly stands and grips her bag that was resting on the back of her chair.
The final touches to her act are engaged when she stumbles a bit and leans against Makimoto. The teacher looks at her with great concern and the two baseball players make their way out of the classroom.
Once they were a far enough distance away from class with no Disciplinary Committee members in sight, Emiko pushes herself from Makimoto and snatches her bag from his hand. He just smiles and ruffles her hair, she replies with a quick jab to the stomach. He dodges, though and Emiko growls in frustration.
"Don't touch me, Makimoto. You can go back to class now." Emiko coldly gestures down the hallway they just came from.
"Don't you need to go to the nurse?" He asks with a smirk showing that he already knows the answer.
"If you don't know the answer to that question, you're dumber than I originally thought." Emiko turns towards the left side of the hallway. "And I didn't have much hope in you to begin with."
"Haha, that's hurtful, Emiko!" Emiko's eye twitches at his familiarity with her, but she doesn't' say anything else. Instead, Makimoto takes it upon himself to continue speaking, "Where are you going now?" He asks. Emiko turns slightly and gives him a look.
"Why would I tell you? Bye." Emiko saunters down the hallway and out of Makimoto's view. He watches her go before walking back down the hallway to class; after all, he needed to be there. Makimoto wasn't exactly the best student.
Emiko made her way towards the new school building through the connecting bridge hallway. She already knew where Hitomi was and she knew Hitomi wouldn't be able to run away when she cornered her on the roof. Hitomi wouldn't jump, she wouldn't even consider jumping.
The silvernette slowly climbed the stairs and pieced together what she would say to her. She tried to pick out the words the spiky haired brunette would probably use and pretended to counter them. She was almost there when she heard a loud scream. Emiko dropped her bag in the haste to get to the top of the stairs and rammed open the door.
On the roof, Hitomi was trying to protect a small girl standing behind her from some huge men in black suits. Hitomi was screaming at them and the small girl behind her was yelling as well. Emiko reached up under her skirt and pulled out the foldable pair of Tonfa that was attached to the garter on her leg. She rushed forward and jumped high, swiping the man in the side of the face and effectively knocking him to the ground. The other men backed off a bit, moving toward their boss.
Hitomi looked up at Emiko with relief and gratefulness in her eyes. She pulled the girl over to Emiko's side and smiled. "Thank goodness you came, Emiko-chan! I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't shown up!"
A little confused by Hitomi's gratefulness, though she's not all opposed to it, Emiko points at the men, an eyebrow raised. "Yeah… but who are these guys?"
"I'll explain later, but… we have to get rid of them." Hitomi explains to her. Emiko nods and readies her Tonfa again.
"You get her out of here and I'll deal with these guys, then you gotta explain all of this. Alright?" Emiko tells her. Hitomi nods and pulls the girl along, and down the stairs.
"She's getting away! Get her!" The man still on the ground shouts. Two move toward the door, but are thrown back by Emiko's Tonfa.
"You guys aren't going anywhere!" Emiko yells.
The man laughs and watches as two of his climb over the fence of the roof and jump down. Emiko curses loudly and turns back to the three men that are still occupying the roof with her.
"It doesn't matter because Hitomi will protect that girl. I don't know why you want her, but you won't get that girl!" Emiko yells.
"She wasn't doing too much of protecting earlier, girl." Another man says. Emiko growls and readies herself for the fight.
Hitomi pants heavily as she and Lucia run down the hallway; Lucia tripping over her own feet every few seconds. Lucia is scared yet still awe-stricken by Emiko's fighting ability.
"Lucia-chan, you're gonna have to pick up the pace!" Hitomi yells at her slightly panicked.
"I can't! I'm scared!" Lucia tells her and Hitomi mumbles a curse under her breath. She's not strong enough to lift Lucia up and carry her, so for now, this is the best she can do.
"Alright, we'll just have to try and outrun them, then." Hitomi picks up Lucia and runs even faster, passing by Skye without even noticing.
"Hey! Sawada! What the fuck are you doing in my hallways?" Skye yells at the girl. Hitomi stops and turns, eyes widened in renewed fear. If there was one person she didn't want to be caught by, it'd have been Collins.
"Can't talk, gotta go. Bad men are chasing us!" Hitomi turns back around and runs away, much to the shock of Skye and Hikaru.
After getting over this shock, Skye runs after Hitomi, putting together her special dart gun. Hitomi is already at the foot lockers; she pushes open the door and darts down the steps. Hitomi's pretty fast for someone who doesn't work out, but Skye is faster and Hitomi is shot with a dart. She immediately goes down and Lucia is dropped from her grip.
"Hitomi! Hitomi! Wake up." Lucia has tears streaming from her eyes and Hitomi looks up at her with sleepy eyes.
"Go… Lucia-chan…" Hitomi mumbles before her world goes black.
"Wataru, Sawada's outside in front of the school. Take her to the Detention hall." Skye speaks into the walkie-talkie. She and Hikaru walk away, leaving Hitomi and Lucia outside. "Try to leave my fuckin school…" Skye mumbles.
Hitomi wakes up at least an hour later, her brown eyes lazily dart around the room only to find it having two other occupants, Emiko and Kita. Both look sort of beat up; Emiko's uniform is ripped and dirtied; she has cuts and bruises on her body while Kita is in slightly better condition. Her uniform isn't ripped but her hair, visible skin and face are dirty and she's got cuts as well.
Emiko's head shoots up as she sees Hitomi look at her and Kita. She rushes over to Hitomi's side, followed by Kita.
"Are you alright, Hitomi?" Kita asks.
"Yeah, where's Lucia?" Hitomi replies.
Emiko and Kita look anywhere but at Hitomi. Hitomi groans loudly and drops her head against the desk.
"I got there too late, Hitomi. They had already gotten Lucia into the van. My Senbon needles could only go so far." Kita explained, her voice quieted down in shame as she looked away from Hitomi.
"And those guys were a lot stronger than I thought; they used this colored fire to beat me!" Emiko told her story. "Have you ever seen something like it? It was so strange…" Hitomi looked away, mumbling that she'd never seen anything like it and shot a glare over at Kita to keep her quiet.
"We were gonna make it out of school but I passed by Collins and she shot me with her tranquilizer gun." Emiko continues.
"We gotta get out of here and save her." Kita says. Emiko walks towards the window before pulling on the bars.
"But how? There's no way out once the door is locked."
"There's always a way, loser. Do you have any regrets?" Reborn sounds from the teacher's desk at the front of the classroom. The three girls turn to him. Hitomi gasps and hangs her head.
"Of course I do! I lost Lucia!" Hitomi told him. Emiko looked between Reborn and Hitomi with a confused face.
"That's all I needed to hear. You know, you're pathetic. I wasn't going to help you, but… I guess I'm going to have to, huh?" Reborn holds out his stubby arm and Leon crawls down, transforming into a gun.
Hitomi nods and prepares herself for running around looking for Lucia in her underwear. Kita readies herself to follow Hitomi and motions for Emiko to do the same. The gunshot rings out in the room and Hitomi's clothes are burned away, leaving her in matching undergarments and a bright flame on her head.
"Reborn!" Hitomi screams and charges for the door. It's easily broken and Kita rushes out behind her boss. Emiko follows suit and the three girls are running out of the school and down the street.
"Hitomi will be here to rescue me! Just you wait!" Lucia yells at the man. He chuckles and rolls his eyes.
They're in a warehouse on the edge of the shipping district of Namimori. The insides of the warehouse are dimly light and dirty. There are various old pieces of furniture thrown about the room, some over turned and some standing up right. Most, if not all, of the furniture is missing a piece of it, whether it is a leg to a chair or a cushion to the couch, there was at least something missing. Lucia is tied to a chair in the middle of the room, dressed in a princess costume, seeing as this was the only thing they could find to fit her at the moment.
"No she won't, girl. She could barely protect you back there at your school. You think she's coming for you now? She's probably forgotten about you!" He sneers. Lucia's eyes glaze over, tears threatening to fall.
"Boss… I don't know. That silver haired girl seemed pretty tough. If we hadn't used our flames back there, she would've easily handed our asses to us."
"So what? She doesn't know how to use flames, we'll be fine. You worry too much, Tamaki."
"But boss…" Tamaki trails.
"But what, Tamaki? Do you believe that we won't be able to pull this off?" The boss turns to Tamaki. Tamaki takes a small, barely noticeable step away from his back.
He sheepishly runs a tanned hand through his darkened blue mess of hair. He laughs slightly and holds up his other hand in mock surrender.
"No! No, it's not that it's just…" Tamaki trails, eyes rolling as he thinks of a good reason.
"Just what? Tamaki, I'm getting real tired of your shit. We're a gang. This is the type of shit we do. If you can't handle that, we'll just get you acquainted with those who have tried to disobey us." The boss punches his other hand a smirk on his face.
Tamaki jumps slightly and bows. "I'm sorry, Takaishi-taishou!"
Takaishi smirks and turns back to Lucia who glares at him with ferocity. He rolls his eyes and points at her.
"Minami, Fujimori, Watch the girl. I have to go and meet our client." He turns and swiftly moves towards the small hallway leading towards the warehouse's only door that isn't a large garage type door. Two men quickly follow after; both dressed in dark trench coats. After he disappears, the only woman in the room turns to Tamaki.
"Tamaki, go and stand guard outside with the others." She commands. Tamaki nods before quickly making his way outside.
Hitomi barrels down the street, overturning things and blowing them away in one swift motion. Behind her, Emiko and Kita are trying desperately to catch up to Hitomi. Emiko is almost out of breath and Kita looks like she'll collapse at any moment. Reborn glides on a transformed Leon and smiles easily.
"Why is she so fast?" Emiko gasps out, instantly regretting the loss of another breath. Kita beside her is slowing down, her uniform slightly sweaty.
"It'll wear off soon; it's almost been three minutes since I shot her. In about two minutes, this will wear off." Reborn tells her. Emiko looks at him confused. Kita taps Emiko shoulder.
"Let's use that bike!" She yells at her. The mist guardian points at a bike lying forlornly on the ground, not even chained up to the pole it's leaning against.
Emiko and Kita runs towards the bike, Emiko hopping on the seat and Kita climbing onto the pegs. She grabs Emiko's shoulders. Emiko begins pedaling. Kita moves her head so she can glance above Emiko's. She points up ahead at the path of destruction.
"Over there!" She calls. Emiko rolls her eyes and pedals faster.
"Thanks, Captain Obvious. I couldn't tell by the extreme path of motherfucking destruction left in the wake of my best friend ripping off her clothes and running down the street trying to find a four year old girl." Emiko deadpanned. Kita rolled her eyes, she nudged Emiko's back.
"Look, if I wanted your saucy input, I would have asked." Kita replies. Emiko rolls her eyes and turns back to the path of destruction.
"What are you going to use when we get there, Kita? I didn't see you have any weapons ready." Reborn commented. He eyes the Tonfa dangling from Emiko's garter and wonders how she managed to hide them from Collins. He currently sits on Kita's head.
The drama president tries to look up at Reborn without having him fall off of her head. She then reaches for the hem of her yellow sweater vest. Lifting it slightly, a small Rubik's type cube attached to a metal link chain is visible. She points at it with her index finger and grips Emiko's shoulder with her other hand a little harder. Emiko grunts but doesn't say anything.
"My Chakrams are stored into this cube. My mom likes playing with these storage boxes and she taught me how to use these things called "flames" a bit. So, I can take my weapons out whenever I want." Kita explained. She let go of the hem of her sweater and put her hand back onto Emiko's shoulder, loosening her grip on Emiko's other shoulder.
"So you've got an early start, Kita. That's very good… but I can't help but wonder who your mother is…" Reborn trails. Kita smiles brightly.
"I'm sure you wouldn't know her, but her name is—" Emiko makes the bike jump a bit and yells incoherently to gather the attention of the Hitman and mist flame user.
"That's nice and all, but I've lost sight of Hitomi. Where the hell could she have gone?" Emiko asks. Reborn sighs and looks down the narrow road Emiko turned onto. He then looks to his wrist as if there was a watch on it.
"It's probably been five minutes already. She's probably wandering around in her underwear. Or she's already found the people who have taken Lucia."
"Let's hope it's the latter and not the former…" Kita trails. She looks forward as Emiko picks up another piece of Hitomi's destruction trail.
Hitomi runs down the alley, having been chased by dogs after stealing some clothes from a clothesline. She hides behind the building boldly labeled "Storage". She pants heavily and slides down the side of the wall. Hitomi looks down at the clothes in her hands.
"Great… at least it's not horrible, I guess..." She mumbles. With nothing else to do, Hitomi puts on the tank-top and the shorts then begins walking around, looking for any clue as to where Lucia might be.
After about 15 minutes of walking around the warehouses, Hitomi hears the sounds of an approaching car. She stops suddenly and throws herself behind a warehouse loading dock. She slowly peeks over the edge to see the man that wanted Lucia get out of the car. Four other men follow him out of the car and she ducks, cursing that she let Reborn shoot her. She's got no way to protect herself and Hitomi believes she'd be too scared to actually do anything.
The men talk quietly and Hitomi hears him mumble something about a "Super powered little girl" and instantly knew it was Lucia. As they entered the warehouse, Hitomi could only wonder how long it'd take for Emiko and Kita to show up and help her out.
She'd been pacing for at least twenty minutes before they arrived. Kita hopped off the bike and gave Hitomi a once over before patting her on the head and summoning the small amount of flames she could. She stuck her finger into the small slot on the side of the cube and it opened. Out popped two Chakrams. They were primarily purple in color with silver steel accenting the purple. The spokes on the inside of the wheel were slightly jagged, but the bar connecting the sides like a diameter was covered in elastic purple tape. The outside of the wheel had sharpened spiked edges that gleamed in what little sun light shown in the dark alley of the warehouse district.
"I take it they're hiding away in there?" Kita states the obvious. Emiko sighs and smack her forehead.
"Yeah, so we better hurry, there's a man in there who is trying to take her." Hitomi said. Emiko nodded and rushed towards the door, followed by Kita and reluctantly Hitomi. Reborn, who had been quiet the whole time because he was bored into sleeping, seated himself on Hitomi's head.
"Since you're not of much use right now, Anrakki-Hitomi, you can carry me and Lucia when we get her back." Reborn stated. Hitomi face palmed and frowned; she looked up at Reborn and scratched her cheek.
"Oh, c'mon! I ran through most of Namimori in my underwear! Give me a break!" She nearly yelled. Emiko looked back at her and 'sssh'ed' her. Hitomi immediately stopped her groaning and followed Emiko without a word.
The group of four slowly approached the main room in the storage unit and Emiko readied her weapons that had been dangling from her wrist by the loops attached to the handles, Kita doing the same with her Chakrams and Hitomi praying for the people in the main room. The two middle school girls jumped out, yelling for Lucia's return. Takaishi laughed loudly, followed by the drawing of weapons from both him and his subordinates.
Emiko laughed before charging forward, barreling into the man with the sickle chain scythe. He blocked her Tonfa easily but she deflected his second sickle and flipped back. She threw three already lit mini-bombs and watched the man be thrown back into the couch, dazed. She quickly moved towards him and swiped him with her Tonfa and effectively knocked him out.
Kita took a much more shady approach; she decided that she'd 'fade' into the shadows cast about the dimly lit room and attack from there. Tamaki and Minami were thrown from their places into the far side wall by the flat side of Kita's Chakrams, her fist coming to center the bladed wheel, adding another pack of pain to both of their chests. She raised her left Chakram, turned it so that the blades wouldn't hurt him and brought it down onto Tamaki's head, instantly knocking him out. Minami was already knocked out from the force of being thrown back so Kita engaged herself in another fight elsewhere.
Hitomi watched from the dark hallway as her friends massacred the man's lackeys. Reborn sighed and kicked her into the room where she fell face first onto the dirty ground. Nobody seemed to notice in the commotion, Reborn sighed and looked at Hitomi. The brunette boss stood abruptly.
"Reborn! What the hell?!" She yelled. Reborn pointed at Lucia.
"Go and get Lucia." Reborn stated. Hitomi followed his stubby finger to where Lucia was watching Emiko fight from her seat in the chair.
She quickly ran toward Lucia, trying and almost failing at dodging the various weapons and bodies tossed around. She managed to get herself behind Lucia's chair and maneuver her hands onto the rope. Just as she was about to start untying the rope, there's a loud coughing noise behind her. Hitomi gulps and slowly turns around to face the person. He stands at least six feet even and his long spiked brown hair is almost, if not already, passed waist length. His blue eyes stare down at Hitomi with intrigue and curiosity.
"H-Hiiiiieeee…?" Hitomi tries. He smirks and reaches for Hitomi, only to have Hitomi punch him in the crouch, her upper body being almost level with his waist in her kneeling position. She stands and begins kicking him, her memories of creepy blue eyes from her childhood resurfacing in her mind.
"No!" She yells, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.
"I don't care what anyone says! You're a creep and a weirdo and not a figment of my imagination! You bastard!" She kicks him in the stomach. Emiko grabs Kita's attention and the two quickly deal with the remaining number of adults in the room.
Emiko pulls Hitomi away from the man and Kita unties Lucia, pulling the girl from the chair. The five exit the storage warehouse and Hitomi shudders. Lucia sleepily leans on Kita while Emiko and Hitomi glance back at the warehouse.
"That was easier than expected." Kita commented.
"What do you expect? They're a low level gang. How they even got information about Lucia being in Japan, I don't care to know. You dealt with them like Hitomi should have." Reborn stated from his perch on Hitomi's head. Hitomi flinches at his tone and looks ahead.
"Speaking of Hitomi… Jesus, girl, what the fuck was that?" Emiko asked.
"…He was creepy…" she said as if that was reason enough. Emiko looked from her to Kita and then to Reborn.
"Well… whatever, I just need you guys to explain to me what the fuck is going on." Emiko tells her.
"Oh… Well… I guess we could tell you now… or…"
"… Or what? You promised, Hitomi!" Emiko reminds her. Hitomi's head droops as she remembers this.
"You did promise, Hitomi." Reborn stated. Hitomi looked up at him and tried to swat him off of her head only to have her hand be kicked by Reborn. She yelps in pain and brings her hand down to rub it soothingly with her left.
"Fine, Emiko. I'm… in the mafia." Hitomi tells her. To say the least, Emiko's reaction isn't something that Hitomi would've expected.
Instead of being completely opposed to the idea, Emiko was happy.
"The mafia? How fucking cool is that? Let me join, Hitomi!" Emiko looked at Hitomi with shiny eyes.
"No! I don't want anyone to join! I don't even want myself to join!" Hitomi explains loudly.
"No! You let her join, so why can't I?" Emiko pointed at Kita accusingly.
"That was an accident!" Hitomi yelled. It went unheard by Emiko, though.
"And," Emiko goes on to say, "It'd give me something to do other than play baseball and train by myself!"
Before Hitomi could reply, Reborn kicked her on the head and hopped over to Emiko's. He settled himself on top of the silvernette and patted her head lightly. Emiko tried to look up at him but failed and waited for him to speak.
"Of course, you'll be joining, Emiko. You're parents are in the mafia. It was only a matter of time before you found out."
"You mean… they're in the mafia? My dad is actually slightly cool?" Emiko's expression is one of awe. Reborn nods, knowing she can't see him.
Emiko rushes next to Hitomi's side. She pulls Hitomi's hand into her grasp and looks at her with shining eyes. Hitomi reels back at the sight but Emiko's grip don't let her go far. She groans, wondering why she even promised her that.
"Hitomi! I'll be your right hand man! That's what they have in mafias, right?"
"Emiko-chan, why do you want to be in the mafia so much…?" Hitomi cries quietly.
Her newest family member goes off into a barge of questions about the mafia. Hitomi groans loudly and tries to run away from the small group. Emiko runs after her but Hitomi is surprisingly fast as she makes her high speed getaway down the road lined with warehouses. Kita just shakes her head and Reborn makes himself comfortable on Kita's head, having not enjoyed the commotion that Hitomi and Emiko were causing.
"No! No mafia!" Hitomi's crossing her arms in an 'X' formation as she runs from Emiko.
"Hitomi come back! You haven't answered my questions! I need answers!" Emiko yells after her.
Reborn chuckles. "Two down… four to go…"
"Hitomi!" Emiko's yell echoes.
"Noooooo!" Hitomi covers her ears and tries to run faster.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that. I'm not very good at writing fight scenes… So, school is starting up and as such, I'll need some time to settle in, go over new and old ideas I had for this when I first thought up the idea, and a few other things. So, I'm going to try and stick to the schedule but most likely, updates will be sporadic up from now until the beginning to the middle of October. And now that we've got some of the serious stuff out of the way, I'm going to focus on the feel-good humor that was the first Arc of Katekyo Hitman Reborn! And lastly, I'd like to thank KHLegacy for reviewing every chapter and I hope to get more reviews and intrigue others to read this in the future! And as I always say: Review! Thank you! :D