Panther was hanging upside down, both of her hands and feet bound by her own whip. Her eyes were covered by something, too. Maybe a scrap of cloth. She was grateful for the blindness though. At least now she won't be able to see the smug grin on her captor's face. She really just wishes they'd get on with whatever it is they're trying to do. She was starting to get a little too lightheaded for her taste.

"I wouldn't have had to tie you up if you would've just cooperated," her captor sounded annoyed. He also sounded closeby. He may be a few feet to her right. The room echoed a bit so it's a little hard to tell, but that also meant that the room was really empty. "Although, you do look pretty tied up like that."

She could hear the smirk plastered on his face. She rolled her eyes at his blatant flirting, or small talk, or whatever he wanted to call this. If only he could see it. "Well while you're enjoying the view, I'm getting a little light-headed over here. So can you please go get whoever your boss is and tell them to pick up the pace."

"Why?" Panther then heard the creaking of a chair and light footsteps coming towards her. Warm fingers touched her chin and trailed a tingling path to the flesh of her cheek just below her mask. "Are you not enjoying my presence, ma petite chatte?" His voice was deep and smooth as he whispered close to her face. His warm breath brushed her skin. She shivered at his close proximity. He smelled like peppermint.

"That's enough!" A new voice echoed entered the room, this one rougher and somehow having a lighter tone than her kidnapper's. It was definitely more sinister.

Panther heard and felt him sigh, and then the warmth of his fingers were gone. She heard him walk away, and then the groan of a chair bearing down under the weight of someone. He must have sat back down. She felt a little relieved that he didn't leave the room.

"Good work. You've brought me the bane of my enterprise."

His footsteps were hard. They clicked more, and were slower too. He was wearing heels of some kind.

Then her blindfold was ripped off so violently that her mask nearly came off with it.

'Great, now I'm blind.' She had to blink rapidly to get the spots out of her eyes. When her vision cleared, she looked around.

It looked like they were in a basement. A few stacks of boxes were scattered around. The walls were faded, and the floor tiles were chipped. There's a thin layer of dust over everything, too. It looks like nobody has been anyone down here in a while.

"Hey! Eyes over here!" Her eyes were averted to her kidnapper who called her attention. His inky black hair was unkempt, but looked as fluffy as a housecat's fur. His gray eyes were piercing. He was the furthest away from her of the two, sitting with one leg crossed over the other. Now she could see his face. He was smirking, but strangely enough it looked fragile.

But his appearance…

She blinked.

"You're a teenager," she said.

"And you're staring."

"Well, I was invited to," she huffed, her cheeks getting redder by the second and she'd hate to admit that some of it wasn't from the blood rushing to her head. "You don't meet a lot of teenagers in my line of work."

"Funny,' he said. "I meet brightly dressed suits all the time in mine."

"So you're saying all of us 'brightly dressed suits' are the same to you? That's a little stereotypical, don't you think?"

"Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it isn't true." Her attention was brought to the second man standing before her. Rather than the trenchcoat and the undercoat the teen wore, the man wore a simple suit, though a little rumpled. He was sporting a crooked smirk, much more diabolical in nature than the other's.

He turned towards said 'other person'. "You are dismissed."

The teen nodded at the boss. He spared a look at Panther before trekking his way up some stairs to his right that she just noticed. The last two occupants of the room turned back towards each other.

"You must have trouble with all the ladies trying to jump him."

"His charm helps us attract many people like you: people who don't know their place." In the first teen's place, another one came down the stairs. Is he running an evil orphanage or something?

This one had shaggy brown hair. He was wearing a black mask - all sharp edges - and his suit was black with diagonal slashes of blue; a real glimpse of his mental state if the crazed look in his eye was anything to go off of.

"He will be your 'keeper' while you are here. To make sure you don't escape."

"So he's going to stay down here with me?"

"No. The only way of leaving this room is the stairs. He will be at the top of the stairs in case you find a way to undo your bindings."

"You don't trust in your underling's knot tying skills?"

"It's just a precaution." He nodded at the black masked fellow. The blindfold was wrapped back around her eyes before they both walked up the stairs. There was a flick of a switch and the room turned darker behind the mask. The door shut with a click, leaving Panther in the dark, chilly basement to work on the leather binding her wrist and legs.

"Hey. Hey! Are you still alive?" She distantly felt tapping against her cheek. If it was a dream or reality, she didn't know. Her head felt so muddled…

She knew the blindfold was still over her eyes, and she was still hanging upside down. The time of day was lost to her though. It was nighttime when she was kidnapped. She was able to keep up with the hours until dawn, but after that she lost count. It had to be nighttime now… right?

"Panther!" There was the tapping again, this time more insistent.

"What?" The voice she heard was weak and cracked. Was that her voice?

The person sighed. He sounded irritated. "They left you hanging here all day didn't they? I told them… hey. Hey!"

Her chest hurt, and it was hard for her to breathe. Her head felt woozy, too. She felt so lightheaded that it barely registered when her upper body was lifted until her head was resting on a hard bone of a shoulder blade. She started wiggling a bit.

"Be still," she heard him hiss next to her ear. She felt a tug to her arms from the whip binding them. There was a sawing sound before the leather binding her arms went slack.

The shoulder disappeared, and she was left hanging like before. There was enough consciousness left in her for her to realize that she just got left behind. 'Did he just leave me here?"

A few seconds later she heard the scraping of a chair against the tiled floor towards her. The person placed a hand on her back and steadied her swinging as he started to saw loose the part of the whip binding her legs together, too.

She was weightless for a moment, but then she was huddled up into someone's arms. The next moment she was sitting in the person's lap. Her legs dangled over their knee, her head cradled by their arm. She was jostled for a bit when the person started moving their arms around behind her. Something hard was pressed against her closed mouth suddenly. It felt like a bowl.

"It's chicken broth soup. Drink. I know you haven't eaten all day." She was slow at opening her mouth. A gloved thumb pressed down on her bottom lip, but firmly wedging between her lips to open her mouth. The realization that the person was smearing her lip gloss registered somewhere in the back of her mind.

The soup went down her throat. It burned a little as it went down, but her stomach was grateful for the sustenance.

"Can you feel your legs?"

"A little."

She was shuffled again. Feeling had returned to her body enough that she could feel the wooden seat underneath her behind. There was a scraping sound to her far left and she could hear them coming back before she drifted off again.

When Akira returned to the girl she was unconscious again. They really did a number on her despite not doing anything at all. He gave her another look over, just to check any injuries she may have sustained while he wasn't here.

Besides her face being too red, she was fine overall. The leather of her suit protected her from any lacerations. Her skin looked fair and well cared for, so he's glad it wasn't marred.

Out of all the assignments Shido gave him, this one was his least favorite. He'd heard of Panther, even seen her on multiple occasions. He's shocked she has stayed under Shido's radar for as long as she has, especially wearing that bright red and revealing suit. She did great work, and unlike Shido and Akechi, she doesn't kill. Just steals.

Maybe that's how she got by. Just stealing the merchandise from under their nose and fleeing by the swish of her tail.

He often found himself admiring her from afar, wishing that they'd never have to cross paths.

His heart dropped to his stomach when he was ordered to capture her, but it was better him doing it than Akechi. She'd have been in a much worse condition than this if that had been the case.

"I knew you had special feelings for her."

Akira didn't stop in his check up. He wasn't foolish enough to think that he could sneak past him for long. "Buzz off, Akechi."

"There were so many times you two would be in the same area, but never cross paths. If only you knew that your discretions would be what revealed your true intentions."

"You reported her to Shido," he gritted out through his clenched teeth.

"He almost gave me the assignment, but I suggested you for the job."

"Why?" He hid his balled up fist underneath the wild cascade of her pigtails.

"I wanted you to capture her. Why would I deprive myself the joy of seeing you capture her yourself and buckle under the despair of having to bring her into the jaws of the very man you hate?"

"You know, it amazes me how sicker and sicker you get as each day passes by."

"I am what the world made me. Here." Akechi threw some rope on the floor beside him. "You can't leave her like that. Unless you want Shido to get suspicious." He left him on that note, walking away to return to his post.

Akira waited until he heard the door shut and a moment more of silence before he picked up the rope Akechi had thrown him. As much as he hated agreeing with him, Akechi was right. He had to tie her back up. Shido couldn't suspect his loyalty, not this early into his plan.

He sat her upright in the chair. He tried to make her as comfortable as possible: laying her head against the back of the chair and making sure the ropes weren't tight enough to leave lacerations on her wrists. He may have to tie her back up, but he doesn't have to leave her in such a lethal position.

As he tied her feet and hands to the chair, he tried to swallow down his emotions. He forced himself to secure that final knot. Luckily for him, these chairs were old and rickety. With enough force she should be able to break it and set herself free.

Everything after that was up to her.

"Don't let me down, Panther."