
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/7081906.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      亜人_-_三浦追儺_&_桜井画門_|_Ajin_-_Miura_Tsuina_&_Sakurai_Gamon
  Relationship:
      Satou_|_Samuel_T._Owen/Kaito_"Kai"_(Ajin), Kaito_"Kai"/Nagai_Kei,
      Kotobuki_Takeshi/Kaito_"Kai"_(Ajin), Tanaka_Kouji/Li_Naomi
  Character:
      Satou_|_Samuel_T._Owen, Kaito_"Kai"_(Ajin), Kotobuki_Takeshi, Tanaka
      Kouji, Nagai_Eriko, Li_Naomi, Okuyama_Masumi, Takahashi_(Ajin), Tosaki
      Yuu, Shimomura_Izumi, Nagai_Kei, Nakano_Kou, Ogura_Ikuya
  Additional Tags:
      Dead_Dove:_Do_Not_Eat, imagine_a_world_in_which_sakurai_properly_utilized
      kai, and_eriko, this_is_that_fic
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-06-04 Updated: 2017-03-10 Chapters: 21/? Words: 63205
****** I Walked in a Desert ******
by headofporridge
Summary
     I walked in a desert.
     And I cried,
     "Ah, God, take me from this place!"
     A voice said, "It is no desert."
     I cried, "Well, But --
     The sand, the heat, the vacant horizon."
     A voice said, "It is no desert."

     ~Stephen Crane

***** Chapter 1 *****
There was something off about the atmosphere in the prison that
morning…everything was so completely not out of the ordinary that it made Kai’s
skin crawl.  Maybe it was the way that the guards were making rounds literally
like clockwork, instead of merely an approximation of it.  Maybe it was the way
that the rotations seemed just slightly off, apparently to accommodate a
maintenance crew’s work but nevertheless leaving a blind spot.  He briefly
entertained the thought of escaping as he sat in his favorite corner of the
yard, where the cement was crumbling slightly and he could pick away at it for
some idle amusement.
By and large if he didn’t start anything, the other prisoners left him alone. 
Guards too.  He wasn’t important enough to be untouchable, but enough that no
one would seek him out if he kept to himself.  It didn’t feel right, but he
supposed it was inevitable he’d get recognized in a crowd like this.  Plus, it
distracted at least some of them from the reason he was in there in the first
place…
As they were lead back to their cells, they passed a corridor that was
suspiciously empty, though Kai could hear a faint sound that was almost like
footsteps and…something being dragged?  His eyes narrowed, and he glanced
ahead, where Takeshi was walking.  Takeshi’s cell had been down that corridor
up until the day before, when he and several of his neighbors had needed to be
suddenly relocated due to some electrical problems.
Kai’s eyes flickered between the corridor and the way ahead, and after a brief
contemplation, slipped away, easily avoiding the notice of the guards as he
made his way down the corridor.  He’d probably get in trouble for this later,
but he’d deal with later later.
Soon, all signs of life vanished behind him, and his footsteps echoed quietly
in the empty corridor.  He ran his hand along the wall, idly following the
cracks in the stone with his fingertips.  As he came to a corner, he suddenly
felt that he wasn’t alone, so he cautiously peeked around to find that there
was no one he could see in the hall.
Something dripped onto his face and slid down his cheek.  Kai stiffened.  It
was warm, and he knew the smell.  Wincing, he glanced up at the ceiling and saw
a dead guard suspended in midair.  Now, this by itself wouldn’t have
necessarily been too surprising to him, but the fact that there seemed to be
nothing holding the guard up at all was unusual.  Unusual in the sense that he
should run run run and hide.
“Oh!  It’s you.”
Kai’s head whipped around, and he saw an older man walking toward him.  No,
that wasn’t accurate.  He saw an older man stalking toward him, a bloody knife
in his hand.  The man was smiling with shut eyes.  He looked very familiar, but
Kai was a little too preoccupied to think about how.  He swallowed and willed
his knees to stop shaking, crouching into a better fighting stance.
“I don’t believe we’ve formally met,” the man continued, “I am Satou.”
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck he was so fucked.  He was distantly aware of the
guard’s body falling unceremoniously to the floor near him, but he didn’t take
his eyes off of Satou for even a second.  He’d have to get the knife somehow. 
That was required if he was going to survive this.
“What’s with all the cloak and dagger?” Kai asked lightly, allowing a smile on
his face, “doesn’t really seem like your style.”
Satou laughed.  “It’s just a different kind of game I’m playing right now…it
serves my interests if no one knows I’m here, so that no one wonders why I’m
here.”
“Don’t suppose that bodes well for me then, huh?” Kai said with a laugh, but he
found himself backing into the wall without thinking.
“No, probably not,” Satou agreed, closing the distance between them, his leg
sliding between Kai’s but stopping just short of actually touching him.  Kai
pressed back against the wall.  Satou opened his eyes and stared at him, his
arms hanging lightly at his sides but the rest of his body a coiled spring. 
“So you’re Kai,” Satou said quietly, his voice a low rumble that Kai could feel
in his ribcage, running down to his toes and up to his face.  A vaguely
familiar sound he’d heard somewhere before…
His whole body went rigid and still.  Yes, this was definitely familiar.  The
hyperawareness of everything near his skin, the vague crawling sensation and
brief flutter of panic at suddenly beginning to get much less air.  “I,
thought, you, had, to, yell,” he forced out, his tongue like a mechanical
object with rusted joints.  He couldn’t open his mouth at all.
The look Satou flashed him would have had him shrinking away if he could move. 
“Do not compare me to an overeager child like Kei,” he said, crucifying Kai
with his eyes.
Suddenly, inexplicably, Satou leaned closer, reaching a hand out and gently
fingering Kai’s ear.  “What is this?” he asked.
Kai’s heart was pounding so fast he was certain that Satou could feel his
pulse.  But the stiffness was starting to drain away from his face, so maybe he
wasn’t dead just yet.  He lowered his eyelids and leaned slightly into Satou’s
hand, knowing the shadows from his eyelashes would disguise where he was
looking.  “My earring?” he asked, “I dunno, I think it suits me.”
Satou laughed, then looked surprised that he had laughed.  The hand holding the
knife shook.  The hand on Kai’s ear slid back until it was cupping his cheek. 
It was smooth, like Eriko’s hands had gotten once she couldn’t go outside
anymore.  Did all such imperfections get smoothed away if you were an ajin? 
Was it all at once, or did it happen little by little until nothing was left?
Kai’s only experience with ajins had been Kei, who, with his smooth pale face
and red eyes had made Kai think only half-jokingly of vampires.  The man
currently invading his personal space, however, didn’t give off that impression
at all. Instead, Kai could only think of a snake rearing up before it struck to
kill, though the suffocating pressure of Satou’s voice was definitely
contributing to that image.  Kai was starting to be able to wiggle his toes
again, and his face felt almost fine, but his chest was stuck stiff.
“Are you afraid of me?”
Kai’s face snapped forward to look at Satou with wide eyes.  When had his face
gotten that close?  He found his eyes drifting away, like they were trying to
hide, but Satou dropped his hand to Kai’s chin and held his face up firmly. 
“Are you afraid of me?” he repeated, softer, but with the same rumble beneath
it as before.  Kai felt it cover his body, but it seemed less overwhelming the
second time around.
He swallowed.  “I’m afraid,” he said slowly, “that if I’m not careful, then Kei
will grow up to be just like you.”
Satou blinked, and for a brief, tantalizing instant his eyes looked like
Kei’s.  He seemed confused, something about his expression uncharacteristically
coltish, though Kai couldn’t place what it was exactly.  Maybe it was in the
slight softness around his mouth as he asked, “And that’s a bad thing?”  He was
so close that Kai inhaled the words.
“Yes,” Kai gasped.
Something flickered in Satou’s eyes, and Kai could feel Satou's heart beating
almost as fast as his own.  What was going on?  “You’re not what I expected,”
Satou said, running his fingers through Kai’s hair while his other hand
remained tightly clenched around the knife, “I knew you were loyal to him, and
that he had abandoned you.  I thought you’d be more despondent.”
Satou’s eyes had closed again, but Kai was fairly certain he could still tell
that Kai was glaring at him, because a vulpine smile crept across his face. 
This was probably a poorly-thought-out move on Kai’s part, but spending more
than a few minutes without getting murdered by a guy started to make you feel a
bit more confident.  “If Kei doesn’t want me around then that’s all there is to
it,” he said shortly.
Satou cocked his head.  “But he does!  And much more than just want you
around…”
Kai felt a shudder run through his body, but froze when he realized that it was
the feeling of Satou’s voice wearing off.  Wouldn’t do to let him realize
that.  “And I’m supposed to believe that you're his new confidant? Whatever. 
If you’re going to kill me, could you just do it already?”  The hand holding
the knife had loosened its grip.
Satou sighed.  “You young people are all the same.  It’s a shame you’re not an
ajin, sending you to one of those labs for a little while might make you more
agreeable.  Then again, it didn’t seem to help much with Kei…”
Kai’s blood boiled, and in one fluid motion he lunged forward, grabbing the
knife from Satou’s hand and slashing across his back.  They fell to the floor,
Satou frozen while Kai landed softly on top of him.  Kai glanced at the knife
before looking back down at Satou, smirking a little despite himself.  “Maybe
this is overkill,” he admitted, “but you just pissed me off.  You can’t move
now, your nerves are too damaged.  Isn’t it cool what you can do with a well-
aimed slash and an amazingly-sharp (this is amazingly sharp by the way) knife? 
I knew killing you was pointless, and you didn’t seem like pain would do much
to you either.  Oh don’t look at me like that…I’m not sure what Kei’s told you
about me, but with my background it’s inevitable that I’ve killed some people
before.”  Kai hated killing people, as a matter of fact, but circumstances had
forced him to more than a few times.
Suddenly huge gashes ran across Satou’s chest, blood spraying everywhere. 
Before Kai could even process what had happened, something invisible picked him
up and slammed him against the wall, holding him suspended several feet in the
air.  Then a familiar, horrifying sound, as the wounds on Satou’s chest healed
and he stood up, the smile on his face much more frightening now.  The
invisible grip on Kai tightened and he felt something like claws digging into
his throat.  He couldn’t breathe.  This was it.  The inevitable that he’d
prolonged had at long last arrived.
Satou slowly walked toward him, his expression inscrutable.  “That was
misinformed of you,” he said, “not that you’ve really affected the outcome
anyway.  Die.”
Kai braced for whatever was coming, stars in his eyes from the lack of air. 
Maybe he’d pass out, that would be nice, then he wouldn’t have to endure
whatever sadistic death Satou was going to give him.
Something licked his face.  Kai blinked.  The grip around his throat relaxed,
and air came wooshing into his lungs.  As his vision cleared, Kai could see
that Satou seemed even more confused than he was.  Then again, maybe he was
just loopy from the endorphins.  That thing was still licking his face.  How
longwas its tongue anyway????  The only thing that had ever licked his face
before had been a dog, and this was extremely different!  Damn, why couldn’t he
see it?!  What the hell was this?!
“You can’t see it?”  Satou asked.  Oops.  Totally said that out loud.  Kai
shook his head, feeling the thing’s tongue starting to dart around his mouth. 
Nope, nuh uh, not today.  He was drawing a line in the sand.  “But if you can’t
see it…” Satou continued, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Kai was fast
approaching the event horizon of losing his first kiss to some invisible thing,
“then that must mean…”
Abruptly, Kai could feel the thing crumble around him, and he fell to the
floor, landing in a pool of blood from the long-dead misfortunate guard. 
Rather than try to isolate what hurt, he tried to determine what hurt most, and
found himself at a loss.  Satou, meanwhile, was still naval-gazing a few feet
away.  “I have been encouraging it to be independent,” he mused, “but this is
ridiculous.  And if he couldn’t see it, then that can only mean…” his eyes
flickered open and snapped toward Kai.
Kai tried to scramble away, but Satou was too close and moving too fast. 
Before he could even blink, he’d been pushed back against the wall, Satou’s
mouth on his.  He tasted blood in his mouth, his own blood, Satou was biting
him, Satou was licking up all the blood, Satou was kissing him.  His stomach
felt like it was floating out of his body and bursting out through his skin at
the same time.  He’d changed his mind, the invisible thing with the long tongue
would have been better.
Weakly, he pushed the knife into Satou’s throat, hard enough to break the skin
but not enough to kill him.  Satou’s hands, which had ended up on Kai’s
shoulders, grabbed him so tightly it hurt, and without warning, Satou lunged
forward, arterial blood spraying everywhere before he slumped over Kai’s body. 
Kai gasped for breath, blood dripping down his face.  His lips were swollen and
bleeding, and everything smelled and tasted like iron.
Then that sound, and Satou lifted his head and opened his eyes.  They were dark
and clouded with something Kai didn’t want to think about.  “I don’t really
want to kill you,” Satou said gravely, as though it was a prophecy for
disaster, “I don’t want to kill you.”
At this point Kai didn’t dare say a single word.  He just trembled.  Satou
blinked, and his eyes cleared.  “Oh.  What a shame, you’re afraid of me now.”
Kai squinted his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, before mustering whatever
bravery he had left to meet Satou’s eyes.  “That’s better,” Satou said.  He ran
his hand over Kai’s face, smearing the blood slightly, before suddenly standing
up.  “Tanaka,” he said into a radio, “it’s time to go.  Any luck on your end?”
A faint crackling noise that might have been words if Kai had been closer and a
little more with it.  “No, no, sorry, I got distracted.  I found something
new.”
More crackling.  Satou looked back at Kai, a predatory grin on his face.  “You
look good like that.  It suits you.”  Kai found himself once again incapable of
moving.  Satou bent down and pried the knife out of Kai’s hands, smiling fondly
at it before sheathing it.  He then nonchalantly pressed his booted foot into
Kai’s throat.  “It’s for the best if you just go to sleep,” he said
conversationally, “I’m not taking you with me, but I don’t want you looking
like an accomplice.  Capital punishment would be very inconvenient.  Let’s do
this again some…”
Kai dreamed of climbing trees and catching stag beetles, and Kei handing the
net up to him, and never once finding a snake among the tree branches.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Chapter Summary
     whoa there's more...who who've guessed
It was the times when he was injured that Kai couldn’t help but think of Kei
the most.  Pain and injuries were part of the human experience, but as one
memorable scene by a river had made clear to Kai, there were some people who
were beyond all that.  He’d watch the news as they displayed that same awful
mugshot of Kei, and gently touch the bruises collaring his throat, still
purple, from an invisible hand with too many fingers, and a man’s boot.
At least his lips had healed.
Even though a couple weeks had already passed, Kai was still being kept under
higher security than before, making it difficult for him to see Takeshi, though
that was honestly for the best since it had made it easier for Kai to keep the
nature of his injuries a secret.  He didn’t want Takeshi doing anything rash,
or assuming the wrong thing.  It would be better if he could keep this to
himself for now.
He supposed he should count himself lucky.  It hadn’t been just anyone he’d run
into in that deserted corridor…it had been Satou, arguably the most dangerous
person in Japan.  That he’d come out of it alive, with only some bruises and
memories to show for it, was nothing short of remarkable.  Even if Kai hadn’t
seen Satou’s exploits on the news before, he hadn’t even needed thirty seconds
in that man’s presence to recognize the aura of someone who killed people and
liked it.
He doesn’t want to killyouthough…a traitorous voice whispered in the back of
his head, which Kai promptly squashed.  He was already too far gone with Kei,
he didn’t need to add someone who actually was a sociopath to the list of
people he’d grown emotionally invested in.  That was just basic self-
preservation right there, even if Satou could potentially be a useful ally. 
Even if Satou did have resources to help Kei that Kai could never dream of
having, Kai would never trust that Satou had Kei’s best interests at heart.
He worried his bottom lip between his teeth, a habit he’d picked up while they
were still injured and that hadn’t gone away even now that they’d healed.  He
pressed his fingers gently into his carotid artery, right where the bruises
hurt the most, and sighed.  He wondered if Satou didn’t want to kill him
because he was actually an ajin.  He was disappointed with himself at how
horrified he was at the possibility.  What kind of friend was he?
Lying back on his thin futon, he shivered slightly and started counting
heartbeats.  Sometimes that helped him fall asleep.  The sound of footsteps
(Mr. Hanada was the guard this time of night if memory served) walking past his
cell door made a rhythm with his dripping faucet.  Why was he still here?  As
much as he denied it, was he really just here in the hopes that sooner or
later, Kei would come back for him?
The sound of his cell door opening made him freeze.  What could they possibly
want from him this time of night?  And…why weren’t they saying anything?  He
cracked an eye open, and jolted when he realized that he couldn’t see anyone
there at all.  The door swung shut, and Kai could hear slow footsteps coming
toward him.  He felt his pulse accelerating under his fingers and he abruptly
sat up, before being pressed back down onto the futon by a heavy weight on both
of his shoulders.  And then there was something gently butting into his chin,
then an unfortunately familiar tongue long enough to lick his face and wrap
around his throat at the same time.
“Where’s your master?” he asked, surprised at how calm he felt.  Then again, he
didn’t think this thing would really hurt him, though his bruised throat
reminded him to be careful.  “Aren’t you like his shadow?”
Satou’s shadow didn’t speak, not that Kai had really expected it to.  He waved
his hands experimentally in the air, finding that the shadow seemed to possess
a torso, two arms, and two legs.  Aside from the long tongue, it seemed like it
was almost human-shaped.  Careful to not move too fast, he grabbed the blanket
and draped it over the shadow’s shoulders.  “There,” he said, “now I know where
you are.”
Immediately he felt his wrist being grabbed, and the tongue withdrew.  Many
many many small sharp teeth bit down on his arm, and Kai gasped as rivulets of
blood started trailing down to his elbow.  The tongue started lapping up the
blood, and the weight holding him down lessened just slightly.  Not wasting the
opportunity, Kai quickly lifted his knee and turned his hips, sending the two
of them tumbling off the futon and onto the floor, but with Kai on top this
time.
Before the shadow could react, Kai found its arms and pinned them down,
distantly noticing that this thing was honestly way bigger than him but not
seeing any point in worrying about that now.  “So we can fight against you,” he
said feeling excited despite himself, “good to know.”
Rather than struggle against its new position, the shadow didn’t seem to mind,
only concerned with continuing to lap up Kai’s blood from his arm.  Seriously,
how long was that thing’s tongue???  He was starting to feel feverish, though
that had to be because of how warm the shadow was; warm enough that he was
starting to sweat a little.
The bleeding on his arm had stopped, and with a sound like a whine the shadow’s
tongue started creeping further and further up Kai’s arm until it had reached
his throat again.  “…play…play…” it whined, before pressing its teeth to Kai’s
throat.  At the sound of its voice, Kai gasped.  “Satou?” he whispered.
Immediately the shadow’s whole body shook underneath him, its teeth slightly
grazing his throat.  Then it was deathly still, before Kai heard Satou say,
“Kai?”
Something was different now.  Even the way the shadow was holding its body was
different.  It tsked.  “It must have come here on its own,” Satou said, a
mixture of pride and frustration lacing his voice.  The shadow shifted under
him, and without thinking Kai pressed deeper into the hold he was using to keep
the shadow from moving.
A pause.  “Oh-hoh?” Satou said cheerfully, “what’s this?  Did my black ghost
let you get the better of it?”
Kai flushed.  “Don’t sound so patronizing!” he sputtered, “I can bring down men
twice my size…easy!”
Satou chuckled, a low rumble Kai could feel all the way from his hands to his
hips.  “That so?” Satou asked softly, and Kai’s whole body went rigid.  Shit.
A weight Kai recognized as being the shadow’s hands pressed languidly on the
back of Kai’s neck. “A mere human fighting off a black ghost he can’t even
see?" Satou purred, "It really is a shame you aren’t an ajin or I’d take you
home with me.”
Kai couldn’t feel his face.  His toes reflexively curled.  “Is that what you
did with Kei?” he asked hoarsely, “did you “take him home with you?””
The hands around his neck tightened until tears pricked in Kai’s eyes from the
pain.  “Bringing up Keinow?” Satou asked, “You’re hurting my feelings, Kai.”
“I just need to know if he’s alright!” Kai said, “Please, you know that much,
don’t you?”
“Enough about Kei,” Satou growled, “you and I are much more interesting.”  One
of the shadow’s hands slid from Kai’s neck to his face, where it held Kai’s
mouth open with its…thumb?  Immediately Kai punched the shadow’s face as hard
as he could.  Pain bloomed out from his knuckles, and his body curled in on
itself.  So fighting it was impossible?
Satou sighed.  “Like I thought, it’s less fun when I’m here like this.”  The
shadow’s hand on Kai’s face felt gentler now, but it was hot like a sunburn and
Kai was starting to feel dizzy.  “Don’t look so down, you’re doing very well. 
It’s not your fault you can’t hurt a black ghost.”
The oscillations between being able to move and being paralyzed were getting
disorienting.  The shadow’s body felt like a vibrating engine beneath him, and
by now Kai’s whole body felt light and tingly.  He panted weakly, finding the
iron grip of the shadow’s hand impossible to wriggle away from.  Was he even
moving right now?  He couldn’t tell.
Kai heard something he was at a loss to describe, because it sounded like
crooning but that was impossible.  For a brief moment, he was back in a forest
colored-summer, the sounds of cicadas and the smell of mud and itching bug
bites and Kei was there, looking at him with those solemn eyes, and saying…
“Never change.”
Kai whimpered.  “Kei…”
Satou sighed.  “If I give you something nice, will you stop wishing I was Kei?”
A tongue too long to be human and yet much more familiar than any human tongue
darted into Kai’s mouth and down his throat.  He felt like he wanted to throw
up, but the rumbles in Satou’s voice made that impossible.  Having been
paralyzed by an ajin’s voice a fair number of times now, Kai had concluded that
calling it paralysis wasn’t quite accurate.  For him, at least, it felt more
like he was being tightly held, like he could hang loose in his own body and
not have to worry about anything.
Teeth gently nipped at Kai’s lips, and blood trickled down into his throat with
the shadow’s tongue.  Wait…since when had the shadow been on top of him?  But
it seemed so light now…
“Don’t worry,” Satou said, “next time you can slice me up and kill me all you
want.”
Kai woke up on the floor, alone.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Notes
     in which some things maybe happen
Kai was a good listener.  It paid to be, after all.  His mother had often told
him that any person would tell you everything you needed to know about them at
least three times before they realized they’d said it, so long as you
listened.  So Kai listened.
It was listening that had made him realize that Takeshi was an ajin; listening
to that slight familiar crackle in his voice that made Kai’s skin tingle but
too mild to do more, listening to the faint whoosh of a large other presence
that Kai couldn’t see, footsteps that were unaccounted for.  It was listening
that had made him decide not to say anything to Takeshi, less because of how he
thought Takeshi might overreact and more because of who he was afraid would
overhear.  And it was listening that had made him realize that he would need to
kill someone.
A conversation he couldn’t have been meant to overhear, that he might not have
paid any heed to were it not for the experiences he’d already had with ajin. 
Certainly he wouldn’t have realized what they intended unless he’d already
realized what Takeshi was.  They were going to take him away.  Quietly, in the
hopes that they could surprise him.  Not here, in case he had allies they
didn’t know about.
The plans weren’t in motion yet.  This visit from some government official had
been meant as a confirmation before they made their next move.  If Kai worked
quickly, he might be able to silence that one voice before Takeshi’s identity
was compromised.  This was something he could do.
Takeshi was leaning against him in the yard, not talking but still saying a
lot, like usual.  It was drizzling, but somehow Kai wasn’t getting wet. 
Takeshi had mumbled something about angles and wind, but Kai was almost one
hundred percent certain it was something else.  At least he was warm.
A raindrop trailed down Takeshi’s cheek and to his neck, passing by a thin
white scar Kai had only noticed recently.  It was faint, and looked old.  Any
number of mundane things could have caused it, but that wasn’t really what
mattered to Kai.  Everyone accumulates small lines and dots and blemishes
throughout their life, it’s just a question of what and where and when.  Even
Kei had had the faint raised ridge on his knuckles from that one time with
broken glass, and a slight tendency to favor his left foot after landing wrong
when falling out of a tree.  Dots on his shoulder when Eriko had bitten him
when they were very young.  Countless others.
Kai remembered with nauseating clarity the first time he’d seen Kei after
everything had changed.  It had been so dark that he hadn’t noticed at first,
but that morning by the river, Kei slicing a knife across his throat and rising
up, reformed and unblemished as a god, Kai almost hadn’t recognized him.  It
had been then that he’d known in his heart that Kei was going to abandon him
again.
Takeshi glared at his soggy cigarette and groaned, giving up and throwing it
vaguely in the direction of the trash can.  It made Kai want to smile.  Perhaps
he was wrong, but he had a feeling that Takeshi wouldn’t kill himself just
because it was convenient.  Takeshi looked at him curiously.  Ah.  He was
staring.  Kei had often complained about that when they were younger.
“Gotta go,” he said nonchalantly, brushing the dust off his pants.  “Bathroom.”
Takeshi raised his eyebrows and leaned against the wall, not saying anything. 
A raindrop landed on Kai’s nose, and he suddenly felt a lot colder.  Maybe he
should tell Takeshi…
No.  It wasn’t that he couldn’t tell Takeshi.  But he couldn’t risk being
overheard.  And he couldn’t let this human being in front of him that could die
a thousand times but never wanted to die again be taken by people who would
hurt him.  Takeshi wasn’t Kei, but honestly that was only a good thing.
Takeshi wasn’t Satou either.
As soon as he was out of Takeshi’s sight, Kai adopted a different posture and
gait, one old and familiar but not comfortable.  He knew exactly which guard to
approach, and said quietly, “I’m going out.  I’ll be back by roll call.”
Another nearby guard barked a laugh.  “Yeah, yeah, back to your cell.”
This might have been concerning, but this second guard was clearly low-ranking
and new.  The older guard put his hand on his shoulder and said, “You don’t
know who you’re talking to, Asato.”
He then bowed quickly to Kai and said, “as you wish, Young Lord.”
Ah, there it was.  Could he maybe never hear anyone call him that ever again
for the rest of his life please?  Then again, he was taking advantage of it
right now, so he probably shouldn’t complain…
Within half an hour, he was in street clothes and outside the prison, on his
way to the nearby hotel where he knew the government official was staying.  It
was a bit of a walk, and water from the rain was dripping off his hair and into
his eyes, but it was good to have this time to think.  It had been a while
since he’d flipped his switch.
He hadn’t bothered stealing a gun from one of the guards.  One look at that
official had told him that this was someone who was useless in a fight, and if
he had any guards Kai would be very surprised.  It made him grateful and a
little sad.  This was going to be very easy.
Walking into the hotel without having anyone notice him was child’s play, and
sneaking a knife out of the kitchen was even easier.  He could have probably
gotten access to their admission records in some way, and thus found out
exactly which room he needed to go to, but honestly, it was a small hotel and
he had a fairly good sense of where the man would be.  There were quite a few
vacancies on the ground floor after all and only one of the rooms had the
curtains on the windows drawn.  It almost made him feel guilty.  It’s not like
anyone should have suspected that someone like Kai would be coming after them.
The man was sitting at a desk, typing away on a laptop.  He hadn’t noticed Kai
breaking in.  Gently, Kai shut the window and closed the curtains behind him,
leaving the room dark once again.  They appeared to be alone.  He crept across
the room, and was surprised and relieved to notice that the laptop was
disconnected from the internet.  He supposed that made sense.  The government
probably wanted as much information off the cloud as possible.  Perhaps he’d
acted quickly enough that Takeshi’s identity hadn’t been compromised yet?
The knife slid easily enough into the man’s chest, and he snapped his neck for
good measure.  He left the knife in for now; less blood that way.  He quickly
took stock of the information on the man’s laptop.  It was surprising how
little there was, honestly.  He hadn’t even sent out a vague email saying that
he’d found an ajin.  His phone was no different.  He hadn’t made any calls at
all in the past several days.  Nothing was in his pockets except for a lighter
and some cigarettes.  What was going on?  It couldn’t be this easy.
“So cold, Kai, ignoring me like that.”
In an instant, the knife was back in Kai’s hands, and he was scanning the
room.  Someone there?  Someone he’d missed?  Then his heart skipped a beat. 
Satou was sitting nonchalantly in a darker corner of the room, his face eerily
calm.  Slowly, Kai shifted into a better fighting stance, stepping out from
behind the desk.
“Am I to take this as meaning that you’re protecting Takeshi Kotobuki?” Satou
asked, his eyes following the bloody knife in Kai’s hand closely.
“He’s my friend.”
Satou’s eyes flickered over to the corpse of the government official, and back
to Kai’s knife.  He sighed.  “So ruthless, Kai.  And I’d had such high hopes
for this plan.  You’re making a habit of surprising me.”
Satou’s eyes were still following the knife, the same laser focus that Kei
always stared at him with.  Without really being aware of what he was doing, he
raised the knife to his lips and slowly licked it.  Something feral glittered
in Satou’s eyes, and Kai could feel more than hear a faint rumbling.  “You were
telling the truth when you said you’d killed people before,” Satou said.
“Yeah,” Kai said nonchalantly, throwing the knife right into Satou’s throat.
As Satou collapsed to the floor, Kai leapt across the room, quickly arranging
himself over Satou such that when Satou awoke, he was unable to move.  He
grinned up at Kai and licked the blood off his teeth.  “That was fast,” he
purred, a familiar weight pressing his words into Kai’s skin.
Kai shuddered and stiffened, but as Satou started struggling against Kai’s hold
he realized that he could still move, just clumsier.  Well enough to keep Satou
pinned down, though Satou did manage to free one of his arms.  The knife
pressed lightly into the small of Kai’s back.  His heart started beating
faster.  “I know you won’t kill me,” he said lightly, averting his eyes.
“Are you sure?” Satou asked, pressing just a little more firmly with the knife.
Kai was sure…probably.  He let Satou guide him down with the knife in his back,
until they were lying flush against each other and Satou was kissing him.
Honestly, it was more like Satou was biting as much of Kai’s mouth as he could
reach, and happened to be using some tongue also, but a bloody kiss was still a
kiss.  Kai could feel Satou’s heart racing under him.  Was Satou shaking?  Or
was that Kai?  Slowly, Satou pulled back, drops of blood dripping from Kai’s
bleeding mouth and onto his face.  The knife was still pressed firmly into
Kai’s back, while Satou’s other hand cradled Kai’s face.  When had that gotten
free?
In hindsight, this had been a really bad idea.  Kai should have just abandoned
the hotel room after killing Satou, and hoped he could make a run for it.  Not
that there was a good chance of getting away, but certainly he would have made
more progress than he currently seemed to have made.  Satou’s hips moved under
him, and one of his legs slid up.  He was going to flip them over.  Panicking,
Kai closed the distance between their mouths again, letting in Satou’s tongue. 
Satou made a surprised noise, and Kai clenched his fists and bit down hard.
Immediately, Satou fell back, coughing on the blood that rushed out of the
stump of his tongue.  Kai spat out the piece of tongue in his mouth and rolled
away, grabbing the knife from Satou’s hand as he did so.  He shivered from the
sudden lack of warmth, and quickly pushed himself up to a low crouch, springing
back toward Satou and slicing his throat.  Blood sprayed onto his face, and Kai
mourned the fact that this was becoming something of a routine for him.
With Satou dead for the moment, Kai made for the window.  Not fast enough, he
felt Satou’s iron grip on his wrist, and suddenly the knife was gone.  A sting
sliced across his back.  It was shallow, but fuck it hurt.  Okay, so killing
Satou didn’t buy him enough time to get away.  Maybe tying him up?  Thank God
Satou didn’t have a gun.  “Leaving already, Kai?” Satou asked softly, his voice
no longer enough to paralyze Kai but plenty enough to slow his reaction time. 
While Kai dodged the worst of it, Satou’s next slash also managed to graze him,
this time on his thigh.  That would have had him on his knees if Satou had
landed it properly.
Satou tsked, but looked as ecstatic as Kai had ever seen him.  “You just aren’t
going to make it easy for me, are you?” he said.
Here came the knife again.  This time, Kai managed to get a grasp on Satou’s
wrist, and redirect the blow right into Satou’s own thigh.  Satou gritted his
teeth and fell to his knees, yanking Kai down with him as Kai wound up a kick. 
Kai still solidly landed his kick to the side of Satou’s face, but Satou had
made him unbalanced, and they both fell to the floor.  As they fell, Kai looped
Satou’s arm around his shoulders and pressed into Satou’s shoulder socket,
feeling it pop out as they landed.  Well, at least he’d accomplished something.
Satou seemed undeterred by any of this, lunging at Kai with a feral laugh while
his arm dangled loosely and blood came steadily from the stab wound in his
thigh.  Scrambling back, Kai misjudged exactly where he was in the room and
crashed into one of the bedposts, knocking the wind out of him.  His eyes
watered as the back of his head cracked against the hard wood.
Apparently ambidextrous, Satou used his other hand to press the knife to Kai’s
throat, just enough to break the skin.  Kai’s head was spinning.  “Do you
really want to get away from me so badly, Kai?” Satou asked.  Maybe it was just
the head trauma, or he’d lost more blood than he thought he had, but Kai
couldn’t move.
Satou chuckled.  “I’m not so bad, you know,” he said blithely, sucking a hickey
onto Kai’s neck while pressing just a little harder with the knife.  Kai
sighed, and he felt Satou smile against his throat.
“What do you want from me, Satou?” Kai asked.
Satou pulled back, looking at him curiously, before pulling the knife away from
Kai’s throat and frowning thoughtfully.  Kai felt tears pricking in his eyes. 
It was stupid, but he looked so much like Kei.  It made his heart hurt.  But it
was entirely for strategic purposes that Kai leaned forward and placed his
hands on the sides of Satou’s neck, and said softly, “I think I know.”
He pressed a whisper of a kiss to Satou’s lips, and held it there gently as he
strangled him.  He waited until Satou had stopped moving for a minute before he
let go, tugging the knife out of Satou’s limp hand.  He sighed in relief.  He
should have at least a few minutes before Satou woke up, but realistically he
had lots of time.
Luckily, there was a first aid kit in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, so
after peeling his bloody and torn clothes off himself he proceeded to
disinfect.  The scratch on his back was already scabbing over, and there wasn’t
much to be done about his lips, but he could at least bandage up the smaller
cuts and scrapes he’d gotten.
It was a bad idea to take the clothes off the cooling-corpse of the government
official he’d almost forgotten about, but it was probably a better idea than
heading out in public with bloody clothes.  The pants were about his size, and
were still clean anyway, though he’d need to dispose of the personal effects
discretely on his way back.  The shirt was a lost cause, but the jacket slung
over a nearby chair looked like it would do.
But as he reached for the jacket, he heard a staticky giggle, and Satou’s voice
saying “Game over!” before a sliceand blood was welling up from gashes in
Satou’s chest.  Shit.  The shadow was here.  Where was it?
A rough force slamming into his side abruptly answered his question, and he
went flying into the wall, landing next to the desk and a wastepaper basket. 
Weakly, Kai tried to do a leg sweep in the direction the swing had come from,
but couldn’t connect.  This was bad.
Satou was sitting on the bed with his legs crossed, a predatory smile on his
face as he stared hungrily at Kai.  His mouth didn’t move, but Kai could hear
his voice, presumably from the shadow.  “I think I want to see you covered in
my blood, Kai,” he said, “from killing me over and over and over again.”
 A whisper of breeze made Kai roll away just in time to protect his leg from a
blow that would no doubt have broken it.  Fuck.  Satou was playing it much
safer with his shadow this time.  If he’d just stay closer, Kai could keep
better track of where it was, but without knowing he was more or less helpless.
A weight in his pocket.  The lighter!  He’d wanted to avoid something as
attention-getting as setting a fire, but at this point, he was desperate.  He
crawled toward the waste paper basket, fighting past the paralysis as Satou
said, “I think I want to never let you get away.”
The papers caught fire easily, and while he knew it wouldn’t last the room
started to fill with smoke.  Sure enough, there was a space that the smoke
swirled around, and armed with this knowledge Kai was able to land a leg sweep,
sending the shadow tumbling to the floor.  The fire alarm started blaring, and
the sprinklers went off.
And then something strange happened.  For a moment, the shadow completely
froze, then happily said “Kai!” and nuzzled Kai’s neck.
Kai blinked, and Satou tsked.  Think quickly, think quickly.  “Hey, do you want
to play?” he asked the shadow.
“Play!  Play!”
“Okay!  Let’s play tag!  He’s it!” Kai said, pointing at Satou.
The shadow picked Kai up, and before Kai could fully process what had happened,
the shadow had smashed through the window and was running across the parking
lot.  As it ran, Kai felt it crumble around him.  As he fell to the ground, he
managed to roll underneath a car, clinging to the undercarriage for dear life. 
Satou stalked through the parking lot, coming heartracingly close to him.  “You
know, Kai,” he said flippantly, “I can’t help but wonder if Kei ever gave you
what you wanted like I do.”
Kai felt like he was going to throw up.  He must know where he was.  He was
fucked, he was so fucked.  But then, inexplicably, Satou walked away, and left
Kai there alone.  Kai waited half an hour before he crawled out from under the
car and slipped away.
True to his word, he managed to make it back to the prison in time for roll
call, though he wondered why he actually went back.  But there were bruises the
shape of Satou’s hand around his wrist, and no matter what position he was in
he could feel his clothes rubbing against a scrape or scratch left by Satou. 
There was no hiding the hickey.
Lying in bed that night, alone and cold, he worried his abused lips between his
teeth and tasted blood. He fell asleep thinking of all the places he wished Kei
would kiss him, and wondering if Satou would do it instead.
***** Chapter 4 *****
The next morning, everyone stared at him.  Mercifully, apart from one fellow
inmate’s friendly gibe (“shit man, did you make out with the warden’s dog?”),
no one actually said anything.  But the weight of everyone’s eyes on his mouth
had him feeling flustered and more aware of his body than he had in a long
time.  The hickey on his throat didn’t help.
Takeshi’s eyes were solemn and soothing, and he didn’t say a thing about it,
choosing instead to wait for Kai to bring it up.
It was raining again, harder than yesterday.  Almost everyone else had opted
out of going into the yard, but Takeshi wordlessly followed Kai out to their
usual spot.  They were drenched in seconds.  It was harder for Takeshi to get
away with using his shadow to cover them in such a downpour, after all.  The
cold water felt good on Kai’s back anyway.
“Satou is looking for you,” he said, seeing no point in beating around the
bush.
Takeshi blinked owlishly at him, but said nothing.  “He’s come here twice now
looking for you,” Kai continued, “we need to get out of here.”
Kai knew better than to expect Takeshi to show any surprise, but he could have
at least looked a little nervous or something.  Then again, Takeshi probably
hadn’t met Satou, hadn’t seen firsthand what kind of a person he was.  Kai
hoped he never would.
“Is Satou why you look so fucked up?” Takeshi asked.
“Why ask a question you already know the answer to?”
Takeshi glanced at him wearily.  “A guy can hope.”
Kai didn’t say anything to that.  Takeshi sighed.  “So, where are we going?” he
asked.
“We aren’t going anywhere.  If we split up then we’ll split his attention
too…less likely we both get caught.”
That seemed to surprise Takeshi.  “You mean he’s looking for you too?  Aren’t
you just a normal human?”
“Yeah, aren’t you?”
Takeshi glared at him, then blinked.  “Wait, seriously?  Then why is he…” his
eyes flickered to Kai’s mouth, then away, “Shit, Kai.”
Kai shrugged.  What was there to say?  Takeshi stared incredulously at him. 
“Well, fuck.  How long before he comes back, do you figure?”
How the hell was Kai supposed to know?  “He was in the area yesterday…who knows
about today.  I want us both gone as soon as possible.  I can get myself out,
but you’ll be harder.”
Faint narrowing of eyes.  “I can get us both out once this rain stops,” Takeshi
said slowly.
Kai nodded, then thought about that.  “Do your shadows not like water or
something?” he asked curiously, remembering what had happened with Satou’s
shadow in the sprinkler.
Takeshi surprised him by laughing.  “Man, you’ve just got us all figured out,
haven’t you?”
Kai grinned despite himself, then winced when it pulled his lips too much.
 “Well, it’s been said I’m a pretty smart guy.”
“Ah.  Someone other than me must have said that.”
They went back inside soon after, not seeing much point in sitting out there in
the rain.  Takeshi said he’d find Kai when it was a good time to go.  Kai just
hoped that time came before Satou paid them another visit.  All he could do was
hope that the rain dissuaded Satou from coming.
The rain didn’t let up all night, only starting to show signs of stopping the
next morning.  As the guards crowded them all into the shower room, Kai found
Takeshi and they exchanged a glance.  Thank God.  They’d leave soon.
He let himself zone out a little bit, not having the energy to deal with
everyone staring and wondering at his battered body.  He noticed the sudden
silence in the room without processing it, more aware of the water pooling
around his feet near the drain.  The water stung a bit, but it was important to
keep clean.  And he wasn’t sure when he’d next have a chance to have a shower
anyway…
Takeshi’s featherlight grip on his bruised wrist pulled him out of his reverie
just moments before Kai heard three rapid gunshots.  The guards were dead on
the floor, blood washing down the drain with soap and dirt.  Most of the other
prisoners were running, not even bothering to put their clothes back on as they
left the room behind them, soap still on their skin.  Satou watched them go
with an indulgent smile.
Kai swallowed.  “Go get dressed,” he murmured to Takeshi, before turning his
back on Satou.  If this was happening, he was at least going to finish his
shower.
He’d almost finished rinsing the shampoo out of his hair when he felt Satou
shove him into the wall, just managing to get his hands up to keep from hitting
his face.  His wrists hurt, but didn’t seem broken.  “Hello,” he said to the
wall, testing lightly at the strength in Satou’s hands and finding no weak
points.
“What have I said about ignoring me, Kai?”
Kai shrugged.  “Technically you haven’t said anything to me about it.”
Kai got a bite to the shoulder for that, but bit his lips to keep from giving
Satou the satisfaction of making a sound.  The force across his back was
unbalanced now, so Kai quickly turned around, facing Satou and getting a sense
of the room.  Takeshi was dressed already, and had gathered up Kai’s clothes in
his arms.  He was staring at Kai with wide eyes.  A faint distortion in the
steam led Kai to infer the shadow’s presence and location, though he supposed
it could have been Takeshi’s too.
Takeshi being here was a problem.  Calculating his moves with Satou was
complicated enough without adding another variable.  He needed to get Takeshi
out of here, quickly.  For that, he needed to completely monopolize Satou’s
attention.  Satou’s eyes were wide open and riveted to Kai, but Kai could tell
that Satou was still much too aware of everything else going on in the room. 
That would need to change.
“Miss me already?” Kai said, going for playful to start and putting a hand on
his hips.  In a flash of impulsive creativity, he inclined his head to bare his
throat.  The room immediately felt smaller.  Willing Takeshi to leave him and
trust him to find his own way out, he grinned and felt his lips split, blood
beading on them.  “You seem distracted,” he added suicidally.
Satou responded by pressing the gun into Kai’s throat.  Really?  “Am I boring
you already?” Kai asked, before kicking Satou in the face.
Without seeming to expend any effort at all, Satou caught Kai’s leg with his
other hand, stopping it short before it reached its mark.  Satou’s grip was
tight but not enough to bruise.  “Maybe a little bit,” Satou admitted, biting
Kai’s calf.
Kai let himself cry out from the pain of that (it fucking hurt!), and the sound
distracted Satou enough that Kai was able to grab the gun and quickly shoot
Satou in the face.  Satou collapsed to the ground, pulling Kai down with him,
but for the moment at least Kai had the upper hand.  He landed on top of
Satou’s face, barely managing to keep a hold of the gun.  Pushing himself up to
sit on Satou’s chest, he groaned at the blood that was now covering his stomach
from Satou’s bleeding head wound.  He’d just had a shower!
He cast his eyes about.  Takeshi was standing a few paces away, watching with
wide eyes and still clutching Kai’s clothes.  Kai blinked.  “Why are you still
here?” he hissed, “Get the hell out of here!!  I’ll catch up with you.”
Takeshi gulped.  “I…”
Kai sighed.  Civilians.  He was about to say something else when the feeling of
something wet on his stomach had him shuddering.  He glanced down at Satou,
licking his own blood off of Kai’s skin with a strange expression on his face. 
“Are you ticklish, Kai?” he asked without seeming to actually care about the
answer.
“Wait your turn,” Kai said coldly, shooting him in the face again.
“Kai!” he suddenly heard Takeshi shrieking, before a whooshof warm air and a
loud crash.  Kai looked up, but could see little aside from Takeshi standing in
the same place.  Oh.  The shadows.  So much for convincing Takeshi to leave.
“Takeshi, are you going to be okay?” Kai called, but Takeshi didn’t reply.  His
teeth were gritted and his eyes were glued to the place where Kai could only
assume the shadows were fighting.  Hoping that Takeshi would be able to handle
the shadow for now, Kai slid down to sit on Satou’s hips, feeling around the
belt for anything he could use.  Five shots Kai knew of from the gun, it was
very unlikely there was more than one shot left.
“I didn’t bring much with me,” Satou rumbled, his voice making Kai curl his
toes but not seeming to have any greater effect than that, “I knew anything I
brought you’d use against me.”
“I’m flattered,” Kai said, resolutely ignoring the fact that Satou was hard.
Satou brought up his knees.  Kai leaned back on them, eyeing Satou critically. 
So no knife this time.  Dang.
“What are you going to do with your last shot?” Satou asked curiously.
“Hmm…” Kai pretended to consider, twirling the gun in his hand.  Satou’s eyes
followed it, narrow like a cat’s.  Takeshi looked exhausted.  Shadow fights
must take a lot out of you.  Kai smiled and leaned down until Satou’s mouth was
almost close enough to kiss.  “I guess I could kill you again.  Maybe shoot you
somewhere more exciting than your face…”
“Will you?” Satou asked, calmer than Kai knew he felt.
Kai smiled.  “Nah.”  He lifted his arm up and shot one of the overhead pipes.
Immediately water began to spray everywhere, and the sounds of fighting shadows
stopped.  Kai hit Satou in the temple as hard as he could with the gun. 
Without stopping, he leapt up and grabbed Takeshi’s hand.  “Let’s go!” he
shouted, practically dragging Takeshi after him as they made their escape.
“Takeshi, work with me, we got a plan?” Kai huffed as he leapt over the bodies
of the fallen guards.
“We have to get out to the yard,” Takeshi replied, “once we’re outside we’re
home free.”
“Got i-” Kai cut off suddenly as a hand wrapped around his ankle and yanked him
down.  He felt his ankle twist.  Letting go of Takeshi’s hand, he kicked back
without aiming, pleased to feel something crunch beneath his foot even though
making contact hurt.
“Takeshi, go!”
“But-”
“I swear to God, Takeshi, just trust me.  I’ll catch up.”
A hesitant look, then Takeshi was gone, leaving Kai and Satou alone in the
room.  Blood was dripping down from Satou’s broken nose, the water washing it
away and streaking his clothes red.  He knelt on the floor, watching Kai
intently.  Kai told himself firmly that it was fear that had his heart beating
so fast.  Definitely fear.
“You’re not going to go after him?” Kai asked.
Satou smiled, smoothly rising to his feet.  “He won’t leave without you,” he
said, “and you’re not going anywhere.”
Kai tested his weight on his ankle.  The pain from when he’d fallen hadn’t
lessened, and it was the same leg that Satou had bitten earlier anyway.  He
could walk, but he probably wasn’t going to be able to outrun Satou, even with
the small head start killing him would give.  No good way to bar the door shut
quickly either.  He glanced at the fallen guards for a moment, walking towards
Satou as he did so.  Smiling back, he reached forward and grabbed Satou’s hat,
placing it jauntily on his own head.  “Isn’t this moving a little fast for our
third date?”
Satou responded by striking Kai across the chest, evidently using some nail if
the thin gouges were anything to go by.  Coughing, Kai concluded that the blow
hadn’t broken his ribs.  Probably.  Now several feet away from Satou, he’d
landed on top of one of the guards, which had saved him from hitting his head
on the floor.  Kai gulped a few breaths, but despite his outward appearance
felt completely calm.
Deliberately, he rolled off the guard and onto the floor, pushing himself up to
sit.  The floor was freezing.  Teeth chattering, he scrambled back, only for
his injured ankle to give and slip on the wet floor.  He fell backward, hitting
his head on one of the shower pipes, sturdy and unyielding.  He allowed himself
a few seconds to close his eyes and absorb the pain, crying out and curling his
toes.  His skin smarted and stung everywhere, and blood oozed from the places
where Satou had bitten and scratched him.
Another bite, this one fonder and more controlled, at the place where his
throat met his jaw.  His cry swallowed by lips and teeth.  Satou’s body warm
and firm and pleasing between Kai’s legs.  All of Satou’s other kisses had been
so frantic, the slow pace of this one was surprisingly nice.  One of Satou’s
hands was on Kai’s cheek, but the other was firmly on the floor.  Kai took hold
of it, rubbing his thumb over Satou’s wrist.
Satou rolled his hips and Kai bit his lip and tried not to groan.
When Satou pulled back to let Kai breathe, he relocated his mouth to Kai’s
chest, biting his way down.  Kai supposed Satou thought he had won.  “Still
bored?” he asked lightly, proud of how unaffected his voice sounded.
Satou laughed and rolled his hips again.  Click.  Kai smiled slightly, then
pressed a kiss to the top of Satou’s head.  This was nice, but it was time to
stop.  As Kai had expected, Satou immediately recoiled, glaring at him
furiously.  “Stop doing that,” he hissed.
“Doing what?” Kai asked, evenly meeting his eyes.
“Looking at me like I’m a person.”
The angry bloodlust in Satou’s eyes had a thin veneer that made Kai’s heart
hurt.  If he let himself not think about it too much, he could pretend that
that thin veneer was what was really there.  He could forget, just for a
moment, about the eyes that Kai wished he was looking at now.  He lifted his
hand up and cupped Satou’s cheek gently, just for a moment.  “Then stop acting
like you want me to.”
Moment over.  Kai abruptly stood up, wincing as he put weight on his ankle but
otherwise feeling fine.  He stepped away from the wall quickly, putting
distance between him and Satou before Satou could react.  “Well,” he said,
shrugging his shoulders, “It’s been fun.”
An incredulous look on Satou’s face, quickly overtaken by a smirk.  “Where are
you go—”  He froze, finally noticing that he’d been handcuffed to one of the
pipes.
“Pretty neat trick, huh?” Kai said, hands confidently on his hips, “thanks for
making it easy for me…knocking me into that guard like that.  I was wondering
how to convincingly get close enough to snatch a set from one of them, and then
you went and did all the legwork.”
“Let me out, Kai,” Satou said dangerously, his voice layered with intent that
danced fire through Kai’s muscles but ultimately did nothing more than that.
Kai took Satou’s hat off his head, spinning it on his finger.  “You’ll probably
be there a while,” he mused, “since you took such care to not bring anything
useful that I might take advantage of with you.  Well, eventually the water
will stop running and then you can get your shadow to bust you out I guess.”
Satou’s eyes gleamed with bloodlust and something a little more familiar,
giving Kai goosebumps despite himself.  “I’m going to kill you,” he said
softly.
Kai raised an eyebrow, and started walking away.  “I like this hat,” he said,
putting it back on his head, “I think I’ll keep it.”  He looked over his
shoulder to flash a smirk at Satou, seething on the floor.  “Until next time,
Satou.”
With that he fled the room, heart beating wildly and the taste of blood still
in his mouth.
***** Chapter 5 *****
Chapter Notes
     Satou isn't in this one. Kai/Takeshi is tho
“Mama, why do you always waste time with meaningless diplomacy that rarely
comes to fruition?  Why forestall the inevitable when it would be far more
expedient to simply execute them immediately?”
That crinkle in her eyebrows that indicated she was concerned, the slight smile
that showed fondness despite herself.  Warm arms wrapped around him.  “Because,
my love, all life is sacred.  If I can avoid ending a life, then I will.  One
day you will understand this.”
“Is this because murder is illegal?  It seems an arbitrary law to insist upon
upholding, considering what we are.”
“There are things more important than laws, Kaito.”
In retrospect, Kai supposed he could be a little bit grateful to Satou for
coming when he did.  The prison was like an overturned nest of bees, and
sneaking out into the yard couldn’t have been easier.  Even better, no one else
was out there, most people opting to hide in more secluded places or flat out
try to get out the front door.  Escape via the yard just wasn’t especially
feasible.
Kai breathlessly looked at Takeshi, the lone figure out in the yard, and
grinned.  Luckily for them, they had less-than-typical limitations.  Takeshi
stared evenly back at him.  “Is your boyfriend not coming with us?” he asked in
monotone, holding out Kai’s clothes.
Kai choked back a laugh, opting instead to pull on his pants.  The corners of
Takeshi’s eyes relaxed almost imperceptibly.  Awww…Takeshi had been worried. 
“So what’s the plan?” Kai asked, changing the subject, “Does your shadow break
through the wall?  Can it jump high enough to get over the wall?”
Takeshi’s eyes glittered, and the faintest suggestion of a smirk fluttered
around his lips.  “Finally I’ll manage to surprise you,” he said.  “Put your
shirt on and I’ll show you.”
Once he was dressed, Kai slung his arm over Takeshi’s shoulder sociably,
wincing as it stretched the skin around one of his bites but otherwise managing
to hide the pain.  “Alright, I’m yours to command.  Ready for this?”
Takeshi glanced down at Kai’s hand, gingerly removing it and taking a few steps
away.    “My ghost doesn’t have arms,” he said, “so we’ll need to ride on his
back.  Shoulders are broad, so there should be plenty of room for both of us. 
Just make sure you hold on tight,” he added casually.
Suddenly a warm and humming presence was just in front of them, close enough
for Kai to touch.  It was firm and powerful under his hand.  Without any
prompting from Takeshi, Kai climbed up and wrapped his arms around the shadow’s
neck, glancing back expectantly at Takeshi.  “You coming?”
Rolling his eyes, Takeshi climbed up after him, wrapping his arms over Kai’s. 
A brief pause.  “Try not to puke,” he said, and then they were up up up flying
high over the prison and leaving it behind before Kai had fully processed what
was happening.
Flying.  They were flying.  Flying high enough that if Kai fell he would
probably die.  Wide-eyed, he turned to look at Takeshi, whose eyes were wide-
open and more expressive than Kai had ever seen them.  The hair fluttered
around his flushed face, and despite clinging to the shadow for dear life he’d
lost a tension Kai hadn’t even noticed until he could see the evidence of its
absence.  Perhaps he was more relaxed because unlike Kai, who couldn’t see the
shadow and was effectively just looking straight down at the ground, Takeshi
had something more real to look at.
“Shadows can fly?!?!” Kai squeaked, resolving to just stare at Takeshi instead
of making himself dizzy looking at the ground.
A lazy, confident smile stretched across Takeshi’s face.  “Nope.  Just mine,
far as I know.”
At Kai’s boggled stare, his smile widened to show his teeth.  “What?  You’re
really surprised?  Not everyone gets Satou’s attention just cuz they’ve got a
hot piece of ass, you know.”
Eyes itching from the wind, Kai narrowed his eyes and disguised it as a
suspicious glare.  “Takeshi are you flirting with me?” he asked incredulously.
“No comment,” Takeshi said, which had not been what Kai was expecting.  Huh. 
That didn’t happen very often.
After about fifteen minutes, they landed by the side of the road, and Takeshi
leaned against a tree, breathing heavily.  The grass was soft under their
feet.  Kai looked at Takeshi questioningly.  “Give me a minute,” Takeshi said,
“I can’t keep my ghost out for too long before it fades.  I’ll be able to call
it again in a little bit, but then that’s it for the day.  I’m going to see if
I can’t get us to a town with the next one.”
Kai smiled and leaned against Takeshi’s shoulders.  “Don’t push yourself, the
important thing is that we’re out of there.  Satou may be good, but he has
nothing to track us with right now, thanks to you.”
Takeshi’s red eyes glittered.  “I’ve been running my whole life,” he said
cryptically, “no one catches me unless I want them to.”
It must have been the adrenaline from the flight, plus coming down from the
experience of interacting with Satou at all, that made Kai like this.  Messing
with his head or something.  He leaned in and murmured in Takeshi’s ear, “I’ll
bet I could catch you.”
“Of course.  I wouldn’t mind youcatching me.”
It was a bit of a relief when not long after, Takeshi announced he was ready to
fly again.  They flew for another fifteen minutes or so, before landing in a
copse of trees in a small and mercifully deserted park.  A nearby vending
machine supplied them with something to eat as well as some cash, which Kai
evenly split between them.  Takeshi watched Kai break into the machine
intently, feigning nonchalance while Kai could tell how curious he was.
After that, they hotwired a motorcycle and drove.  Midway through the day, they
drove by a house with hanging laundry within reach of the road.  The pants
didn’t quite fit either of them, nor were the t shirts especially inspired, but
it was worth it to get out of their prison clothes.  Now they’d be able to go
into stores, and wouldn’t attract as much attention.
Leaving town after town behind, they drove until it was almost dark.  Since
Takeshi would need to be able to fly during the day, he insisted that Kai at
least dropped him off so he could sleep.  While Kai still held firm that the
two of them were going to need to split up, he wasn’t just going to abandon
Takeshi to sleep alone by the side of the road.  They’d part ways in the
morning once Takeshi could fly again.
It was a warm night, with stars gleaming above them and the earth firm beneath
them.  The free air was invigorating, having not lost its novelty even after a
day.  They ate the last of the pilfered snacks from the vending machine, and
settled down into sleep.
“Kai? Kai!  What are you doing?”
Kai looked up at red eyes, a constellation of tears on his long eyelashes. 
“Kei,” he said, letting his voice sound fond, “Just killing time until you got
here.”
Kei knocked the magnifying glass out of Kai’s hand.  “Stop it!” he shrieked,
“You can’t just kill them for no reason like that!”
Furrowing brows.  Cocking his head.  “They’re just ants, Kei.”
Fuming, Kei sat down next to him and spent the next hour lecturing him about
the complexities of ant social structures, how they were capable of solving
complex problems, with all the ants in the world having a biomass roughly equal
to the human race.  Some ants even, apparently, had medical importance. 
Uncomfortably, Kai said, “Sorry, didn’t realize you liked ants so much.”
“Ew!  No, ants are gross!  But you shouldn’t just kill them because you’re
bored.  Doesn’t life matter to you?”
“Kai?  You awake?”
Kai opened his eyes.  Crickets chirped, and branches rustled in the trees above
him.  A few stars peeked through.  “Yeah, I’m awake Takeshi.”
A shifting sound, like Takeshi was sitting up.  “So we’re splitting up
tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What are you going to do after that?”
Kai didn’t want to answer that question.  It was mostly because he hadn’t
wanted to answer that question that he’d stayed in the prison for so long,
until Satou had forced the issue.  He had a feeling it was the same for
Takeshi.  “I…” he said, “…it would be nice, I think, to go find Kei.”
“But you’re not going to,” Takeshi said, “Not unless something happens.  You’re
afraid of him abandoning you again.”  At Kai’s prolonged silence, Takeshi
laughed and added, “See?  I can be observant too.”
Kai let that hang in the air, not seeing any good way to respond to it.  After
enough time had passed that Takeshi might have simply gone back to sleep, he
said, “I wish I knew that he was alright.”
“You love him,” Takeshi said, his voice a lot closer than it had been before.
Kai shivered, and rolled over to his side to see Takeshi lying on the ground
right next to him.  It was too dark to see his face, but he could feel the
weight of Takeshi’s eyes on him.  Even though nothing was restraining him, he
felt like he’d been backed up against a wall.  Tears shimmered in his eyes and
slowly dripped down his cheeks.  He paid them no mind.  Takeshi couldn’t see
them anyway.  “I don’t think he loves me back,” he whispered.
He bit his lip, and the pain blooming out from it transported him back in
time.  Satou’s warm, firm, and uncompromising hands.  Blood and pain with an
edge of pleasure.  Pulling things out of him Kai hadn’t realized had been
there.  Even though running away from Satou was the whole point of this
venture, he found himself shamefully wishing that Satou would be there, just
for a moment.  Just so that he could—
Takeshi’s hand, thin and cool, cupped Kai’s cheek and brushed away a tear with
his thumb.  Choking back a sob, Kai clung to his hand, curling into a ball.  “I
know he loves you,” Takeshi said softly.
“How can you know that?”
Takeshi’s other hand pressed gently into the small of Kai’s back, bringing him
closer.  A comforting gesture with no expectations or implications.  “I know,”
he said, “because I love you, more than I’ve ever loved anything, and I’ve only
known you a few months.  I think that Satou might even love you a little bit. 
I can’t even imagine how much Kei Nagai must love you.”
“Why?”
“Because you look at people like their lives matter.  You look at me like my
life matters.”
It was Takeshi’s fault, really, for being so close.  Kai closed what little
distance remained and kissed him, feeling like he was about to come undone.
Realizing what he’d done, Kai froze, immediately drawing back and sputtering,
“I’m sorry!”
Takeshi huffed in fond amusement, the breath ghosting on Kai’s face.  “You
don’t need to apologize,” he said calmly, softly kissing a tear away from Kai’s
cheek.
Kai tasted blood in his mouth from biting down on his own lips.  He was
shaking.  What the hell was wrong with him?  He felt like he was going to throw
up.  He pressed another kiss to Takeshi’s lips.  “Is this okay?” he asked in a
whisper.
Fingers running through his hair, so gentle it ached.  “I know I’m not Kei,”
Takeshi whispered back, “But I’m not Satou either.”  And when Takeshi kissed
him, it was slow and safe and there were no teeth or knives or choking fingers
and Kai kissed him back until he was out of breath and panting and a little
giddy.
Takeshi pressed his face into Kai’s neck and nuzzled it.  Kai shuddered. 
“We’re still splitting up in the morning,” he said uneasily.
He felt Takeshi smile.  “Yes, that’s been established.”
“You’re not going to have any way of getting a hold of me.  I’m going to
disappear.”
Takeshi kissed one of Satou’s bites.  “Same goes for me.  You’re not abandoning
me, Kai, this isn’t anything like that.”
Kai clung to him, feeling like this was somehow the only thing holding him
together.  “But I…” he stammered, “I love Kei.  That isn’t going to change. 
I’m just taking advantage of you right now and—”
Takeshi silenced him with a kiss.  “I know all that,” he said, “and if you want
me to stop, then I’ll go back over to where I was and pretend this never
happened.  But you know, I’m a little scared right now too, and maybe…” he
tangled their legs together and dropped his hands down to Kai’s waist, “Maybe
right now, I want to be taken advantage of a little bit.”
Kai took a deep breath in through his nose, smelling dirt and sweat and nothing
worth writing home about, but feeling some coil of tension in his stomach
unfurl, just a little bit.  “Please kiss me,” he whispered, “as many times as
you can until we fall asleep.”
“Okay,” Takeshi said, and while Kai had a feeling that he hadn’t done it on
purpose, in that one word his voice rumbled and wrapped around Kai’s body so
tightly he couldn’t move.  He relaxed into the hold, letting Takeshi kiss his
paralyzed body until he could reciprocate again.  No matter where Takeshi put
his hands, it hurt, reminders all over his body of the damage Satou had done to
him, but the pain crystallized into determination.  Satou was not going to find
Takeshi.  Satou was not going to hurt him.  Kai would make sure Satou didn’t
hurt anyone he cared about no matter how elaborate of a game he needed to play.
“Don’t die,” Kai urgently gasped between kisses.
Takeshi seemed a little amused by that.  “I don’t think you have to worry about
that…”
Kai cupped Takeshi’s face with his hands, resting their foreheads together. 
“You know what I mean,” he said.
A pause.  “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
A sickening slicing sound, wet and nauseating.  It curled over the sounds of
flowing water like scum.  Kai couldn’t move.  His hands hung uselessly as he
watched Kei’s body go cold, before being molded back into an unharmed shape
like he was just some broken sculpture instead of Kai’s most precious and only
friend.
Kei was saying something.  Something about that he was alright.  The knife
still had his blood on it.  He was standing up and the light shone behind him
and made his eyes gleam a brighter red than usual.  He was holding his body
differently.  Like he was powerful.  Like he was above trivial concerns.  Like
he wasn’t the crying little boy that had begged Kai to stop killing ants.
Kei, Kai thought, unable to speak,doesn’t your life matter to you?
When Kai woke up, he and Takeshi were still curled around each other, one of
Takeshi’s arms draped over him while the other had its fingers interlaced with
Kai’s.  The dawn light cast faint and soft shadows over them.  Takeshi’s eyes
were closed, but his breathing seemed off.  Ah, feigning sleep.  He leaned in
and kissed Takeshi’s nose, smiling when his eyes fluttered open and glared at
him.  “Go back to sleep,” Takeshi muttered, pressing a kiss to Kai’s lips and
closing his eyes again.
“Is your shadow ready to fly?”
A sigh.
“Yeah.”
After a brief discussion, they decided that Kai would keep on driving on the
road they’d been on, while Takeshi would fly as far as he could in the other
direction.  He had family that way, he explained, and it would be a good place
for him to regroup until he decided what to do next.  When Kai expressed
concern, Takeshi added that it wasn’t family by blood, per say, but some in-
laws that he happened to be close to.  Not untraceable, but it was unlikely
Satou or anyone else would find them right away.
“Don’t worry,” Takeshi said, “I have no intention of becoming a soldier or a
lab rat.”
“Just be careful,” Kai said.
“Same to you.  Don’t let Satou find you.  And if I see Kei Nagai, I’ll tell him
you’re looking for him.”
Kai shrugged noncommittally, and Takeshi narrowed his eyes.  Suddenly, he held
out his hand.  “We’re going to see each other again,” he said firmly, “no
matter what.”
Kai blinked, and looked down at Takeshi’s hand.  Smiling, he reached out and
shook it.  “Yeah.”
After Takeshi had flown off out of sight, Kai got on the motorcycle and started
driving, once more alone.
***** Chapter 6 *****
Chapter Summary
     in which Kai meets Tanaka and kind of has phone sex with Satou
As petty as it seemed, once Kai had acquired some basic essentials such as a
bag, food, and first aid supplies, before he did anything else he really wanted
to get himself some clothes that actually fit him.  Although he’d try to stay
out of trouble, there was no knowing when he’d get into a scrape next.  No
telling where Satou had gotten to, after all.  He’d want to have his full range
of mobility for any encounters.
He stuck to alleys and secluded areas rather than the main roads, which might
have been more of a problem for keeping possession of his material belongings,
such as they were, but most crooks knew better than to cross him.  Even without
knowing who he was, Kai made sure he walked in a way that said that not only
was he not a mark, but that he was a fight you’d regret having.
It made him a little antsy, to be completely honest, but it was nice to go a
while without receiving any injuries.  The marks Satou had left on his body
began to fade, and it stopped hurting to move in certain ways.  Though in its
own way that made him anxious too.  What if Satou had gotten bored of him?  It
was definitely a possibility.  Kai still wasn’t entirely sure why Satou had
gotten interested in him in the first place, so losing his attention was an
alarmingly possible prospect.
The man with long slicked-back hair in the clothing store attracted Kai’s
attention for several reasons.  First came the way he looked at Kai, sizing him
up like he was a potential mark.  An amateur criminal, then, either new or
halfhearted or both.  Made Kai’s heart hurt a little, but not enough to involve
himself.  Second was the twitchy way his red eyes glanced around at everyone
else, and the way his hands uncomfortably flitted around his bright red
jacket.  A concealed weapon, probably, and he was either afraid of it or afraid
of who might be coming for him.  Probably both.
Adjusting the distance he kept from the man, Kai shook his head as he sifted
through a bargain bin for pants.  Few things frightened Kai more than armed
people who were afraid of their weapons.  He peered through a rack of shirts
and considered what the man was purchasing thoughtfully.  It was an enormous
mass of clothing, in various styles and sizes but all for adults.  Little
regard seemed to be taken for the contents of the pile minus that they were all
on sale.  Quantity over quality.  He was buying clothes for multiple people,
possibly including himself, who went through their clothes very quickly.  And
he was paying in cash.  Hmmm…
There was a jar on the counter for donations to an animal shelter.  Kai
carefully watched as the man with narrow, suspicious eyes placed what looked
like his remaining cash into the jar.  Kai had seen this man before somewhere,
the final thing that attracted his attention.  But Kai couldn’t remember
exactly where.  He felt like it had been a long time ago.  It felt important.
Kai quickly finished his shopping so he could follow the man out of the store. 
He didn’t bother to hide himself too carefully, but he stayed out of earshot
and barely in sight.  The man pulled out a phone at one point, but quickly hung
up.  He led them away from the main streets until he and Kai were the only ones
around.  Then he pulled out his gun.
“Stop right the fuck there,” he shouted, his voice almost angry enough to
disguise the nervous energy Kai could practically taste radiating from him. 
His hand was shaking.  His stance was terrible.  His eyes darted everywhere
with the same nervous energy that filled his body.  Ah, a poor shot too.
Kai smiled ruefully, and began walking closer to the ajin, because of course
that’s what this man was.  The poor guy looked absolutely terrified.  He really
didn’t seem to know what to do with people that acted like they were in
control.  A shot fired off, missing Kai by at least a few meters.  Yeah, he was
definitely in control of this situation.  “You might want to try squaring up a
little bit,” he suggested, starting to weave in small zig zags as he got
closer, “if you steady your body better you’ll probably hit where you’re
looking instead of jerking so much from the recoil.”
Another shot, missing him again.  Kai sighed.  “What’s someone like you doing
with a gun like that anyway?  That’s more heat than the cops usually carry…a
nice sensitive guy like you has no business in the world that gun comes from.”
“What would you know?” the ajin asked, his body coiled like he wanted to run
but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to run toward or away from Kai.
Shit, where had Kai seen this guy before?  It was really starting to bug him. 
“I’m from that world,” he said, reaching out a hand.  Almost close enough to
disarm the ajin.
“Oh yeah?” the ajin asked, his face contorting into an impressive intensity of
anger, “well I’m from Hell.”
Oh.  “Oh,” Kai said, resting his hand on the gun, “Now I remember.  You’re
Tanaka.”
Things happened really really fast after that.  Only a split second reaction
time redirected Tanaka’s hand and saved Kai from getting shot point blank in
the chest.  Tanaka immediately swung his other arm at Kai, who opted to clutch
the gun tightly and roll away.  Looking up, he watched Tanaka backing slowly
away, covering his eyes with his hands.  And then he saw it.
Before anything else, Kai saw the teeth.  Jagged and wild, like a jack
o’lantern’s smile, they cut open the otherwise featureless face and snarled. 
The rest of the body slowly filled in from there, tall, broad shoulders,
enormous clawed hands.  A form made of what looked like black ribbons, already
fluttering away and disintegrating even as he looked at it.  Kai immediately
emptied the cartridge of the gun and threw it away.  He needed some water
immediately.
Man, I wrestled one ofthose? It seemed pretty impossible from looking at what
clearly must be Tanaka’s shadow that Kai had ever managed to pin one down. 
Then again, what was that that Satou had said…about why Kai couldn’t see his. 
“I’m going to kill you,” the shadow said with Tanaka’s voice.  Ah.  Yes.  This
was the first time Kai had come across a shadow that wanted to kill him.
Glancing around, Kai heaved a sigh of relief at Tanaka’s beginner’s ineptness
at choosing a battleground; they were right by the river.  Immediately, Kai ran
in, wading up to past his knees.  He hoped his shoes would dry okay.  “I don’t
want to fight you!” he cried, holding his hands out.
The shadow hopped around on the riverbank, like an animal that didn’t realize
it was no longer in a cage.  It clawed at the earth it stood on but didn’t
touch the water.  It screamed, the sound making Kai’s body grow stiff.  Too
late for that trick.  As long as Kai could keep himself upright, he knew he was
in no danger out in the water, even if he was stuck.  The shadow already seemed
less substantial than it had before.  What had Takeshi said, fifteen minutes or
so?  Kai could wait that long without any problems.
Tanaka and his shadow seemed at a loss.  Probably weren’t used to fighting
people that knew anything about ajins.  Kai gazed at the shadow steadily,
wishing it would calm down a little.  It was hard to come up with a strategy
against something so erratic.  Feeling some mobility return to him, he stooped
down and grabbed a rock from the riverbottom.  If the shadow wouldn’t calm
down, maybe he could goad it?  He threw the rock, landing a solid hit on the
shadow’s non-face.
Something unexpected then happened.  The shadow itself didn’t seem especially
effected by the blow, but Tanaka leapt back, tripping and falling on the
ground.  As soon as he fell, the shadow lunged forward, no longer paying any
heed to the water.  After panicking for half a second, Kai remembered that what
was charging at him was at this point a fairly dumb creature that evidently had
no plan other than a full frontal assault.
Perhaps it was a bit mean to just trip the shadow, but Kai couldn’t resist.
He ran over to Tanaka, who was sitting on the ground and staring at his hands. 
They were bleeding slightly, and while it didn’t look serious it definitely
looked kind of painful.  Tanaka didn’t even seem to notice the blood however,
clenching his hands into fists and gritting his teeth when his right hand
wouldn’t make a proper fist.  A sprain?  An overextension?  It was unlikely
that he’d actually broken the bone but if he’d landed badly he might have
caused some more temporary damage.
Tanaka didn’t even quite seem to notice that Kai had gotten close.  The shadow
had stopped thrashing around in the river and was now just lying there
quietly.  There were tears in the corners of Tanaka’s eyes.  “Satou won’t like
this,” he whispered to himself, and all of Kai’s hair stood on end.
The bag slung around his shoulders had a first aid kid in it.  Wordlessly, Kai
knelt down and took it out, noticing ruefully that it was still sealed.  Well
that hadn’t lasted long!  He dug a knife out from deeper in the bag and cut the
plastic, opening up the kit.  At the sound, Tanaka’s eyes lit up and he
immediately lunged for the knife after Kai had set it down.
He pulled his hand back to slice his throat.  Cold panic clutched at Kai’s
heart.  Without thinking, he sprung forward, grabbing Tanaka’s wrist with one
hand and placing his other hand between the knife and Tanaka’s throat.  “What
are you doing!?!” Tanaka and Kei said at the same time.
“I just need to—”
“Humans shouldn’t go killing themselves so casually!” Kai interrupted thickly.
Tanaka froze, glancing down at Kai’s hands, then over at the opened first aid
kit.  His confused eyes met Kai’s.  “What are you doing?” he repeated, slower
this time.
Tanaka’s grip had slackened.  It was easy to take the knife from his hand and
set it down on the ground.  “I think that every time you die, it matters,” Kai
said, “Just because it heals doesn’t mean it’s okay.”
Without another word, Kai grabbed a disinfectant wipe and started cleaning
Tanaka’s hands.  Tanaka didn’t flinch from the sting, but tensed under Kai’s
touch, as gentle as he tried to be.  Then suddenly, he started laughing, a
hoarse, ragged sound that might have frightened Kai if he’d been younger and
more foolish.  “What the hell are you doing?” Tanaka asked, covering his face
with his other hand, “are you seriously putting a bandaid on me?  Are you gonna
kiss it better?”
“If you like,” Kai said calmly, smoothing a bandage over Tanaka’s palm and
reaching for a roll of tape for his fingers.
“How many times have you died, Tanaka?” Kai asked.
“More times than you’ve gone to sleep.”
Kai let that sit for a moment, before leaning forward and gently kissing
Tanaka’s palm.  “Your other hand, please,” he said.
“I don’t have time to let things heal ‘naturally,’” Tanaka hissed, “not even
things this small.  I’m just going to reset later.”  He gave Kai his other
hand.
“Did you hit your head?” Kai asked, once he’d finished bandaging the other
hand.
“It’s. fine.” Tanaka said.
“I’m going to check for bumps,” Kai said, sliding his fingers into Tanaka’s
hair and gently pressing them into his skull.  Gently, carefully, all around,
but nowhere felt soft or swollen.  His hands ended up on Tanaka’s cheeks,
wiping away the tears that had started flowing silently from his eyes.  Tanaka
was staring at him, wild-eyed.
Slowly, as though he didn’t realize he was doing it, Tanaka leaned forward
until their foreheads were touching.  Kai met his eyes evenly, a smile coming
unbidden to his face.  “Does it hurt anywhere else?” he asked, rubbing away at
another tear.
“Who the hell are you?” Tanaka asked, his voice a hoarse and frightened
whisper.
Kai briefly wondered if he should kiss him, but quickly decided against it. 
Tanaka didn’t seem to be interested in the slightest anyway.  “My name is Kai,”
he said.
“Kai,” Tanaka gasped, “It’s…it’s never hurt before…it stopped hurting years
ago…”
Kai cocked his head.  Tanaka shrieked, shoving Kai away.  “Stop looking at me
like that!!” he said, “It’s your fault it hurts again!!”
Wordlessly, Kai backed away and sat down on the ground while Tanaka calmed
down.  How long had it been since he’d been gently touched?  Kai wrapped his
arms around his waist, the feeling of Takeshi’s hands still lingering there
even days later.  Kai knew a thing or two about the effect a gentle touch had
after a famine, even one as small as his own.  He bit his lip, and looked back
up at Tanaka.
He’d seen Tanaka before, not just on the news.  It had been nearly ten years
ago now, when he’d gone with his mother to that dark lab far away from any
cities.  He couldn’t remember why his mother had gone, but he remembered being
horrified, and his mother not letting them linger long.  He remembered
wondering what Kei would think of such a place, and feeling grateful that he’d
never see it.
As the thought rose, unbidden, Kai realized that Kei probably hadseen the
inside of that place.
A phone rang.  Tanaka blinked at it, but made no moves to reach for it.  It
must have fallen out of his pocket, and was now lying on the ground.  As the
simple, default ringtone played, the name “Satou” appeared on the screen.  Kai
thought about just letting it ring.  He hadn’t quite planned on starting the
game so soon.
He picked up the phone.  Waste not want not.  “Hello, Satou,” he purred,
reaching into his pack to pull out the hat he’d stolen.  He watched Tanaka’s
eyes go comically wide as he settled the hat on his head.
A shaky breath.  Good, he’d surprised him.  “I don’t suppose Tanaka’s there, is
he?”
“Not even been a week and you’ve already forgotten about me?” Kai pouted,
fiddling with the brim of the hat, “Satou, I’m going to cry.”
“Kai, where is Tanaka?”
“Oh, I just played with him a bit.  Not as fun as playing with you, but what
can I say?”
“…what are you doing?”
Kai’s head was spinning.  He reminded himself that he could still just hang up
the phone if he wanted.  “You know, I’ve still got your marks all over me,” he
said, “I feel them and see them.  Every time they hurt I think of you.”
“Kai—”
“Did you like it when I left you all alone, handcuffed to the pipe like that?”
Kai asked, “I think I’ll do one better, next time.  See, I wanna mark you up
too.  I want everyone who sees you to know that I hurt you, that I got the
better of you.  I’m not going to let you die and reset all that…I’ll lock you
up so tight you can’t move.”  Satou wasn’t saying anything, but Kai could hear
him breathing heavily through the receiver.  “By the time I’m done with you,
you’ll be begging me to kill you, and if you’re very very very lucky, I’ll do
it.  Slowly.”
A shudder, and then Satou spoke, his voice so overwhelming that Kai couldn’t
move or blink or breathe.  Had his heart stopped beating?  His head was
certainly spinning enough that it was possible.  It took him a moment to
actually start registering what Satou was saying, his voice rushing hot and
heavy through Kai’s ears.  “…think that just because you’ve managed alright
when I wasplayingwith you, that you canchallengeme like this?  Do you have any
idea how many ways there are to bring someone to the edge of death without
killing them?  You think you can play withmelike you play with someone like
Tanaka?  WhenI’mdone withyou, you’ll beaddictedto me.”
Kai’s heart began to beat so fast it felt like it was going to rip a hole in
his chest.  He wanted to say something, but his tongue felt so heavy. 
Everything was suspended in honey.  He was choking on it.  He couldn’t breathe.
“I’m going to open you up so you can look at your heart while it’s still
beating, and you’ll beg me to do it again and again,”Satou crooned in Kai’s
ear,“I’m going to starve you so that when I offer you my own flesh you lick my
fingers, and you’ll beg me to do it again and again.  I’m going tofuckyou until
you can’t even remember your name, or that thereeverwas someone calledKei
Nagai.  I’m going to—”
“So then,” Kai interrupted breathlessly, “why haven’t you come and caught me
already, Satou?”
He hung up, and the vice-like grip Satou’s voice had had on his body released. 
He collapsed to the ground, quivering.  After what felt like hours, he lifted
his head and looked up at Tanaka, who was comparatively calm and collected. 
“You’re an idiot,” Tanaka said, taking his phone back.
“I have people to protect,” Kai said.
“So you’re goading Satou.”
“He doesn’t want to kill me,” Kai explained, “I’m the only one who’s got an
advantage like that.”
Tanaka looked at him for a long time, then came over and helped Kai to his
feet.  “I’m not sure that’s an advantage with him,” he admitted.
“I don’t want to die.  It’s an advantage.”
“If you say so.”
Kai’s legs were wobbly under him, but steady enough that he could walk.  It
would have to do for now.  Carefully, he picked up his bag and slung it over
his shoulders again.  He didn’t stumble under the weight.  He was going to be
okay.  “Guess you’d better get back to your boss,” Kai said, starting to walk
away.
Tanaka didn’t try to stop him.  “Where should I tell him you went, when he
asks?”
Without pausing or turning back, Kai replied, “Saitama.”
***** Chapter 7 *****
Chapter Summary
     *sweats nervously*
     *swan dives into hell*
There needed to be a word for “almost home,” for when the streets and trees and
sounds were familiar, but peripherally so.  Kai knew the mountains and forests
around his hometown better than he knew the bones in a hand (which, he was
proud to say, was pretty well), so even being able to see a familiar river from
a distance as he crested a hill brought a couple stray tears to his eyes.
(It was similar to how he’d felt when Takeshi had met his eyes intently.  Less
intense than Kei’s, but…)
The town was visible in the distance, but he’d hold off on getting closer for
right now.  It had been a long journey of walking and hitchhiking and stolen
motorcycles, and Satou had almost certainly guessed his target location by
now.  He’d earned a rest before he threw himself into whatever Satou had
waiting for him.
The old spot by the river was exactly as he remembered it, the water clear and
the current languid.  One side of the bank was rocky and covered with trees;
the base of the small mountain crowned by the local shrine.  The other, where
he sat, was grassy and soft, with hardly any rocks except for the large flat
one that jutted out over the bank.  Scattered in the grass were countless tiny
wildflowers.
A river wasn’t exactly the best place to get clean, but Kai would definitely
rather smell like mud and mountains than old sweat.  The water was cold and
felt nice on all the places that hurt, even though it wasn’t deep enough to
really soak in it.  For a moment, he could close his eyes and pretend he was
seven again, and Kei and Eriko were sitting nearby dangling their feet in the
water.
He washed his clothes next, laying them out to dry in the grass so they’d smell
nice.  While he waited, he sprawled out on the flat rock, luxuriating in the
feel of the sun on his skin.  Without really thinking about it, he started
picking flowers and weaving them together into a crown.  It had been years
since he’d made one, since the last time he’d come here with Eriko.
(She’d taken her hair out of the braids that time, loose over her bare
shoulders like some kind of nature spirit.  Garlands of flowers over her,
floating in the still water she stood in, bees buzzing happily around her. Kei
sitting off to the side, wearing a delicate crown of white flowers that gleamed
in his hair like stars.  They were both so beautiful, the kind of beauty that
had led gods to give up their divinity in myths.  Kai wasn’t sure what had put
Kei in the mood to go along with Kai and Eriko’s play for once, but it had made
his heart beat uncomfortably fast.  He’d wondered for months if it was the
reason that Kei had abandoned him after that.)
He put the flower crown on his head.
It was just then, flowers in his hair, toes dangling over the edge of the rock
into the water, sun turning his skin golden, that Kai heard it.  Across the
water, among the trees, a heavy rustling, like a cross between a wild animal
and a hunter.  Tree branches moved out of the way of something Kai couldn’t
see.  Kai crossed his legs, his skin suddenly cold.
“Where…where…keep looking…” he heard faintly across the water, the voice
garbled and strange but nevertheless familiar.  Ah, this was Satou’s shadow.
Kai’s shoulders relaxed, and he beckoned playfully.  “Hello!” he called, “Come
here!”
For a moment, the shadow completely stopped moving, then with an excited cry it
bounded across the water, splashes betraying its path until it stopped short
just in front of Kai.  It butted its head into Kai’s hand, and Kai petted its
strangely-textured skin with a fondness that startled him.  “We’ve been
looking…we’ve been looking…” the shadow purred, “we wanted to see you again. 
Kai…” it whined, pushing Kai’s hand away and resting its head on Kai’s chest.
Kai ran his hands up the shadow’s shoulders and neck and back to its head.  He
was going to lose track of what was where very quickly at this rate.  In a
flash of inspiration, he lifted his arms up to his head and took off the flower
crown, placing it carefully on the shadow’s head.  It hung oddly on its
inhumanly-shaped head, but it stayed in place.  A flower crown hovering
crookedly in the air in front of him.  Kai giggled.
The shadow pressed its body closer to Kai’s chest, its enormous hands wrapping
around his back.  “Oh…” it trilled, “sounds…nice.”  The hands on Kai’s back
were light and careful, and they tickled!  Helplessly, Kai dissolved into a fit
of giggles, clutching at the shadow’s back and curling inward to butt heads
with it.  “More more more!!!” it said, and this was unreal, this enormous
invisible monster with claws and teeth and the potential to be possessed by
fucking Satou at any moment was here, wearing a flower crown and tickling him. 
It was strange to feel powerful while being tickled, but there it was.
“we’ve been looking for you…” it said, running its long tongue up Kai’s
stomach.  Oddly, it didn’t really bother Kai anymore, aside from how ticklish
it felt.  He relaxed into it, curious to where this was going.  “we want to
take you away where only we can touch you.”
The shadow’s hands on his back suddenly felt incredibly dangerous, and Kai felt
cold again.  He stopped laughing, his throat too tight to let any sound come
out.  “we’ve been waiting for you…” the shadow continued, “we told us to wait
here and bring you back to us when you came.”
No no no no no no no no no no no no no.  “…but…we’re having so much fun here
right now…” Kai said nervously.  The shadow’s hands were almost as big as his
entire back.  How could he have been this careless?  Naïve?  This was Satou’s
pet, not his.
The shadow licked Kai’s throat, his head tilting back to accommodate it. 
“…but…but…we’re waiting for you, we told us to bring you back to us right
away.  Then we can play with you together.”
Kai blinked, then smiled.  Maybe he could still salvage this.  Uncrossing his
legs, he hooked his ankles around what he was pretty sure was the shadow’s
waist, pulling it in closer.  He slid his hands up to the sides of the shadow’s
face and smiled down at it.  “Don’t you want to have me all to yourself?” he
asked, leaning forward and kissing it.
The feeling of the shadow’s tongue in his mouth was still strange, but it was
less surprising when Kai was the one setting the pace.  Also, it was
infinitely, unimaginably preferable to Satou’s tongue, as strange as that
seemed.  It was hard to kiss something with no lips, but the shadow definitely
made up for that with sheer volume of tongue, filling his mouth and sneaking
down his throat until he started coughing.
The shadow immediately drew back, making concerned noises.  “Maybe take you
now…?” it said uncertainly, “we’ll know what to do…”
“No,” Kai said firmly, gently nipping at the shadow’s neck (being very mindful
of his teeth!), “I’m okay, I promise.  I just need a minute to breathe again.”
The shadow quivered.  Without giving it time to think, Kai pressed on with,
“Don’t you get it?  You’re my favorite.  I don’t want to have to share you with
anyone.”
The shadow cried happily, its grip around Kai tightening and its body surging
forward, leaping out of the water and pushing Kai onto his back.  Startled, Kai
squeezed his arms and legs around the shadow’s body as they fell, landing with
the shadow’s body pressed completely flush against his.  Kai fought back the
urge to swear, because the friction felt really, really good.
The shadow’s claws dug into his back, and its teeth had buried themselves in
Kai’s left side.  Okay, enough was enough.  “Stop making me bleed,” he ordered,
pulling the shadow’s head away and glaring, “you’re going to kill me.  Then I
won’t be able to play with you anymore.”
The shadow made a strange sound that reminded Kai of snapping bones but was
probably laughter.  “Don’t be scared…” it said, “we die all the time and we
always wake up.”
Kai shook his head.  “I’m different,” he said, “I can only die one time.  I’ll
never wake up again after that.”
Kai could feel the shadow pulling away, so he clung a little tighter, stroking
its back gently.  “It’s okay, you don’t need to be scared,” he soothed, “you
just need to be a little gentle, and be careful with your teeth!”
Cautiously, the shadow licked along the row of toothmarks it had left behind. 
Kai’s stomach fluttered.  “That’s it,” he sighed, feeling his body relax, “good
boy.”
He closed his eyes and smiled.  Now all he had to do was just wait until the
shadow dissipated.  It had definitely been more than fifteen minutes, but that
Satou had a stronger shadow than Takeshi was unfortunately unsurprising. 
Still, Kai couldn’t imagine that it could last forever.  He’d needed to wait
for his clothes to dry anyway.
The shadow, having accepted that using its tongue was safe, seemed determined
to lick every inch of Kai’s body, occasionally using a featherlight touch of
its teeth, the force not even sufficient to break Kai’s skin.  The tongue ran
down Kai’s arms and to his fingers, up to his throat and over his lips and
cheeks.  This actually felt really nice, especially with his eyes closed so he
couldn’t be bothered by the fact that he couldn’t actually see the thing that
was turning him into a puddle of goo.
The sun was warm on his skin, and the smells of mud and flowers and grass
filled his nose.  Bees were buzzing, the water was flowing nearby, and the
shadow was humming softly, its tongue laving down Kai’s stomach.  Kai felt
boneless.  He could fall asleep like this, he thought.
And then the shadow’s tongue went just a little lower, and Kai was gasping and
curling his toes.
Unfortunately, the shadow correctly interpreted Kai’s response as a positive
one.  He’d already been half-hard anyway, but bearing the brunt of the shadow’s
attention was not helping.  He felt dizzy.  His face was burning.  He squinted
his eyes shut, which didn’t help, then covered his face with his hands, which
also didn’t help.  He should dosomething, or at least protest.  “Sh-
shadow…sha—ah!” he tried, his voice sounding strange and unfamiliar, “I…I don’t
think…I don’t think you understand what you’re do-ing!” he gasped under a more
forceful lick.
The shadow’s (impossibly) long tongue wrapped around his entire length, and Kai
was hyperventilating.  “…nice noises…” the shadow purred happily, its voice
vibrating against him, “more more more.”  Kai was going to hell.
He peeked between his fingers, and started giggling again at the hopelessly
ridiculous visual of a flower crown bobbing around near his dick.  He felt the
shadow keen happily, and then after one last torturously slow lick, the tongue
moved on, focusing on Kai’s thighs instead.  Suddenly, awfully, Kai could think
again.  Kai gritted his teeth and fought to regain some semblance of sanity,
because the only thing he could think about was grabbing the shadow’s head and
yanking it back up to finish the job.
He felt the shadow run a finger over his lips, then both of its enormous hands
were on his thighs, lifting them up.  “Don’t be scared…” the shadow said, its
tongue moving higher and higher on Kai’s thighs but not high enough, “we do
this all the time for us…we know…we know what’s nice…”  Then the shadow nuzzled
at his ass, and it was like he’d been shot through with nine thousand volts. 
He needed to…he needed to…he needed to…
(I’m going tofuckyou until you can’t even remember your name, or that
thereeverwas someone calledKei Nagai.)
Oh hell. “Please,” he panted, spreading his legs and biting his lip.  At least
this way he knew for sure that Satou wouldn’t be his first fuck.
At first, it wasn’t much different from the rest of what the shadow had been
doing with its tongue; long languid strokes that had Kai tentatively relaxing
into them.  The shadow’s firm but gentle grip on his thighs definitely helped
him feel more secure, and as the sensations grew familiar he found himself
surrendering to them.  Everything felt like an electric current was running
through it, and he’d never been more aware of his body in his entire life.
He started thrashing reflexively before completely registering the tongue
slipping inside him, his hands scrambling at the ground beside him and his eyes
opening wide but seeing nothing.  It moved slowly, so slowly that Kai didn’t
realize at first how deep it was getting.  There was no pain, or at least none
that Kai currently had the capacity to notice.  He was distantly aware that he
was babbling, a jumbled mix of “please” and “more” that might have had a more
coherent Kai feeling mortified.  This Kai however was only concerned with
shifting his hips to get more pressure against that one spot inside him that
made the world go white at the edges.
Gulping down air, he couldn’t help but laugh, feeling utterly depraved as he
lay there by the river, a monster between his legs and its tongue moving in his
ass.  “Good boy, good boy,” he gasped over and over again, his eyes wide and
feeling like stars were flashing behind them.  He grabbed fistfuls of grass,
desperate for something to cling to.  The air tasted like honey, his whole body
coiling tightly around the moment until everything fell away from under him and
his whole body collapsed.
The shadow didn’t seem to quite notice what had happened at first, and Kai was
content to just bonelessly lie there and let the shadow continue to fuck him
with its tongue for as long as the shadow would hold his hips up for him.  A
stray breeze kissed his skin, chilling the places that were wet with his cum
and making his stomach flutter.  His eyes slid shut, slowly losing track of
time and awareness of anything other than the shadow moving inside him.  Idly,
he reached down and petted the shadow’s head, running his fingers up along its
teeth until he reached the base of its tongue, where their bodies met.  The
shadow keened under his touch, and Kai smiled triumphantly.
Finally, it pulled out, snuffling at Kai’s stomach and dick before lapping up
the cum greedily.  Kai was going to hell and he didn’t give a shit.  “Oh
shadow,” he sighed as the shadow ran its tongue down his legs and to his feet,
gently nipping the toes, “you’d do anything for me wouldn’t you?”
The shadow clambered back up Kai’s body to nuzzle his neck, the flower crown
starting to come apart but still intact.  It purred.  Kai grinned, a manic
energy filling his body.  He pressed a wet, open-mouthed kiss to the shadow’s
throat, tasting blood and ozone and something that made his mouth feel numb and
tingly.  “Good boy…good boy…” he crooned, closing his eyes and sighing happily,
“did you have fun playing with me?”
“…love Kai…love Kai…never want to leave…always fun to play with Kai…”
Kai’s heart leapt into his throat for a moment, his thoughts wandering and
replacing that voice with another.  He shook his head, and pulled himself back
into the moment, opening his mouth for a kiss, tasting salt and victory. 
“Good,” he said when the shadow gave him air again, “I had fun too.”
He fell asleep with the comforting weight of the shadow’s warm body pressed
against him, though he finally (finally) could feel the shadow’s body fraying
at the edges.  When he woke up, it was twilight, and the shadow had gone.  He
stretched, taking stock of his body and finding that he felt better than he had
in weeks.  Though perhaps that was just some lingering post-coital glow.  He
luxuriated in the feeling for a few minutes anyway, gazing up at the twilight
sky contentedly.
After cleaning himself up a bit in the river, he pulled his now-dry clothes
back on and headed for town.  It was time to get started.
***** Chapter 8 *****
Chapter Summary
     holy fuck this is long
Life in his hometown moved on as normal.  The shadows lengthened as students
made their way home from afterschool activities, and some of the smaller shops
started closing.  As Kai sat in the train, he took stock of the faces around
him.  Some were familiar, some were not, but even the unfamiliar people still
let their eyes slip away from him like he was in some kind of negative space. 
Heh, he’d gotten spoiled.  All this attention he’d been getting had almost made
him forget that he was a social pariah.
As he approached the hospital, he hesitated.  Should he really involve someone
else?  Especially now, when he’d advertised that he’d be nearby?  He shook his
head and pressed on.  She was already involved…that she’d been left alone in
the hospital for so long was a lucky break that Kai wouldn’t depend on
anymore.  And it’s not as if it should have been any surprise to Satou that Kai
might be looking out for her.  If Kei wasn’t going to do it, then someone had
to protect Eriko.
It had been years since he’d seen her, but he still knew exactly where she
would be.  She’d been hospitalized off and increasingly on all throughout their
childhood, to the point where she more or less had a reserved room.  Perhaps
some remnant of appreciation for the disgraced Dr. Nagai.  He and Kei would go
there all the time after she’d had an episode, though back then she’d be in the
hospital for a week or two at most at a time.
The receptionist was young and friendly, an unfamiliar face from out of town. 
Her smile was warm.  She didn’t recognize him.  After asking for the patient’s
name and room number, she let him past, cheerfully reminding him that visiting
hours would be over soon.  Kai acknowledged her verbally, but otherwise ignored
her.  He’d stay as long as he needed to, and he wasn’t above changing into a
patient gown in order to go unnoticed.
The hospital was quiet.  His only company once he got past the busier parts of
the hospital was a few aides making rounds.  People were leaving…getting ready
for the night.  The light was warm and golden, casting striking shadows that
gave everything a sense of velvet mystery.  His footsteps echoed.
After passing several empty rooms in a row, he reached Eriko’s.  She was in
bed, doing something on her phone, and so didn’t see him right away.  He leaned
in the doorway and waited for her to look up, a smile rising unbidden to his
face as he watched her.
When she saw him, at first she didn’t say anything.  Her face went white as a
sheet, her eyes wide and shimmering.  She forcefully jabbed her finger in the
direction of the chair by her bed, her eyes following him as he good-naturedly
walked over to sit down.  She stared at him like he was a ghost.  He cleared
his throat.  “Um…sorry I haven’t visited in so long,” he said, going for
charming.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.
Oh.  Shit.  “Fuck, Eriko,” he said helplessly, getting up to sit beside her on
the bed, “Why would you think that?”  He wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
“I figured you and Kei had escaped together,” she said, “and I wasn’t going to
tell anyone.  But then I did, because I thought they were safe, but then they
weren’t safe, and Kei ended up in that lab, and I didn’t hear anything about
you, and I thought…I thought…”  For a moment, she looked like she was about to
cry.  Then she blinked it back, sighed, and leaned into him.
God.  “I had no idea,” Kai said, “nothing like that happened at all.  Kei just
went off on his own…”
She clenched her fists.  “I’ve wanted to ask…they’re like buzzards, all the
reporters and agents and curious neighbors and would-be bounty hunters.  I’ve
wanted to ask so many times if anyone knew if you were alright.  But I was
afraid of drawing more attention to you than I already had.”
Eriko didn’t cry.  Kai knew she wouldn’t.  But her voice sounded broken, and
Kai felt like a failure.  He leaned down and kissed the top of her head,
whispering, “I’m sorry.”
Eriko blinked rapidly, and took a steadying breath.  “It’s not so bad,” she
said, “I just ignore them and go to sleep.  Earplugs help with the yappy
ones.”  She lazily pointed at her bedside table, where among the clutter Kai
could see a jar full of orange earplugs.
Something warm and impossible to place bubbled in his chest.  It hurt.  “I’m
sorry for everything else,” he said softly.
“Fuck you for making me worry,” she said, looking up at him and smiling a rare
smile.
He grinned.  “Sorry I’m so lovable,” he said cheekily, and she rolled her eyes.
“One more thing,” she said, “fuck you for being gone for so long.  Fuck you for
making me deal with all of this at once instead of incrementally.  My heart,
think of my poor dying diseased heart.”
Kai blinked.  “‘This?’”
“Yes, ‘this.’  Do you have any idea how fucking rude this is?  You get
handsome, you get buff, you have a piercing, and look at your hair!” she added,
reaching up to touch it, “since when did you…”
Her eyes widened, and she stared at him, then her hand, then back at him. 
“Fuck.” She immediately and without fanfare pulled out her IV.  “I was right,
you are in danger.”
Kai blinked.  He glanced at the dangling IV uneasily.  “Eriko…what?”
“I know this sounds crazy, but you’re going to have to trust me.  Awww shit now
I’m going to have to put on pants,” she groaned.  She got up out of bed and
walked to a small cabinet on the wall.  “We already might be out of time;
they’ve clearly followed you here.”
…what?  Kai stared as Eriko pulled on some pants, too distracted to really
register what she was doing.  “Who’s followed me here?”
Eriko grabbed Kai’s bag and started throwing things from around the room into
it.  “Ajins, obviously.  Probably Satou.”
If Kai had been holding anything he would have dropped it.  His eyes widened
and he felt himself start breathing harder.  Eriko looked over at him, and
misunderstood his reaction.  “Don’t worry,” she said firmly, “I’ll protect
you.”
Alarm bells were flashing in Kai’s head.  “‘Protect me?’” he asked, “Should you
even be out of bed right now?”
“I can walk!” Eriko snapped, coming over to him and grabbing his hand, “now
come with me if you want to live.”
This wasn’t happening.  This couldn’t be happening.  “This is happening,” he
said in a defeated voice as Eriko broke into a med room.
“Well, yeah,” she said, scooping up bottles and packets and throwing them into
the bag, “I need my meds to not die.  The night nurse takes long smoke breaks,
we’re fine.”
Kai narrowed his eyes, watching as Eriko quickly went through and gathered what
she wanted without needing to look around.  “Eriko…” he said, “how long have
you known how to do this?”
She shrugged.  “I’ve been stealing morphine from here for years,” she said,
“speaking of which…”
They crept through the hospital, Eriko peering suspiciously around every
corner.  They took a much different route than Kai had taken to get in, and
soon they were in a part of the hospital Kai didn’t even recognize.  It made
him a little uneasy, but Eriko seemed to know where she was going, so Kai
trusted her.  He was too occupied wondering how on earth she could have
possibly known that there were probably ajins around…that Satou was probably
around, and that the target was him.  She insisted that there was no time to
explain every time Kai asked.  If he didn’t love her so much he’d wring her
neck.
Just then, Eriko swore, ducking behind a corner.  Kai’s heart jumped.  “Is it
Satou?” he whispered.
Eriko shook her head.  “No, worse.  It’s Watanabe.  Aww shit, he’s coming this
way.  Stay hidden, I’ll deal with this.”
She shoved the bag into his arms and strode out.  Kai watched with wide eyes as
she confronted one of the three boys he’d seen hanging around Kei sometimes. 
Which one was this?  “Go the fuck away,” she spat, glaring up at him furiously.
Watanabe seemed surprised to see her, but quickly smothered the expression with
smugness.  “Well well well,” he said, “what are you doing out of bed?”  Ah, it
was the scummy one.
“None of your business, jackass.”
The overhead fluorescent lights flickered.  Neither of their expressions
wavered.  “You know…” Watanabe said, “while I’ve got you alone, there’s
something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
Eriko stared at him.  He cleared his throat.  “Why does no one think you’re not
an ajin, too?  Why’s no one taken you away yet?”
Eriko stared at him.  “It just doesn’t add up.  And now you’re skulking around
near the freight entrance, alone.  Sneaking out?  Mighty suspicious…”
Eriko stared at him.  His eyes darted from side to side.  Kai wanted to laugh. 
How cute, he was upset that he wasn’t unnerving her.  “I’ve got connections,
you know,” he said, “If I told them I saw you die and come back, they’d believe
me.”
Eriko stared at him.  He took a few steps toward her, putting his hand on the
wall beside her head.  She didn’t move.  Watanabe gritted his teeth.  “Fuck,
you’re a bitch,” he spat, “Frigid and ugly!”
Eriko stared at him.  Gritting his teeth, Kai forced himself to take deep
breaths and not rush blindly into there to help her.  He hadn’t fought a normal
human in a while, and he didn’t want to accidentally kill him.  Watanabe took
another step towards her.  “You don’t have to pretend to be brave,” he said,
hooking his finger under her chin, “I know you’re scared.  I’ll tell you what,
satisfy a little curiosity of mine and I’ll drop the whole thing.”
Quickly, so quickly that Watanabe probably didn’t catch it, Eriko’s eyes darted
toward Kai.  Oh.  She didn’t want him to see this.
Part of this situation made Kai want to laugh.  He could see what Watanabe was
trying to do, and it was painfully obvious it was all bluff and bluster. 
Especially when he leaned in with a voice he obviously thought was menacing and
said, “you know…I’ve always wanted to know what it was like to fuck an ajin. 
Maybe you could oblige?”  Didn’t mean Kai didn’t want to punch his lights out
anyway.
Eriko stared at him.  Watanabe laughed.  “Or maybe that would be too much for
you…you are sick, after all.  Maybe you can just suck my cock instead.”
Eriko lowered her eyes and knelt down onto the ground.  For a single
heartbreaking second Kai wondered if she was going to do it.  Then he mentally
punched himself, because of course she wouldn’t.  This guy wasn’t even actually
threatening.
Eriko abruptly stood up.  Something was in her hand.  Watanabe looked at it
bewilderedly.  “What’s that?” he asked.
“A cockroach,” Eriko said calmly, before popping the whole thing into her mouth
and eating it, staring at Watanabe the entire time.
Kai bit back a laugh as Watanabe backed the fuck up, yelling at Eriko about
being a freak before fleeing down some other hallway.  Eriko watched him go
evenly, her eyes not moving away from him until he was gone.  Then she said,
“alright, let’s go,” and kept walking.
Kai followed behind her.  “Do you…do you have to deal with that often?” he
asked hesitantly.
“It’s not usually that bad with him,” Eriko said, which was not an answer, “I
can deal with it.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“Let me deal with what I can deal with,” Eriko said, glaring at him.  She
grabbed the bag back from him.  Kai dropped the subject.
“He was wrong, by the way,” Eriko said, “we’re not going to the freight
entrance.  That’s too conspicuous.  There’s an emergency exit with a broken
alarm back this way.  The surgeons use it when they take breaks, I’ve heard
them talking about it.”
They passed an empty operating room, and Kai paused.  Ah, that’s why Eriko knew
where she was going.  She probably knew this part of the hospital best.  He
lingered in the doorway, glancing curiously at all the surgical instruments,
gleaming on the tables.  Everything was so clean, no traces of blood anywhere.
Wham!
Immediately Kai’s eyes snapped back into the hallway, to the source of the
noise, and found that what had once been an open hall was now a sealed
doorway.  He heard Eriko kicking at it on the other side, and sucked in a deep
breath.  “Eriko, what is this?” he asked, testing the door and finding it
uncooperative.
“It’s a fire door,” she said, “it shouldn’t be shutting on its own like
this…and it shouldn’t be locked.  Aaaaah, fuuuuuuuuuck!” she shouted, kicking
the door one more time, “Okay, this is fine.  Just go back to the last corner
and go left.  Keep going left and you’ll get to a room with a water cooler. 
This is fine.  Sit there and wait for me, okay?  This is fine.”
“Fuck, I don’t want him alone in here,”he heard her muttering, and he resisted
the urge to laugh, because he was thinking the same thing about her.  “…be
careful,” he said, “Something isn’t right here.”
“Gee, ya think?  Quit stalling, and try not to fucking die.”
Footsteps.  He was alone.  He glanced behind him at the empty hallway.  A vent
rattled somewhere in the distance.  He took a deep breath in through his mouth,
and the air made his mouth a little tingly and numb.  Without hesitation, he
went back into the operating room and grabbed a scalpel.
As he walked, the feeling in his mouth grew stronger and spread to the tips of
his toes.  A shadow was somewhere near, he could tell.  His cheeks flushed, and
he tightened his grip on the scalpel and kept walking.  This was it.
In the end, he was still taken off guard, simply rounding a corner and seeing
Satou just sitting there, facing him from across the room.  No water cooler. 
Not where Eriko was waiting.  Kai shifted his stance to conceal the scalpel,
and jutted his chin out.  His heart was pounding.
“Oh!  Kai!” Satou said, as though he was surprised.  Bastard.
“Why are you here?”
Satou frowned.  “I’m hurt, Kai.  You invited me, remember?”
Satou opened his eyes, and Kai felt like a butterfly being pinned to
corkboard.  “You’ve been up to all kinds of things,” he said, “inspiring
Takeshi Kotobuki to action, filling my subordinate’s head with the idea that
his life and death has value, and…”  He paused for a moment, a smile oozing
across his face. “Don’t think,” he added throatily, “that I’m not aware of what
you and my ghost have been up to today.”
Kai blushed, and Satou laughed.  “Look at you!” he said, “mortified as a
child!  I rather liked the way you looked then, though I’d have made you bleed
more.  You wouldn’t have told me to stop.”
Without realizing it, Kai took a step back, and Satou tsked.  “Come now, Kai,
you’re not going to be able to manipulate me like that!”  He closed his eyes,
and pulled a knife from his belt.  “I even brought you something, this time,
although…” he purred, “I’m curious as to whether or not you’ll get close enough
to me to try to take it.”
“Are you going to give me a choice?” Kai asked.
Satou beamed, and sprung forward from the chair without warning.  Kai narrowly
dodged a slash to his throat, but he lost balance enough that Satou was easily
able to make his knees buckle with a kick to the back of his legs.  He clutched
the scalpel tightly but kept it hidden, opting instead to go for a ground kick
since he was already halfway down anyway.  It didn’t connect, but it got Satou
to back away enough that Kai could get back up, quickly lunging at Satou with a
flying kick.
Satou’s strong arms wrapped around his waist and flipped him over, throwing him
onto his back and knocking the air out of his lungs.  Somehow he kept his grip
on the scalpel, and rolled out of the way just in time to dodge what would
probably have been a fatal stab to his stomach.  Satou instead embedded the
knife in the floor, and Kai kicked it, sending it flying across the room and
clattering against the wall.
“Ah, too bad,” Satou said, right before Kai punched him in the face.  It was a
solid punch, so Kai wasn’t surprised when it unbalanced Satou enough to knock
him back.  He wasn’t even surprised when Satou grabbed his shirt and tried to
pull him down too, breaking Satou’s grip with a twist of his wrist and using
the forward momentum to roll over Satou’s shoulders and land on his feet a
short distance away.
Satou was grinning at him, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand,
spitting out blood.  He licked his lips.  “You’re holding out on me,” he said,
“what’s that you’ve got in your left hand?”
Kai swallowed.  “Why don’t you make me show you?” he asked, backing up slowly.
“Fighting me with one hand is a disadvantage you can’t afford, Kai,” Satou
chided, stalking toward him.
Kai put up his hand to block, but Satou moved like a snake, weaving around
Kai’s counters and ending with his hand gripping Kai’s throat, slamming his
face against the wall.  Kai felt the inside of his cheek start to bleed, and
his cheek was probably scraped and bruised.  He made to spit out the blood
filling his mouth, but Satou swiftly leaned in and sealed Kai’s mouth with his
own, holding Kai’s mouth open with his thumb.  He licked up all the blood
inside Kai’s mouth, smearing plenty on their lips as he did so.  Kai sagged to
the floor.
The grip around his throat tightened, and Kai gasped for air, pounding weakly
on Satou’s chest as Satou ravished his mouth.  This seemed to please him, if
the way he pressed their hips together was any indication.  Kai’s vision was
just starting to spot when Satou pulled away and relaxed his grip, letting Kai
cough and frantically gulp down air.
“Your shadow is a better kisser,” Kai said when he had enough air to speak.
Satou smirked.  “Guess I’ll have to practice.”
The hand on Kai’s throat dropped down to his chest, where he was sure Satou
could feel his racing heartbeat.  “Why do you—”
“Why do I care?” Satou interrupted, his eyes dark, “I don’t.  But you have
pieces of yourself you want to give to Kei Nagai, and I want to take them from
him.”
“Kei already has them,” Kai said waveringly, and then wanted to kick himself.
Satou smiled fondly at him.  “I don’t think so,” he said, his hand dropping
down to trace with frightening precision the circle of toothmarks left behind
by his shadow on Kai’s left side.  His touch was heavy enough to hurt even
through Kai’s clothes.
The knife that Kai had kicked away toward the wall was suddenly buried in
Satou’s chest, piercing the heart neatly.  Once would probably have been
enough, but Kai kept stabbing him until his body slumped heavily over Kai’s. 
Kai was covered in blood.  Pulling the knife out of Satou’s chest, Kai ran,
throwing it away down the hall before he could think.  His heartbeats pounded
louder than his footsteps.  Eriko.  He had to find Eriko and get her out of
here before Satou—
“You look good like that,” he heard Satou say, and he froze, slowly turning
around.  Satou was already up again?
Satou strolled across the room, casually sitting down in one of the chairs. 
His eyes drew Kai’s like magnets, and Kai started walking toward him almost
without realizing it.  Satou raised an eyebrow.  “Not going to run this time?”
“Not while you have the advantage.”
“Do I?” Satou asked, and he might have been smiling, but Kai couldn’t pull away
from his eyes long enough to check.  Kai swallowed thickly.  If Satou hadn’t
had the advantage, he certainly did now.
“Not for long,” Kai replied, schooling his features back to calm.
“Mmmm.”  Satou’s eyes traveled lazily down Kai’s body and back up to his eyes,
once again giving Kai the feeling of being pinned to corkboard.  Satou drew a
shaky breath, and licked his lips, some of Kai’s blood still on them.  His
shirt hung in tatters on his chest, the ruined fabric soaked with blood and
baring the skin and coiled muscles of his stomach.  Kai was having a hard time
getting enough air.  “You look good like that,” Satou said again.  Kai noticed
with a start that Satou had opened his pants, stroking himself with languid
hands.  His eyes did not leave Kai for even an instant.
Satou chuckled.  “You look like you’re going to bolt,” he said, “I might even
let you go for now.”
“What are you—”
“Getting off to?  Your face right now.  What you might do next.  The way you
fight.  How you writhed when my ghost was inside you.  That you obviously think
that everything you’re doing is an act.”
Something snapped.  Without thinking, Kai found the ability to move again and
marched toward Satou, climbing into his lap and grinding against his erection. 
He brought their faces almost close enough to kiss.  “I’m going to win,” he
murmured, slicing Satou’s torso open smoothly with the scalpel.
Satou’s hips jumped.  Kai smirked, and continued cutting, slicing through thick
muscle and fat and other tissues until Satou was opened up beneath him and his
organs were exposed, practically falling out and into Kai’s lap.  Kai kept
grinding against him, waiting patiently for him to bleed out and for his body
to remake itself.  When Satou came to again, Kai started slicing more gently, a
pressure barely sufficient to break the skin that Satou leaned into greedily.
“I don’t understand,” Satou admitted, his eyes bright, “I can’t understand
you.  You told my subordinate not to die, that his death, his temporary death,
was unacceptable.  You’ve killed other humans, who will never come back to life
again.  You’ve killed me, enough times that I’m beginning to lose count.”
Kai ran his hand over Satou’s clavicle.  “Killing you has no meaning, not like
Tanaka or anyone else in this world.”
That gave Satou pause, and he leaned away from the scalpel to cock his head
curiously.  “…meaning?”
“All life is sacred,” Kai said, “ending any life, even temporarily, is not
something to be done lightly.  I only kill to protect other lives…some lives
are more sacred than others.  But you…” Kai declared, “you desecrated
yourself.  You’ve become addicted to your own death.  There is no meaning in
killing you.”
Satou’s eyes gleamed darkly, and he grabbed Kai’s ass tightly enough that Kai
wondered if there would be bruises later.  “I would say,” he said, his voice a
rumble that made Kai’s entire body come alive, “that I’m going to desecrate
you, but…I think I already have.”
Kai’s hands froze over Satou’s shoulders.  He opened his mouth to say
something.  “No, no, no excuses Kai, and keep a better grip on the scalpel or
I’ll take it from you,” Satou said, “I’m going ask you a rhetorical question. 
Why are we here?  Why am I here in this hospital, and why are you here in my
lap?  Because you actually enjoy this.”
Somewhere in the distance a fan turned on.  The overhead fluorescent lights
buzzed like a swarm of bees.  The far wall had blood splatters all over it. 
The bloody knife gleamed on the floor of the hallway, almost all the way into
the next room.  Kai and Eriko needed to get out of here before someone
discovered this place that looked like a crime scene and linked it to them. 
Were there security cameras here?  Kai started glancing around near the
ceiling.
Satou laughed.  “So this is what you look like when you’ve been cornered.  Why
so bashful?  You didn’t have to come here.  You didn’t have to tell me you were
coming here.  You’ve probably told yourself you came here to protect Kei
Nagai’s sister, maybe even from me, so why lead me here?”
Kai’s mouth went dry.  “I…”
“And now here you are, prolonging our encounter when you could have escaped. 
Tell me, Kai,” he purred, “why is that?”
Satou leaned forward, pressing his face into Kai’s chest and inhaling deeply.
 “You weren’t properly neutralized,” Kai said, fighting to keep his voice calm,
“Eriko would have been in danger, I could—ah!”
Even through the fabric of his shirt, Kai could feel Satou’s teeth closing
around one of his nipples, his breath warm.  Kai squinted his eyes shut and
curled his toes.  “Stop lying,” Satou said gently, alternating biting and
sucking, “Stop lying to me.  To yourself.  Because you think you love someone.”
Kai opened his eyes and stared at Satou.  His hands were shaking.  Satou drew
back and smiled at him.  “You’re so young,” he said, taking Kai’s hand and
steadying his grip before he could drop the scalpel.  He kissed Kai’s wrist. “I
tried to fool myself into loving people when I was young too.”  He brought
Kai’s hand up to his face, drawing a line down his left cheek with the
scalpel.  “We’re more than that, than them.”  He drew another line across his
cheek, making an X.  As Kai stared at the blood dripping off Satou’s chin,
Satou tilted his head up to kiss him, sucking and biting Kai’s lips.  Kai
didn’t react.
(A boy, with long eyelashes and red eyes, sitting alone on a bench.  Reading a
book.  The books were in a different language each time.  Red eyes widened the
first time Kai sat next to him, like Kai was the most beautiful thing he’d ever
seen.  He bit his lip each time he talked to Kai about the book, about what it
meant to be a human.  When he asked for Kai’s phone number.  When he said they
were friends.)
(A girl, falling asleep in his lap as they sat in the shade under a tree,
flowers in their hair.  The whispered confession that she liked her brother
better when Kai was around too.  Falling asleep before Kai could ask her what
she meant.)
(Takeshi, lying next to him in the dark, his hands cool and light.  No urgency,
no desperation.  No pain.  Just kisses, solid and grounding, the feeling of
their tangled legs.  The words “I love you.”)
Kai screamed and recoiled like he’d been burned.  Before Satou could react, he
slid the scalpel under Satou’s clavicle, slicing cleanly through the brachial
plexus, first on the left, then the right.  Satou’s arms drooped uselessly at
his sides.  “Kai—” Satou started to say, but Kai kicked away, knocking Satou
and the chair over and landing a few feet away.  He didn’t look at Satou at
all, he just ran.  He held the scalpel so tightly his knuckles turned white. 
He was coming to the end of the hallway.  The hallway branched to the left and
right.  There was an elevator.  He could see a room with a water cooler. 
Eriko.  Where was Eriko?
“Kai, that’s enough,” Satou said, his voice rumbling in Kai’s body, and Kai
couldn’t move.  How had Satou caught up so fast?  His heart beat against his
chest like a trapped animal.  Satou’s boots clunked against the floor, his
footsteps heavy.  “You don’t get to do that, Kai.”  The vulnerability Kai
hadn’t noticed earlier in his voice was completely gone now.  This was like the
Satou Kai had heard over the phone.  The footsteps were getting closer.  “I
could just have my ghost reset me,” Satou said, “but I think I want you to do
it.  I think you want to do it, even if you’re going to keep lying and running
from me.”
Move. Move, dammit, move!  Satou must almost be close enough to touch him by
now.  “I’m going to break your legs,” Satou said calmly, his voice vibrating
through every cell in Kai’s body, “and then you’re going to reset me.  And then
I’m going to fuck you here on the floor until you feel like I’ve broken
everything else, and if we’re very lucky then Kei Nagai’s sister will come try
to save you, and I will kill her, and you’ll realize you don’t actually care,
and you’ll beg me to do it faster so I can get back to fucking you.  And then…”
he chuckled, “Well, I’m sure we won’t be bored!”
“KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAI!!!!!!!” a voice screamed, and suddenly his knees buckled
and he fell back into a…chair?  Before he realized what was happening, he was
moving down the hallway to the right.  The elevator was in front of him.  The
door was opening.  He was being pushed inside.  The doors shut behind him.  He
was sitting in a wheelchair.
After ten seconds or so, Satou’s voice abruptly released him and his whole body
collapsed.  He gulped down air and turned around.  Eriko was leaned against the
elevator door, her face flushed and sweaty.  Her eyes were closed, and despite
her evident fatigue she was breathing calmly through her nose.  “You good?” she
asked, pulling earplugs out of her ears.
Kai nodded, then realized she couldn’t see him.  “Well, I can move,” he said.
“Good,” Eriko said, “then get the fuck out of the chair.  I think I’m about to
pass out.”
***** Chapter 9 *****
Chapter Summary
     in which Eriko swears a lot
(“Isn’t it lovely, Eriko?” her mother had asked with the tone of voice that
meant she wanted Eriko to please respond pleasantly in front of all the nice
people.  Eriko looked at the pendant in her hand, a small hourglass she could
flip over every couple seconds to watch sand inevitably fall.  “It’s cheap and
tacky.”  She sneered at her mother.)
(She’d passed out after the agent had been killed by something invisible in
front of her, and she came to slowly.  She opened her eyes and saw nothing. 
She was being carried on all sides by what sounded like a voice that had been
shattered into a thousand pieces thousands of times, the shards grinding into
her eyes and skin and everywhere with the same fragmented screams.  She closed
her eyes again, and imagined she was being carried in a storm made of black
sand.  It was warm.)
(When she’d finally made it back to her room, the implications of what had just
happened still making her heart beat unsafely fast, she shook black sand that
no one else could see out of her hair and clothes.  That pendant, shoved in the
back of some drawer where she wouldn’t have to look at it, was unearthed and
emptied.  Curiously, she held it up to her ears like a seashell once she’d
refilled it with the handful of black sand, and faintly heard the same
shattered voices as before.  She couldn’t make out any of the words.)
(She hung the pendant around her neck, where it fell heavily over her heart and
pulsed faintly with her heartbeat.  It was warm.)
When Eriko came to, she quickly took stock of her surroundings, running the
usual checklist.  Location?  The elevator, sitting in a wheelchair.  Status? 
Wearing the same clothes as before, no IVs or new incisions or telemetry or
bandages or anything.  She could move all her extremities.  Other people?  Just
Kai, standing behind her.  He was saying something.  Just a second.  She maybe
said that out loud.
Time?  Probably not more than a few minutes since she’d passed out.  Not bad
considering she’d sprinted fifty feet or so with a wheelchair and a whole
fucking person inside it.  She took a deep breath, and patted her chest, where
her pendant was safely tucked under her shirt.  She thought about standing up
but quickly decided against it.
“Any injuries we need to worry about?” she asked, tipping her head back to look
at Kai and assess.
Kai looked like shit.  He was covered in shallow gashes and bruises, and his
lips were swollen and bloody enough that a thin stream of blood was running
down his chin.  His clothes were soaked with blood, and while the jeans he was
wearing were perhaps salvageable, the shirt definitely wasn’t.  But more
importantly, and worryingly, he looked like he was one sudden movement away
from a full-on panic attack.  His eyes floated around without focusing on
anything, his hands were shaking where they held the wheelchair, and though he
was obviously trying to hide it, he was probably hyperventilating.
Fuck.  This was not encouraging.  What the hell kind of shit was Kai involved
with?  And they weren’t even out of the hospital yet, and fucking Satou (who
had definitelyrecognized her in the split second she took to look at him as she
blazed past) was still loose.  Fucking figured that between the two of them,
the ambulatory one would be the one losing his shit.  She sighed and tried
again.  “Dude, you okay?”
Kai blinked slowly, then smiled a nice convincing smile.  There was the first
lie.  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said, gesturing at his bloody clothes,
“most of this isn’t even mine.  I’ll be okay.”  The second lie.
Eriko looked at him evenly.  She’d thought she hadn’t been out for long, but it
must have been for more than a couple minutes if Kai had had enough time to
construct this many layers of bullshit to hide behind.  Fuck this was
exhausting.  “I’m going to be frank with you,” she said, “we’re kind of fucked
right now.  Satou’s running around, and as you can see I’m not going to be
doing any of that for a while.  I need you to be okay, because it’s going to be
mostly on you to get us out of here.”
Kai’s smile loosened a bit, and Eriko was perhaps willing to believe it.  “I
thought you were going to protect me,” he said easily.
“What did I just fucking do?” Eriko snapped, gesturing at the wheelchair, “I
thought I was a pretty big damn hero.  It is not my problem that Satou
evidently likes to play with his food so much,” she added, daring him to
explain himself.
He didn’t bite.  “Well don’t worry, princess,” he said, leaning down to kiss
her forehead, “your knight will take it from here.”  Another layer of
bullshit.  “Actually, that’s what I came here to do anyway,” he added, “you
took me a bit for a loop when you figured out that Satou was after me,” he
admitted.
He let the question hang unsaid in the air.  Eriko smirked.  If he wasn’t going
to be cooperative, neither was she.  “I’m surprised Satou hasn’t broken into
the elevator already,” she said.
Kai narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at the ceiling.  “He’s definitely had more
than enough time,” he said, “so either he’s already figured out where we’re
going and is waiting for us there, or he’s decided to let us go.”
Eriko rolled her eyes.  “I’m voting the former.”
Kai grimaced.  “Yeah, me too.  Thing is, I don’t know where we’re going, so I
just kept us stuck between floors.  I was hoping you’d have a plan when you
woke up.”
Eriko shrugged.  “Honestly?  We still have to end up on the ground floor or
we’re trapped.  I guess we could try to get to another elevator but if Satou’s
waiting for us down there does it really matter?”
“We could try jumping?”
Oh for fuck’s sake.  “If we meet Satou again,” Eriko said, “I want at least one
of us to be able to fucking run.  Not happening.”
Kai sighed, and pushed the button for the ground floor.  “Okay, so quick and
quiet,” he said, “got it.”
The elevator opened with a ding that made Kai flinch, and then he slowly
wheeled her out.  As he stepped out of the elevator, Eriko could practically
watch him put on another layer of bullshit, schooling his face into calm and
confident poise.  His breath went silent, and she could barely even hear his
footsteps.  What a menace.  Eriko pointed in the direction they needed to go,
pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged in the chair, trying to keep her
heartrate in the safe range that wouldn’t make her pass out again.
Kai poked his head around every corner before pushing Eriko forward, presumably
checking for Satou.  Eriko trusted him to do a better job than she could, but
that he continued to not see him made her feel more and more anxious.  She had
them take a more roundabout way but there was only so much she could do.
It was around one of the final corners that Eriko saw the ghost, fighting not
to scream as Kai pushed her forward.  It was at the far end of the hallway,
mercifully looking away from them, but instead looking right at where their
exit was.  It was too far for her to see many details, but even from this
distance she could see the impossibly long tongue hanging loosely out of a
mouth filled with too many teeth.  Frantically, Eriko motioned for Kai to back
the fuck up right the fuck now, holding her breath and not daring to move until
Kai had gotten them away.
“What did you see?” he whispered lowly in her ear, and Eriko realized she was
going to have to explain herself.
“What’s this?” she asked, pulling the pendant out of her shirt and holding it
up to Kai’s face.
Kai considered it carefully.  “What does an empty hourglass have to do with
anything?” he asked.
Eriko sighed.  “It’s not empty,” she said, “it’s full of this…I dunno, black
sand, I guess.  No one else can see it.  I didn’t used to be able to see it.”
She couldn’t bear to look at him, so she turned away, squinting her eyes shut
and letting the pendant fall.  “Ajins have these monsters made of the stuff
that follow them around.  I…” she worried her lip, “I think Kei saw one when we
were kids…he said he saw a “ghost” or something.  I saw one of them in that
hallway.”
Given their current situation, Kai probably wasn’t going to have any noteworthy
kind of outburst, but Eriko was prepared for any number of incredulous
whispers.  She hadn’t really expected that he’d believe her anyway, but
hopefully he’d think she’d actually seen something that she’d mistaken for a
monster, and not that she was completely crazy like that one police officer had
thought she was.
“You can see their shadows?” Kai asked with a hushed voice and wide eyes. 
“How?”
Eriko blinked.  “What?”
“I can tell when they’re around…sort of,” Kai said, “there’s stuff to look
for.  Listen for.  Sometimes it’s almost like I can taste it in the air.  But I
can’t see them!  You can see them?”
“How the hell do you know about them?” Eriko demanded, grabbing his shoulders
with wide eyes.
They stared at each other for a moment, not saying a word.  “This changes
everything,” they said at the same time.
Eriko swept Kai into a bone-crushing hug.  It was a wet and kind of gross hug
because of the blood, but he’d already stooped down anyway, so he was basically
asking for it.  “You fucker,” she said, “I’d started wondering if I was going
crazy and you fucking knew about them anyway.”
Kai nuzzled her head.  “What can I say?” he said, his voice sounding
delighted.  After a few seconds of this, he suddenly pulled back.  “Wait,” he
said, “how did you know Satou was following me?” he asked, “did you see his
shadow back then too?”
Eriko shrugged.  “Not exactly.  I just guessed it was Satou, but your hair was
full of black sand so I knew an ajin had to be following you.”
Kai reacted oddly to this.  No fear, no surprise, no ah so that explains it
looks.  Instead, he blushed.  Quite impressively, in fact, enough to melt a few
layers of bullshit off his face.  “Err…well…Satou’s shadow likes me,” he said,
averting eye contact, “a lot, so that makes sense.”
Eriko raised an eyebrow.  “Okay, so that’s vague…”
Kai cleared his throat.  “A-anyway,” he said, “if Satou’s shadow is guarding
the door, we’re going to need to figure out how to get past it.”
Hiding something.  “Did you just say it likes you?  Maybe we can just go right
past it.”
Kai ran his fingers through his hair nervously.  “It uh, well, yes but
it…probably won’t let me go…” he mumbled.
Eriko narrowed her eyes at him.  Definitely hiding something.  “So then what
would you suggest?”
“Any other doors we could use?”
“Erm…yeah, one.”
Kai groaned.  “Okay, forget that then, Satou’s definitely waiting at the other
one, and I think we’d both rather avoid that.”
A tense silence.  Eriko didn’t really have any ideas, but she definitely would
rather deal with the ghost than with Satou.  If they could just get a weapon,
then maybe…
Thunk.  Eriko was startled out of her thoughts by Kai dropping the bag in her
lap.  “We’re just going to go for it,” he said, walking across the hall to
where a fire hose was coiled neatly in a cabinet, “yeah, this should be long
enough.”
“I thought you literally just fucking said that was a bad idea,” Eriko hissed,
crossing her arms as Kai started pushing her and dragging the fire hose along
with them.
“Definitely.  Godawful idea.  The best one we’ve got though,” Kai said,
approaching the corner, “Just be my eyes for me, okay?  I’m improvising a bit.”
“Wow, really?” Eriko grumbled as they rounded the corner, “look out, it’s dead
in front of you.”
Kai immediately turned on the fire hose, blasting the hallway in front of them
with water and completely soaking the ghost.  He pushed her forward until he
ran out of hose, before turning the water off and continuing ahead.  “Talk to
me Eriko, what’s it doing?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“It’s looking at us,” she said, “I assume.  It doesn’t have eyes.”
It was also licking its…well, it didn’t really have lips, but it was doing
whatever the moral equivalent of that was.  As they got closer, Eriko started
being able to hear it purring.  Purring?  Hell, this thing really liked Kai? 
It was shaking like a fucking puppy.
“…we told us…stay right here…don’t move…” it said, its voice shattered and
broken.
Kai froze.  “That so?” he asked.  Eriko really wanted to turn around and look
at his face, but she didn’t dare turn away from the ghost.  She didn’t strictly
need her eyes to be open to see them, but she couldn’t tell when they were
behind her.
“…come here…Kai…” it whined, straining toward them but not moving its feet.
“It’s not moving,” Eriko whispered, “but the hallway’s too fucking narrow to go
around it.”
“Right,” Kai said breathily, “I know you don’t have it in you to walk right
now, but can you push yourself forward far enough to get to the door?”
Eriko gulped.  “Kai what the fuck are you going to do?”
“Improvise,” Kai said nervously.
Shit.  “Yeah, I can push myself in the wheelchair, long as we’re not in a
hurry.”
Kai gently pushed her forward and let go of the wheelchair.  “Please don’t look
back,” he said quietly.
Yeah fucking right.  As she pushed herself forward, she heard Kai gently say,
“Hello, shadow.”
“…Kai!  …missed you…”
“…ah…but you saw me just earlier today…”
“…miss you…we’re always thinking about you…never want to let you go…”
“Shadow, you ca—mmphf!”
She’d reached the door, its handle cool on her skin.  She looked back.
Gasp.
Her heart skipped a beat.  What the hell?  Kai at least looked calm and like he
wasn’t afraid or in any pain, but…what the fuck?  What the fuck?  His feet were
dangling like wind chimes, his hands loosely holding the arms keeping him
airborne.  Arms he couldn’t even see.  Eriko had to fight the urge to cover her
eyes with her fingers.  The ghost was gently cradling him in its enormous
hands, though one of them had found its way under Kai’s shirt.  It’s tongue…
“Kai!” she shrieked, and Kai’s eyes flickered toward her.  Oh…that’s why he’d
told her not to look back.
The ghost slid its tongue further down Kai’s throat.  “…don’t look at her…” it
said, “…don’t look at anyone but us…”
Eriko couldn’t look away.  She couldn’t move.  She could barely remember to
breathe the right way to keep her heart from going haywire.  Passing out right
now was not a fucking option.
The ghost gently pressed Kai against the wall and pulled its tongue out of his
mouth, starting to mouth at his throat.  “…remember, no teeth…” Kai said
weakly.  The fuck?  How many times had this happened?
Slowly, carefully, Kai brought his hands up to the sides of the ghost’s face,
and leaned forward to butt heads.  “Shadow, I need to go now,” he said,
squirming slightly as its tongue darted out to lick his fingers.
Kai’s mouth looked even more red and swollen then before.  Had that been what
he and Satou…Eriko’s eyes bugged out.  What the hell kind of shit had Kai
gotten himself into?
“…so…beautiful…like this…”
“Hey!  You!” Eriko shouted.
The ghost turned its head sharply toward her, its many many teeth catching the
light.  “…go away…” it said sullenly.
“Put Kai down,” she said more confidently than she felt.
“No.”
So much for that.  Eriko ran her tongue over her teeth, feeling a piece of the
cockroach still stuck in there.  Huh.  She wiggled it out with her tongue and
swallowed it.  She shifted in the chair uncomfortably…ever since hugging Kai
her clothes felt wet and sticky with blood.  Not that it mattered with this
fucking ghost here.  Fucking brat…it was worse than the little kids that ran
around in her ward when she was trying to…hmmm…
“Let’s play a game!” she said, and though it didn’t have ears she could
definitely see the thing perk up.
“Game?”
She put the bag on the floor.  Gritting her teeth, she pushed herself up.  You
can fucking walk, she told herself.  “Yeah!” she said, “let’s play Kagome
Kagome.”
Kai looked at her curiously.  “I don’t think the shadow knows how to play that,
Eriko,” he said.
“It’s simple.  Ghosty, you’ll be the oni.  Kai and I will walk around you and
sing a song, and when it’s done you have to guess who’s behind you.  If you
win, Kai stays.  If you lose, then you let him go.”
The ghost’s hands tightened possessively around Kai, and Kai gasped in
surprise.  Eriko clenched her fists.  “Whatssa matter, afraid you’ll lose?”
The ghost snarled at her.  “…never…lose…”
Eriko grinned.  “There ya go.  Now put Kai down so we can play.  He promises he
won’t run away.”
The ghost’s head snapped back to Kai, as if looking for confirmation.  After a
moment of silence, Kai smiled weakly.  “When have I ever run from you?”
The ghost made a happy noise, nuzzling at Kai’s mouth, before gently setting
him down.  Wobbly on his feet, Kai clutched at the ghost for a second before he
regained his balance, taking a few hesitant steps toward Eriko.  “There’s no
point in running,” he whispered, “we could never outrun it.”
Eriko hugged him, then took one of his hands.  “I plan to win.”
Kai looked at the ghost nervously, and nodded.  “Make sure you don’t peek,” he
said to the ghost, “I hate people who win by cheating.”
An anguished sound, and the ghost covered its face with its hands.  It almost
looked cute like this.  Eriko and Kai walked up to it and circled their arms
around it, linking their hands and closing the circle.  They were very close to
it.  How good were this thing’s senses?  Would it be able to tell their
heartbeats apart?  Eriko gripped Kai’s hands tightly to try to hide her
nerves.  “You still know the song, right?” she asked him.
“More or less.  You going to be okay?”
Her head felt faint.  She’d have to make it.  They were so close.  “Let’s just
get this over with.”
Kai nodded, and started walking.
“Kagome kagome. Kago no naka no tori wa. Itsu itsu deyaru. Yoake no ban ni.
Tsuru to kame ga subetta.”
The ghost didn’t move.  Eriko tugged at Kai’s hand and slowed their pace a
bit.  “Ushiro no shoumen daare."  They’d finished, with Eriko right behind the
ghost, and Kai in front.
Keeping its face covered, the ghost turned its head toward Eriko and sniffed
the air, sticking its tongue out like a snake.  For an agonizingly long time
that was probably only like five seconds or something, there was nothing. 
Silence.  Then the ghost made a happy noise, and cried, “Kai!” lunging toward
Eriko and uncovering its face.
Silence.  Eriko hesitantly grinned.  “I smelled like him, didn’t I?” she asked,
looking down at her bloody shirt, “You lose.”
Suddenly she was airborne, held level with the ghost’s wide-open and screaming
mouth.  Spit flew into her face.  “…LET KAI GO…LET KAI GO!” it shrieked, “…LET
KAI GO…NOT YOU…you tricked us…we’ll never letyougo!”
When faced with a mouth full of teeth, so big that your whole head could fit
inside it, there was really only one thing to do.  Eriko screamed, holding her
hands uselessly in front of her face.  And then she was the only one
screaming.  Kai had stood up on tiptoes and was gently kissing the ghost with
lowered eyes.  “Shadow, you promised her,” he said when his mouth didn’t have a
tongue in it anymore, “you said you’d play a game with her and she won.”
Abruptly, the ghost dropped Eriko to the ground and wrapped its arms around
Kai, making a fragmented noise like a sob.  “…don’t leave us, Kai…” it begged,
resting its head on Kai’s shoulder.
Kai stepped away and extended a hand to Eriko, leading her back to the
wheelchair.  He looked at the ghost solemnly.  “Shadow,” he said, “didn’t you
say you’d do anything for me?”
Eriko watched it with wide eyes as it nodded emphatically.  “…of course…love
Kai…”
Kai put his hands firmly on Eriko’s shoulders.  “Do you see this girl?” he
asked, “this is Eriko.”
“…Eriko…”
Hearing the thing say her name made Eriko jump.  The pendant of black sand felt
unusually warm against her skin.
“Promise me that you’ll never hurt her like that again,” Kai said firmly, “that
you’ll protect her, and keep her safe.”
The pendant was pulsing hot now.  Eriko pulled it out to look at it and gasped
to see all of the grains of sand, usually motionless, flying around inside the
hourglass like gnats, like they were trying to escape.  “Promise me, shadow,”
Kai insisted.
The ghost sagged, looking down at the floor.  “…promise…”
“Good!” Kai said, “Maybe one day you’ll love her like you love me.”
The ghost shook its head emphatically.  “Never!” it cried, “…never like Kai…”
Eriko looked up at Kai’s face, which was blank, like for a second he’d
forgotten to emote.  “That…well…” he stammered, “I’ll…see you next time, okay? 
We’ll have lots of fun then.  Promise.”
The pendant had cooled down, but was still pulsing warmer than usual.  Eriko
closed her hand around it protectively, and looked over her shoulder at the
ghost as Kai pushed her out the door.  The ghost was crying, loudly enough that
she could hear it even after the door slammed shut behind them.
Oddly enough, when she held her pendant up to her ear, it almost sounded like
the voices in it were crying too.
***** Chapter 10 *****
Chapter Summary
     4k words of nonsense xD
“I love it!” Eriko said with false cheer, holding up the least distasteful of
the discount-store t-shirts Kai had apparently accumulated during his travels. 
At least the pants seemed normal enough, if too big for her.  The t-shirt was
too big too but that hardly mattered with t-shirts.
“Is all to your satisfaction, princess?” Kai asked wearily, shoving a hand into
the bag to grab a shirt at random.
“I’d like to get out of these bloody-ass clothes,” Eriko said, “but I’d say you
get first dibs on changing.  Though really what you need is a fucking shower…”
Alas, but the public bathroom Kai had wheeled them to was not in possession of
a shower.  Upon entering, Kai had promptly gone over to one of the sinks and
held his head under the flow of water, which ran red for a couple minutes
before finally going mostly clear.  It wasn’t much, but it definitely helped
make Kai look a tiny bit less like he was on the run from a crime scene.  When
Kai peeled the bloody shirt off his skin, Eriko winced.  She’d seen the bruises
on his throat, and his abused mouth, but the bruises and bitemarks on his torso
were another matter entirely.  Of particular note was a long curving line of
toothmarks running along his left side…not human, but maybe Satou’s ghost? 
Also a cluster of bruises and bites around his…nipples.
“Okay you kinky fuck,” she said as Kai was attempting to splash water on his
bloody skin, “are you going to tell me what the hell’s going on between you and
Satou?”
Kai blinked owlishly at her, water dripping from his hair into his eyes.  Eriko
could see him briefly consider lying to her, before he lowered his eyes and
shook his head.  “I don’t really want to talk about it,” he said softly,
pulling the clean shirt on.  Ah, too bad.
Eriko sighed.  “I appreciate your honesty,” she said solemnly, “But whatever
reason you have for not telling me, get the fuck over it.  I’ve seen you
literally deepthroat a fucking monster…there can be no secrets between us.”
Kai’s face turned red at that, and he abruptly turned around to face the wall. 
“Hurry up and change,” he said quickly, “I want to get out of here before
someone finds us.”
“Keh. Whatever.”
Eriko vindictively ripped her shirt open, buttons flying all over the fucking
place.  Faster, and she fucking hated the thing anyway.  She threw it on the
floor by Kai’s bloody shirt and glanced down at her chest, noting with relief
that while all the familiar surgery scars were still there, there was no blood
to speak of on her skin, nor anything new she’d need to worry about.  She
slipped on her ugly-ass new t-shirt, which won a couple points with her for
being really soft.
Wearing jeans was a nice change of pace as well, though she was stuck with the
hospital slippers until they could make some kind of stop at a store to acquire
another pair of shoes.  Alas.  “So,” she said briskly, wheeling herself closer
to Kai, “what’s the plan now?”
“Get you somewhere safe,” Kai said, “I’ll leave a trail so Satou will hopefully
follow me out of here and leave you alone.”
Fucking what?  Eriko locked the wheels of her wheelchair and glared at his
back.  “Are you saying you’re going to fucking leave me behind?  To sit on my
ass while you’re running around in some S&M roadshow?!”
“Eriko, be reasonable, I can’t take you with me, you’re—”
Eriko gripped the armrests of her wheelchair so tightly her knuckles turned
white.  “Say that to my face, asshole!” she screamed, lifting her legs up to
kick Kai into the wall, noting with satisfaction the loud crack as Kai’s head
hit the wall.
Kai whirled around angrily and Eriko fucking dared him with her eyes to try
intimidating her with some bullshit show of force.  “Aaaaaaargh, really,
Eri?!?!” Kai snapped, pulling at his hair in frustration, “am I not banged up
enough already?”
Eriko didn’t cry.  Hearing Kai say that nickname again after so many years made
her almost want to.  But Eriko never cried.
Whatever anger was in her defused almost instantaneously, and she leaned
forward to tug at the hem of his shirt, her hand feeling much smaller than it
actually was. “Are you going to abandon me again?” she asked quietly, not
meeting his eyes.
Four breaths.  “Shit,” she heard Kai whisper, and his arms were suddenly around
her.  “That’s not playing fair, Eri,” he said into her hair, tears making it
wet.  Eriko recognized that this was probably supposed to be comforting, but
right now she just felt numb and miserable.
She hugged her knees to her chest.  “Whatever,” she said, “I don’t fucking
care.”
The pendant around her neck felt cold.
Eriko refused to speak after that, trying her best to not even emote in
response to anything Kai said to her.  As he pushed her along, she glanced
around without really taking in anything she was seeing.  Streetlights,
streets, cars, people, less people, no cars, no people.  Suddenly Kai stopped,
and Eriko looked around apathetically.  No cars, no people.  Poorly lit streets
and buildings she’d only seen from a distance.  Her heart started beating
faster.  They were in the part of town her mother, her teachers, her neighbors,
everyone, had warned her never to come to.
There was no air in her throat.  She couldn’t say anything.  “Before we go any
further,” Kai said, “I want you to know that no matter how things seem, you’re
perfectly safe.  Safer than you might be anywhere else in Japan.”
Suddenly she had air again.  “Why, because you’re protecting me?” Eriko
snarled, grinding her teeth.  A van was driving toward them.
Kai sighed, and kept pushing her forward.  “No.  It’s because I’m notthe one
protecting you anymore.”
Almost as if on cue, she felt something yank Kai away, but before she could
turn to see what had happened she found herself unable to see.  They’d fucking
put a sack over her head.  She kicked and screamed but restraining hands were
everywhere, and over the noise of the struggle she could hear Kai’s voice,
soothing her with assurances that were pretty fucking hard to believe at the
moment!!
She was bound, and she heard car doors opening.  Probably that van.  Super.  At
least she got to be conscious for this kidnapping.  She relaxed her head back
and focused on her breathing, letting her eyes close naturally and feeling her
heartrate slow.  And then she saw something, far, and off to the side, but
looking straight at her.  Ghosts were less distinct to her when she had her
eyes closed, but she’d learned that she didn’t see them with her eyes.
After a moment, the ghost vanished from her sight, and there was nothing but
darkness.
And then, a surprisingly short time later, there was light again, luckily dim
but still bright enough to give her a headache.  Now to figure out where the
fuck she was.  The room was big, filled with art and other indicators of
wealth, but no windows.  While there were parts of the room that were
insufficiently lit for Eriko to see more than vague shadowy figures, there were
twenty or so men that Eriko could see, with a handful of women as well, along
the edges of the room and staring at her and Kai intently.  Kai.  Kai was next
to her, though they hadn’t taken the sack off of his head.
On the far end of the room, a woman sat sprawled in a large chair, her golden
eyes striking even from the distance and behind glasses.  Her sleeves were long
and her neckline was high, leaving almost none of her skin visible.  Another
woman, taller, stood ramrod straight next to her, her arms folded neatly behind
her back.  Eriko swallowed.  Don’t be scared, there’s nothing to be afraid of. 
Right.
“Is this really necessary?” Kai grumbled, his voice muffled from the bag.  A
gesture from the woman, and a man came to take the bag off his head.  Eriko
glanced nervously at him, but more than anything Kai just looked fucking
pissed.  Oddly enough, this was soothing.
“Strangers coming unannounced are all met with equal suspicion,” the woman said
coolly.
Eriko noticed that the tall woman looked faintly exasperated.  Kai groaned.  “I
was afraid something like this would happen, but really?  Really?  I’m not some
stranger!”
“You made it perfectly clear that you wanted nothing to do with us when you
came of age,” the woman said, her voice like ice, “I am merely attempting to
honor your wishes, as is only right.”
“Not wanting to be a member of the yakuza is hardly the same as—”
“Why have you come here, Kai?  Why have you brought Kei Nagai’s younger
sister?”
“I have a fucking name, you know!” Eriko snapped, before blanching and clamping
her mouth shut.  The tall woman quirked a smile.  The woman in the chair didn’t
even look at her.
“Maybe I don’t want to talk about this while I’m tied up!  While Eriko’s tied
up!  In a room full of your goons!”
Suddenly Eriko’s eyes widened, and she fought very hard to not make a sound. 
One of the shadowy figures had started walking toward them, though when it
entered the light it didn’t become any less dark.  It had too many legs.  Its
head was wrong, with insect-like mandibles instead of a mouth.  As if it
noticed her staring at it, it turned sharply toward her, chittering quietly. 
No one else seemed to notice it.
At least it wasn’t Satou’s ghost.
“Miss Nagai is no doubt exhausted,” the tall woman said smoothly, putting a
hand on the seated woman’s shoulder, “perhaps I can escort her to somewhere
more comfortable while you and Kai continue your discussion?”
“Quit playing good cop, Megumi,” Kai snapped, “I’m never going to like you.”
Megumi sighed, and patted the seated woman’s shoulder sympathetically.  “Have
fun, Yuuki,” she said, stepping away from the chair and walking toward Eriko. 
The ghost hadn’t gotten any closer, but continued watching her.
Eriko frantically looked at Kai.  “Don’t make me go with her!” she whispered.
Kai looked at her for a moment, then smiled fondly.  “It’s okay.  You’ll be
safe with her.  Honestly, you don’t really want to be here for the family
drama.”
For a moment Eriko forgot about the ghost in the room.  “Family drama?” she
asked.
Kai blinked.  “Oh yeah,” he said, inclining his head toward Yuuki, the woman in
the chair.  “That’s my mom.”
Before Eriko could process that information, her bonds were cut, and Megumi was
smoothly wheeling her out of the room.  From this angle, Eriko could see that
the ghost had long, praying-mantis-like arms, serrated and sharp-looking. 
Eriko opened her mouth to say something, but then Megumi leaned in and murmured
in her ear, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” and Eriko couldn’t move.
The door closed behind them, and any chance of warning Kai vanished.  Megumi
pushed her along down a hallway until abruptly Eriko could move her body
again.  She whirled around and glared at Megumi’s glittering red eyes.  “What
are you going to do to me?” she demanded.
Megumi smiled, the skin around her eyes wrinkling.  “I’m going to get you a cup
of tea,” she said, “and ask how you can see my ghost.  I was certain that you
were an ajin like your brother, but you felt my voice…”
Eriko bared her teeth.  “I’m not telling you anything!” she said, “you probably
work for Satou, don’t you?”
The look of disgust Megumi gave her rivaled one of her own.  “I would never
follow a madman like Satou,” Megumi said calmly, “I believe in the value of
life, and refuse to allow suffering.”
“I’m suffering just from listening to you,” Eriko grumbled, looking away.
Megumi chuckled.  “You don’t have much self-preservation, do you?”
They’d entered another room, one that did have windows, which overlooked a
small garden.  “Would you prefer to stay in your wheelchair, or would you like
me to help you to the floor?” Megumi asked.
Fucker.  Obstinately, Eriko slammed her hands against the armrests and pushed
herself out of the wheelchair, walking over to the small table in the middle of
the room and kneeling down on the floor.  “Well?” she asked, “where’s the
fucking tea?”
Megumi smiled.  “Wait here,” she said, leaving the room.
Eriko glanced around the room and drummed her fingers on the table.  Kai had
promised this place was safe.  What the fuck, Kai?  The plan was to dump her
off at his estranged(?) mom’s fucking yakuza base?  Brilliant, absolutely
brilliant.
“You saw me,” a distorted voice said, and Eriko screamed and whirled around. 
The ghost, its mandibles clicking, was standing in the doorway.  It lowered its
head and shifted its weight.  “May I come in?”
Eriko narrowed her eyes at it.  “You talk different…like you’re a person.”
“Thank you!”
It hovered in the doorway, looking oddly…fretful.  Eriko rolled her eyes. 
“Whatever.  I don’t fucking care.  Make yourself at fucking home.”
The ghost skittered across the floor, kneeling at the table in front of her. 
Even on its knees, it towered over her.  Eriko found herself fidgeting with her
pendant.  The ghost cocked its head.  “Ah, that’s the voice I’ve been hearing,”
it said, “I was wondering.”  It paused.  “He sounds sad.  Perhaps you should
try talking to him?”
It started, then turned its head away almost bashfully.  “Pardon me for
staring…I just find you incredible.  I’ve never talked to someone who wasn’t an
ajin before.”
“I’ve never talked to a ghost before.  Well…” That wasn’t quite true, but there
was something fundamentally different about talking with this ghost versus
Satou’s ghost.
“Of course!  I have been blessed to have been treated as a sister ever since I
first woke up, and over the years I have become my own self,” it said proudly.
Wind blew in through the open window.  Eriko shivered.  Across the small garden
she could see a light in another window, Kai and his mother sitting near each
other, drinking and talking.  It was cold.  Without thinking, she got up and
moved to the other side of the table, leaning into the ghost.  It was warm, and
pulsed like a heartbeat she could feel even through her clothes.
The ghost sighed.  “You want him to take you with him.”
Eriko nodded.
“But you think he has no reason to.”
She gritted her teeth and refused to acknowledge that.  The ghost made a soft
chittering sound.  “You do not realize what an extraordinary gift you have.”
Surprised, Eriko looked up at the ghost’s face, which despite its lack of eyes
was facing directly toward her.  It was dissolving around the edges.  “What are
you?” she asked.
Mandibles couldn’t smile, but Eriko still got the feeling the ghost was smiling
anyway.  “Imagine a cup,” it said, “broken over and over and over again.  Each
time one or two pieces is set aside.  Glue all those pieces together to make a
pitcher.”
Eriko rolled her eyes and looked away, crossing her arms.  “Fucking figures,”
she muttered, blowing hair out of her face.  The air was getting full of black
sand.  It made her eyes sting.
“You are changing the subject.  I understand.  But you have forgotten something
important.”
“And I suppose you’re going to fucking tell me what it is.”
“Satou is dangerous,” said the ghost, “Your friend is playing a very dangerous
game.  He is already starting to lose himself…”
Eriko scowled and hugged her knees, counting lines in the floorboards.  “He
doesn’t want my help,” she snarled.
“You must persuade him.  He will self-annihilate on the path he is on.”
Balling her fists, Eriko stood up, her head almost level with the kneeling
ghost.  “The fuck you expect me to do, bugaboo?” she spat, “The fuck can any of
us do?  Satou’s going to kill everyone he can, until all that’s left is the
people smart enough to hide from him.”
The ghost lowered its head.  “You are afraid because you believe you are
small.  Because youaresmall.”
Eriko narrowed her eyes.  “Get the fuck out of here.”
“You are!  You’re so small…I…” the ghost trailed off, its mandibles clicking,
“I feel strange.  Since talking to you.  Almost as though…you’re the reason I
exist…”
Well fuck this shit.  “Nope, nope, nope nope,” Eriko said, walking out of the
room, “I’m not getting involved with any kinky shit.”
As she left, she bumped into Megumi carrying a tray.  She grabbed a sweet from
off the tray and crammed it in her mouth, ignoring Megumi as she walked away. 
As she went around a corner, she could hear Megumi saying, “Miya, what did you
do?!?”
As Eriko walked without looking where she was going, her mind kept taking her
back to the image of Kai helplessly dangling in Satou’s ghost’s arms…of Kai
frozen with fear as Satou slowly stalked toward him.  Kai baring his throat to
a monster he couldn’t even see.
We have to find Kei.  Eriko realized this with a jolt and accepted it with a
disgusted expression.  She couldn’t inspire a sense of self-preservation in
Kai…but Kei maybe could, even as emotionally repressed and twisted up he was. 
He had to be better than some kind of messed up collision course with
motherfucking Satou.
“Mom, you don’t understand, this is the only way I can protect him!”
Eriko blinked.  Kai?  Without realizing it, her feet must have taken her to the
room where Kai and his mother were talking, only a door separating them. 
Didn’t seem like the conversation was going well…
“I’m not letting you throw yourself to a wolf like Satou!”  Yep.  Definitely
not going well.
“Mom, calm down.  The worst he can to do me is just kill me!”
Okay enough was enough.  “Kai, what the actual fuck?!” Eriko demanded, bursting
into the room, “Ugh, it reeks of sake in here.  But what the fuck.  What the
fuck?  Since when are you throwing your life around like a five yen coin?”
Kai, to his credit, barely even seemed surprised that Eriko was in the room. 
His mother seemed equally unsurprised, though she had also donned the cool and
unaffected persona she’d worn earlier, the one that betrayed no sign of her
emotional outburst just moments before.  Kai however merely snapped, “If it’s
for someone I love, I’d give up my life every time!”
Sensing that this could take a while, Eriko decided to sit down on the floor. 
“Sure, cuz Kei’s totally gonna be thrilled when that happens.”
Kai flushed angrily.  “Kei left me behind!  He doesn’t care if I die!”
“Then don’t go dying for him, dipshit!”
“Kai,” his mother interjected coolly, “How many times must we repeat this
conversation?  That boy has only strung you along and taken advantage when he
needed you.  As soon as he deemed you useless to him, he discarded you.”
Kai’s eyes narrowed to deadly slits.  “Oh, like you’re any better?”
A flash of emotion, quickly stifled.  “I never discarded you.”
“I dunno Mom, I’m feeling pretty discarded.  You didn’t even give me a phone
number…the only family member I’ve talked to since then is Grandfather.”
Eriko sighed, and put one hand on each of their shoulders.  “I sense great
emotional turmoil within you,” she said sagely, “But I don’t particularly give
a fuck.  Kai, I don’t want you to die.  I don’t want Satou to keep fucking shit
up.  I would like us to find a solution that encompasses both of these
desires.”
Yuuki took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose.  “A literal army
couldn’t bring down Satou,” she said.
“Which is why my idea is the only one that can work,” Kai said, “If I can keep
him distracted by chasing me, then—”
“And what will you do when he finally catches you?”
“Babes,” Eriko interjected, “you’re both wrong.  The question isn’t, “what can
we do to beat a fucker like Satou if an army won’t do it?”  It’s, “what kind of
army can beat a fucker like Satou?””
The pendant pulsed warm around her neck.  It seemed…pleased?  Eriko pressed
on.  “Picture this.  An army of motherfucking ghosts.  That’d beat even a
fucker like Satou.”
Yuuki looked at her somberly.  “Perhaps, but ajins are too suspicious to ever
be united under a human banner.  The price of capture is too great to inspire
them to anything.”
(You do not realize what an extraordinary gift you have.)
“I’m Kei Nagai’s sister.  I can see ghosts.  I will inspire them to trust me.”
Immediately, it occurred to her that it was possible that Yuuki didn’t know
that Megumi was an ajin.  Then again, maybe she knew about ghosts anyway?  She
was some big yakuza boss…weren’t they supposed to know these things??  She had
a tongue piercing, noticeable now that Eriko was so close.  Weren’t people with
tongue piercings supposed to know things?
“Is that what you want?” Yuuki asked.
Eriko panicked.  “Did I fucking stutter?!” she demanded, blanching when she
realized she cussed at a motherfucking yakuza boss two times now tonight.
But Yuuki only laughed.  “Alright,” she said, “I think you’re fucking nuts, but
I can give you maybe one starting point.  I know the government keeps tabs on
possible ajins, folks with sketchy medical history or unreliable witness
testimony, that kind of deal.  Basically, monitoring for if anything else
happens that could be confirmation.  That list might be a good place to start.”
“Right.  I’ll just pull up WikiLeaks then.”
Yuuki slung her arm amicably around Eriko’s shoulder.  “No need, I got a buddy
in the business.  I mean, he’s a fucker, and I hate his guts, but technically
due to family bullshit we’re still buddies.  He’s one of the scientists that
works at the lab your brother broke out of…Dr. Yuji Kishi.  Awful human being. 
He’s probably got that info though.”
“Now hold up a second!” Kai sputtered, “You can’t just send Eriko to a place
that dangerous!”
Yuuki shrugged.  “I’m not going to fucking lock her up,” she said, “And
besides, it’s not like he’s some kind of drug lord or mercenary…he’s just a
lily-livered scientist.  She could probably scare him just with the power of
her eyebrows.  Although…” she mused, “He is on Satou’s kill list…” she trailed
off, smirking.
Kai gritted his teeth, and Eriko wanted to laugh.  “Don’t worry, Kai,” she
said, “Go do whatever you need to do.  I’ll be fine on my own.”
Kai slumped down until his head was face-down on the table.  “Bringing you here
was a mistaaaaaaaake,” he groaned.
They’d kept talking after that, Yuuki sharing embarrassing childhood stories
about Kai, and Eriko retorting with her own.  At some point, they started
drinking sake again, which was disgusting but Eriko was in the mood for it
anyway.  The room started to get warm, and Yuuki loosened her austere clothing
just enough that Eriko started to see glimpses of her enormous tattoos, which
naturally made her pull up her shirt to show Yuuki her gnarly surgery scars,
which Yuuki was properly impressed by.
Megumi joined them eventually, sitting as far away from Kai and as close to
Yuuki as possible.  Kai glared at her but didn’t say anything rude.  Eriko
wanted to explain to Megumi the story of how she’d been inside a ghost and its
voices had gone into her eyes and her brain and when she’d woken up again she
could see the black sand.  She started telling the story, but realized that at
some point Megumi had ended up in Yuuki’s lap and was kissing her, and Kai was
very very quickly leading Eriko out of the room.
“They’ve been in love since they were teenagers or something,” Kai said, “and
now that they finally don’t give a fuck they just act like teenagers all the
time.”
“You’re a teenager,” Eriko retorted.
“Doesn’t mean I want my mom acting like one.”
Having grown up with no father, and a mother who could have been upgraded by
swapping her out with a rumba, Eriko found that she didn’t mind, and would have
rather had a mom that acted like a teenager than a mother who didn’t act like
much of anything at all.
Kai brought her to a room, telling her she could sleep there, and begging her
to please reconsider her crazy idea.  Fuck that.  Kai had no room to negotiate
when his plan involved kinky shit with a motherfucking monster and its ghost. 
Alone in the room, Eriko told as much to the pendant around her neck.  The
voices seemed a little quieter and easier to understand.  She got the sense
that they were nervous, but liked this plan.  She could agree.
***** Chapter 11 *****
Chapter Summary
     in which canon slowly starts to be thrown out the window
(“Hey, wouldn’t it be fun to go to an island where no one knows who you are?”)
(Red eyes, surprised, blinking up at him.  “Why are you talking to me?”)
(“Because you look like you’re past that part by now.”)
(Setting the book down gently on the bench.  A curious expression on his face.
“…not if I had to fall into the sea first.”)
 
 
(A gun in his hands, then a knife when he ran out of bullets, then his hands
and teeth when the knife edge went dull.  Blood and bodies raining down in an
everlasting manic moment.  A flickering candle.  Satou’s eyes on him, hooded
and pleased as he stroked himself.  The blood was falling on the candle.  It
was going to…)
 
 
Kai opened his eyes blearily, then awoke with a start as he noticed the
ceiling.  The glow-in-the-dark stars, the smiley face scribble in crayon, the
bullet hole…all weighed down on him with a nostalgia he didn’t quite know what
to do with.  He settled for getting up.  The dresser was full of clean clothes,
but it had been long enough that everything in it was just a little bit too
small for him.  The books were exactly where he’d left them.  Even the one Kei
had given him long ago.
His bare feet padded down the hall and carried him unthinkingly to his mother’s
room to wake her up.  She slept sprawled over her bed, loose-limbed and
snoring.  He sighed in relief.  Megumi wasn’t there.  Grinning, he threw
himself over her, giggling when she awoke with a squawk.  A moment later, he
was in a familiar chokehold, one of his legs trapped between his and her
shoulders.  He winced.  Painful, but not unbearably so.
“Still can’t beat your mama, can ya?”
Kai rolled his eyes.  “This is hardly a fight.”  He rolled forward
nonchalantly, sending his mom flying off the bed and landing with a thump on
the floor.
He hung upside-down off the bed and grinned at her.  She grinned back.  “If
you’re playing dirty then so am I,” she said.
“Like last night wasn’t playing dirty,” he retorted, “you and Erikoganged up on
me.”
“No one’s stopping you from self-destructing,” she said, “just your own sense
of compassion.”
Kai groaned.  “Moooooom, I can handle myself.  I’ve been doing fine.  All I
wanted was for you to help Eriko, not start butting into my shit.”
His mom didn’t stop grinning, but her eyes suddenly got extremely sad.  She
reached forward and gently touched his bruised throat, before drifting to cup
his cheek.  She looked like she wanted to say something, but after staring at
him for a moment she just sighed and yanked him down into a hug.  “Why’d you
have to go and grow up on me?” she said into his hair.
“Yeah…what’s up with that?  Certainly wasn’t your doing.”
“Mmmm…must’ve been your stepmama.”
Kai narrowed his eyes.  “Absence hasn’t made the heart grow fonder, Mom, I
still refuse to acknowledge her as family.”
His mom stood up and stretched, joints popping.  “I acknowledge and respect
that,” she said breezily, “but she’s still family to me.  Now then!” she added,
walking out of the room, “Let’s go see what she and Eriko are up to…”
What they were up to, it turned out, was playing dress-up.  Hospital slippers
no more, Eriko was now wearing combat boots, along with jeans and a shirt that
actually fit her (hot pink, with flowers).  She’d swapped out the pigtail
braids for a high ponytail.  And also…
“A leather jacket, Eri?” he asked weakly.  It had spikes on the collar.
She looked back at him and grinned wickedly.  “Ya think I should start wearing
a mask too?”
He supposed it was a good thing that she was getting along with Megumi.  If he
needed to bring her back here, she’d have a friend.  Then again, his mom would
probably just enable her to go do some other dangerous thing he’d have to tag
along on if he tried bringing her here again.
Trying to explain to his mother that Eriko was young, and hadn’t been raised to
know how to handle dangerous situations like he had, and also had a heart
condition, was like talking to a brick wall.  He knew a fight he couldn’t win
when he saw one.
Still, as he drove the motorcycle his mother gave him down to the very facility
that had held Kei captive (that had held Tanaka captive), he wondered why he
was actually doing this, instead of just passing by and driving until he ran
out of gas and Eriko was literally anywhere else.  Eriko’s arms tightened
around his waist and he sighed.  He’d never been able to bring himself to lie
to her, and what would that be if not lying?
You want to punish him.  He hurt Kei.
Kai shook his head.  They were going to go in and talk to Dr. Kishi, and then
they were going to leave, and Eriko wasn’t going to be exposed to anything like
that.
The guards at the front laughed at them, but Kai and Eriko were expected. 
Chastised, the guards let them in, and at last they were there.  Kai could feel
so many eyes on them that the feeling faded into the background, but he could
tell that Eriko was starting to get anxious.  He gritted his teeth.  Even with
the wardrobe change, Eriko was probably still recognizable to at least some of
the people here.  It was also not impossible that someone there knew Kai not
just as his mother’s son, but as Kei’s friend.
“We’re both humans,” Eriko mumbled to him, “They can’t touch us or they’re
fucked.  We’re okay.”
He looked quizzically at her.  Why was she comforting him?  She rolled her
eyes.  “You’re hyperventilating, dude.  Chill.  I’ve got a leather jacket.”
They got in an elevator, and Kai had a staring contest with the security camera
in the corner.  After a moment’s thought, he grinned and flashed a wink at it. 
It wouldn’t do for anyone watching to think that he might possibly be nervous. 
The elevator stopped, and they stepped out, walking down a hallway until they
reached the door to Dr. Kishi’s lab.  Kai paused.
Kai had seen a lot in his life.  He’d seen dead bodies, and the insides of dead
bodies.  He’d seen bodies that had been dead for a long time.  He’d seen people
being tortured.  Whatever was waiting for them in Dr. Kishi’s lab, he was sure
he could take it.
He reached into his bag and put on Satou’s hat.  It made him feel intimidating.
The door opened, Kai fought back the urge to puke.  Eriko whistled.
The first thing he noticed was the bones, arranged in skeletons of varying
completion.  Many of them had skulls.  They swung ominously from mounted
stands, some as high as the ceiling, some low enough he could make eye contact
with them.  The only light in the room came from countless monitors and TV
screens, casting strange and eerie shadows through the bones.  Around them were
jars filled with organs, some fully intact and others…not.  In a daze, he
walked up to one, a heart that looked like if he pulled away at one end it
would unravel into a ribbon.
The jar was labeled 003, along with a date.  The same day that Kei had
abandoned him.  Was this Kei’s heart?  His hand was pressed against the glass
before he realized it, as though his touch could make it come alive and start
beating again.
An old man was sitting at a desk in the middle of the room, looking into a
microscope.  The monitor nearest him was playing a video of three men torturing
what could only be an ajin.  An operating table lay just beyond.  At the man’s
side was a jar filled with teeth. Kai reached for Eriko’s hand absently.
“Yo doc, greet people that come to see you,” Eriko said as Kai grasped at the
empty space Eriko’s hand had only just been occupying.
The old man looked up, and slowly turned around so he was facing them.  He
scowled.  “So the brats are here,” he said.
“None of us are happy about that, so just give us the info we want and we’ll
go,” Eriko said.
“Ah. Yes. The candidates.  Right this way.” He stood up and started walking
toward a computer in the corner of the room, labcoat flaring.
Kai’s eyes drifted over the monitors lining the walls, numbly taking in the
footage of humans torturing ajins on every single one.  Tanaka or Kei.  How
many deaths were on the hands of the people who worked here?  How many screams
had they muffled like they’d muffled their consciences?  How—he blinked.  His
hands hurt.  He’d clenched his fists so tightly that he’d left crescent indents
on his palms.  Dr. Kishi was saying something.
“…comparative studies on their cellular makeup and their patterns of
regeneration, but 002 and 003 aren’t very good matches.”
“Uh huh, okay, fascinating.  Does this thing go any faster?”
Click.
“You young people are so impatient.  We have a very large database of
candidates, and new information is being added all the time which modifies how
they’re ranked.”
Kai glanced at the closed door uneasily, but the computer screen kept his
attention as it finally began to display something.  “This will display all
candidates.  The higher up a candidate is, the likelier it is that they are an
ajin, and the higher surveillance they are under.  We’ll start with number
one.  Ah, here we are.”
Kai felt like his heart had stopped.  There, on the screen, was a picture not
of someone he’d never met, but a frighteningly familiar face.
Nagai, Eriko.
He was suddenly aware of how much junk was in the way between himself and
Eriko, and how close Dr. Kishi was to her.  Swearing, he fought his way around
boxes and skeletons as Dr. Kishi shoved Eriko backwards onto the operating
table, strapping her down before she had a chance to put up a fight.  “FUCKER!”
she screamed, straining at the bonds before suddenly blanching and going still,
her breath becoming slow and deep.  She was trying not to faint.
“Don’t go getting any funny ideas, boy,” Dr. Kishi suddenly said, holding up a
gun and pointing it at Kai, “I want you on the floor with your hands in the
air.”
“You sick fuck!  We’re humans, you can’t do this!” Eriko said, eyes glued to
the gun.
“A criminal and an ajin candidate?  I can do what I please,” Dr. Kishi said,
his eyes wide and manic, “Even if you haven’t had a confirmed death yet, the
science I can do with you…it would be better if I still had your brother, of
course, but even just with the collected samples I can think of some very
interesting experiments…”
A grin split his face.  “In fact…it almost might be better if you aren’t an
ajin…”
For a moment, Kai lost awareness of everything except for the monitors around
him, killing Kei or Tanaka in as many ways as there were screens to display
them, all around him and in front of him and lurking in his peripheral vision. 
The gun fired, and then was in his hands.  Kei or Tanaka was crushed into
liquid.  He was emptying the cartridge into Dr. Kishi’s head.  Eriko was
screaming.  They were opening up Kei or Tanaka’s chest and ripping organs out
like they were picking fruit off a tree.  The gun was out of bullets, and he
was swinging it into the sides of Dr. Kishi’s head like a blunt instrument.
(A boy, pressing his small hands into the glass of a window.  There were no
screams, but that was only because Kouji Tanaka was gagged.  There were no
screams, but that was only because Kai had learned to lie before he learned to
talk.)
(Kei’s hands a gentle pressure on his waist, like a pair of butterflies.  The
motorcycle rumbling below him as he took Kei away.  Kei was afraid, but he
feared the unknown.  Kai was afraid.  He knewexactlywhat was waiting for Kei if
he was captured.)
“Kai.”
A hand on his wrist, gripping tight enough that Kai dropped the gun.  “Kai.”
A hand on his other wrist.  Feeling his arms being yanked away and pressed into
the wall behind his head.  His knuckles were bruised.  A pair of red eyes held
his, until he felt like if they looked away he’d fall off some allegorical
cliff.  “You’re making me jealous, Kai.”
He could see Eriko in the background, faintly, still strapped down to the
table.  She was shouting something.  His head was too fuzzy to process it.  “J-
ealous?” he asked thickly, wondering why he was shaking so much.
“I’m not sure I can keep letting you run loose like this,” the voice purred,
“Stealing my kills…killing people other than me.”
Blood was dripping down his arms.  It wasn’t his.  Everything was so blurry, he
couldn’t focus on anything but the eyes, which stared into him as a pair of
lips covered his.  He’d say they were gentle, but they weren’t.  He yanked his
hands free and wrapped them around a throat.  The lips got gentler, and then
stopped moving.
At some point, Kai’s awareness of his surroundings came back to him in a rush. 
The lab.  The monitors.  The bones.  Eriko on the operating table, no longer
screaming but looking at him with an expression he was afraid to try to
describe.  Satou.  Satou?  Satou in his lap with Kai’s hands around his throat,
suffocating and coming back to life and kissing and biting him.
Kai scrambled to get away and put distance between himself and Satou, but
couldn’t let nothing stand between Satou and Eriko.  Satou, still on the floor,
looked up at him with a sort of lazy fondness.  “I used to think that you were
a human,” he said, his expression suddenly growing feral, “but you’re not. 
You’re not an ajin either.  You’re a monster.”
***** Chapter 12 *****
Chapter Summary
     I have no excuse for this
Kai had killed people before.  Usually quickly and cleanly, but occasionally by
any means necessary.  But this…was new.
(Doesn’t life matter to you?)
What had it been?  The brutal, visceral reminders of his failure? (Kei’s
literal heart in a literal jar) The threat of failing again? (Eriko strapped
down to the operating table)Or was it…
(You look at me like my life matters.)
(You’re a monster.)
(you’re a monster)
(you’re a monster)
Kai’s hands were red with blood, his pants stained from where he’d been
kneeling in a pool of it.  Dr. Kishi’s head had been shot and bludgeoned so
thoroughly that it was barely still recognizable as human.  Not that the man
had had much humanity in the first place…
Satou picked the gun up from where it had been lying on the floor, tossing it
between his hands.  He stood up.  His motions were slow and his eyes were
cautious, like he’d been cornered by a wild animal.  “Would you do that to me?”
he asked, starting to circle around Kai with firm steps.
Satou’s lips were bleeding, it made Kai’s mouth dry to notice.  Bleeding like
they might scar.  He swallowed hard.  Satou smiled at the gun almost fondly,
then held it out to him.  Kai immediately backed away, feeling his knees buckle
under him and only just managing to catch himself on the edge of the operating
table.
Satou tsked.  “Haven’t you figured out the rules of this game yet, Kai?” he
asked, throwing the gun away and starting to stalk toward Kai, “If you won’t be
the cat, then I’m more than happy to make you the mouse.”
Frantically, Kai tried to get his shit under control.  Realistically, he knew
he had the advantage here.  The room was cluttered and afforded more
opportunities for Kai to take advantage of his smaller size and greater
agility.  There were all kinds of items that could make a good improvised
weapon, and there was enough formaldehyde in the room for him to turn it into a
bonfire if he needed to.  But his hands had gone numb, and his arms and legs
felt cold and leaden.  The air filling his lungs felt like water that was
drowning him, and there was a strange pressure on his chest that couldn’t just
be from the weight of Satou’s eyes.
He’d slid down to the floor.  When had that happened?  Satou was looking down
at him, with the morbid fascination of someone watching a struggling fly that
had had its wings pulled off.  He crouched down and hooked Kai’s chin up to
meet his eyes.  “Mice are supposed to run, Kai.”  Then suddenly his eyes
widened, and he quickly backed up just in time to avoid Kai throwing up all
over him.
Sighing, he stepped around the puddle of vomit once Kai was done, and quickly
picked Kai up in his arms.  “This had better not become a habit for you,” he
chided, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of Kai’s head.  Kai couldn’t remember
which way to shake his head to indicate that he agreed, but he noticed that
Eriko didn’t seem to be on the operating table anymore.  When had that
happened?  Hadn’t she been tied down?
Because of how Satou was carrying him, Kai’s head was pressed up against
Satou’s chest, his heart a slow and steady beat he could feel.  He started
giggling, clutching at his stomach as Satou stared incredulously at him.  “You
have a heart!” he explained between giggles, his whole body feeling like it was
convulsing, “You have a heart and it isn’t in a jar like Kei’s!”
Satou responded by dunking Kai’s head under a stream of cold water.  The water
went up Kai’s nose and he started to cough.  He tried to squirm away, but the
arms holding him were as yielding as iron bars.  Finally, his head cleared
enough that he plugged his nose and used the water to rinse out his mouth.
“That’s not something I expected you to think to deal with…” Kai said
uncertainly after Satou had taken him back out of the water.
Satou frowned distastefully, shifting his grip on Kai so that they were face to
face and Kai’s legs were now wrapped around his waist.  Kai raised an eyebrow. 
“…I’ve seen this before,” Satou admitted reluctantly, “…it seemed…more
troublesome, before.”
Something in Kai’s expression must have amused him, because he laughed.  “Don’t
look so excited.  By your own weakness you’re at my mercy now.”
“I know you won’t kill me,” Kai said confidently, sticking his chin out.
“That is a less immutable fact than you seem to think it is,” Satou replied,
walking forward until Kai felt the wall pressing against his back.  “Now tell
me, Kai,” he added with a smirk, “what happens when the cat catches the mouse?”
Where was Eriko?  Had Satou done something?  He couldn’t have, he’d been
preoccupied.  Dr. Kishi?  Too dead.  Satou’s shadow?  Fuck…  “The mouse…who is
very clever…” Kai said, glancing around the room, “naturally finds a way to
escape and returns to his family.”
Satou laughed, a deep rumbling laugh that Kai could feel where their chests
were pressed together.  “Oh Kai,” he said fondly, shaking his head and leaning
in to mouth at Kai’s throat, “the mouse gets devoured.”
Oh fuck.  The wall behind him kept Kai from doing any counterbalancing moves to
get down, and Satou had a steely grip on his thighs that kept him from doing
much more than futilely kicking at Satou’s legs.  Wincing as Satou sank his
teeth into Kai’s shoulder and sucked on the bite, he decided he’d have to make
Satou drop him.
Cuffing Satou’s ears seemed like a good place to start, since bursting his
eardrums would either unbalance him enough that Kai could get away, or distract
him enough that Kai could land another hit easily.  But when Kai did it, Satou
just laughed like he’d been expecting it, and said, “There you are!”  Before
Kai could recover from his surprise, Satou had hauled him up so he was now
sitting on Satou’s shoulders.  This was a shitty angle to hit Satou’s face
from, but he tried anyway, feeling Satou’s rumbling and numbing laugh vibrating
between his legs.
He’d just decided he was going to try rolling forward and over Satou’s head,
risk of head injury be damned, when he heard the faint sound of something
unzipping, and then suddenly his cock was out and Satou’s mouth was on it.  Kai
choked, and scrambled to find something to grab onto, Satou’s hair being too
damned short.  “Wh-what are you doing?” he gasped, squinting his eyes shut as
Satou sucked, and this was nothing like when he and Satou’s shadow had fucked.
Satou hummed thoughtfully around him, and Kai felt like he was having a
seizure.  He tried pushing away, but a delicate warning from Satou’s teeth
stopped that plan in its tracks.  Powerlessly, Kai leaned his head back into
the wall, his hands still uselessly grabbing at Satou’s hair.  Satou pulled
back enough to smirk, licking the head and saying menacingly, “I’m doing just
what I said I would do, Kai,” and there it was now Kai couldn’t move.  Couldn’t
struggle, couldn’t say anything, couldn’t do anything but helplessly buck his
hips as he felt his body coil tighter and tighter.
The monitors were still playing videos.  The bones still swung ominously, and
the jars still gleamed in the light from the screens.  Damning evidence of the
atrocities this lab was responsible for.  How many of these body parts were
Kei’s?  “Does it feel good, Kai?” Satou asked, and Kai could only nod.
“Who’s making you feel like this?” Satou demanded, becoming more aggressive
with his mouth until Kai had trouble even stringing a simple sentence together.
“It’s you, Satou!” Kai gasped, and then he couldn’t think at all.
.
He was cold.  His shirt was off and there was something cold on his skin. 
Water?  No, it wasn’t wet.  He tried to touch it, but he couldn’t move his
arms.  He couldn’t move his legs either.  He was looking at the ceiling, and it
was hard to lift his head to look in another direction.  Satou stood over him,
smiling.  A pen was in his hand.
After a moment’s pause, Satou uncapped the pen and started dragging it across
Kai’s bare skin.  It tickled.  “What are you doing?” Kai asked uneasily.
Satou didn’t look up from what he was doing.  “It’s fun to just tear into
someone haphazardly, with no plan or restraint,” he said cheerfully.  “It made
me really happy when you did that to me.  But!” he added, drawing a swooping
line across Kai’s chest, “I have to be more careful with you.  Like you’ve
said, I don’t want to kill you.”
The operating table.  He was on the operating table.
Satou capped the pen and tossed it aside.  “It’s very troublesome, needing to
be the responsible one,” he bemoaned.
“Satou, what are you doing?” Kai asked, forcing his voice to sound calm.
Satou smiled and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the fluttering pulse point in
Kai’s throat, making Kai’s toes curl despite himself.  “I’m keeping my
promise,” he said, “Remember?  I told you that I would open you up so you could
look at your heart while it’s still beating?”
Kai yanked at the restraints binding him, but to no avail.  They had not
yielded for countless ajin deaths…of course they wouldn’t yield for him.  Satou
chuckled.  “Now, now, I know you’re nervous,” he said, “It is your first time,
after all.  I hadn’t meant to do this so soon, but…” he gestured to the room
around them, “it would really be a shame not to take advantage of this place.”
He ran his finger along Kai’s torso, presumably along the lines he’d drawn,
then reached over and grabbed a scalpel.  “Don’t worry,” he soothed, gently
pressing the blade into Kai’s skin, “It’ll hurt at first, but then it’ll feel
good, and then you’ll be begging me to do it again and again.”
Hadn’t Takeshi kissed him there? Kai found himself wondering as the blade
sliced through his skin.
Satou stopped after only making a short incision, licking up the welling blood
and pressing kisses into the wound as he went.
As Satou kept cutting, Kai found himself thinking of a small candle, flickering
in the dark.  Blood was raining down on it, but it hadn’t gone out yet.  The
flame, though small, was still clear and bright, with a white core that Kai
focused on to the exclusion of everything else.
White flame.
Белое пламя
Flamma alba.
白い炎
Flamme blanche
He was being held.  He wasn’t being held by hands.  He couldn’t see anything
holding him.  He was outside.  There were bandages on his stomach.  No one was
around.
“You are safe,” a voice chittered, “Eriko was able to call us for help, and we
rescued you.”
Oh.  Well, that was probably good.
***** Chapter 13 *****
Chapter Summary
     no sin, but blep
Kai woke up again in his bed, underneath the glow-in-the-dark stars he’d put on
his ceiling when he was nine or so.  The blankets were warm and soft, and the
room was quiet.  The pain running up his stomach to about his breastbone was
excruciating.
Crunch.
He tried to sit up, but the pain was intense enough that he opted instead to
turn his head to the side.  “Eri…” he said weakly, feeling his whole body relax
as he took in the sight of her sitting by his bed, safe, safe, eating apple
slices she was dipping in a jar of mayonnaise.
She swallowed the bite of apple she’d just taken, and reached over to the
bedside table to pick up a bottle of pills.  “Morphine?” she asked dryly,
shaking the bottle.
“I want a fucking cigarette,” he said, managing to lift his head a few inches.
“Negative.  You’re barely stitched together as it is…I don’t want you coughing
so hard your damned guts fall out.”
He let his head fall back on the pillow and sighed.  Slowly, he moved his hand
to rest on his stomach, feeling a sharp pain through the layers of gauze. 
Satou had kissed him there, dipping his tongue inside him while insisting it
would feel good.  His eyes had been dark, and overcome with…what?  Obsession? 
Possessiveness?  Something that seemed like it was making him drunk.
Kai belatedly realized that his heart was beating alarmingly fast, and he felt
nauseous.  He clapped his hands to his mouth and frantically breathed in
through his nose, the expansion of his chest making pain radiate through his
body.  “Try not to puke,” Eriko said, “that might open up your stitches too.”
A hand was suddenly holding his, gently pulling it away from his mouth and
squeezing.  “Kai,” Eriko said softly, and Kai felt tears falling down his
cheeks, “You’re in your mother’s house.  We went to the laboratory and
encountered Satou yesterday.  You have a 7-inch-long laceration on your chest
and stomach, closed up by 19 stitches.”
Kai let out a shaky breath and very carefully counted to twenty.  He ran his
fingers over his lips, which were tender and sore.  He squeezed Eriko’s hand. 
“I’m in over my head, Eri,” he said quietly.
Eriko snorted.  “No shit.”
Leaning back, she grabbed another apple slice, throwing it into the air beside
her.  It disappeared with a faint crunching sound and some chittering.  “No
more, Eriko,” a voice said, “Save some of those for Kai.”
Kai hummed thoughtfully.  “Eriko?” he asked carefully, eyes wide, “what the
fuck is that?”
Eriko reached over and petted something he couldn’t see.  “This is Miya,” she
said, “Megumi’s ghost.  She carried you back here.”
That voice.  The things that weren’t hands carrying him away.  “Megumi’s an
ajin?” he asked weakly.
“I’m surprised you never noticed, given how observant you always were,” Megumi
said smoothly, striding into the room, “But I suppose it’s to be expected
considering how thoroughly you avoided me.”
Kai immediately rolled onto his side away from her, regretting it when the
motion caused a wave of pain that ran all the way down to his toes.  “Get out,”
he said into his pillow.
He couldn’t see, but he could visualize the way she was raising an eyebrow
right now, and it made him want run out of the room and knock something over
and go ride his motorcycle until he’d gotten far enough away from everything
that he could just tilt his head back and s c r e a m.  This probably didn’t
really warrant that kind of a response, but he couldn’t help how he felt.
“You don’t have any questions for me?” she asked.
“Whatever.  You’re an ajin.  I don’t care.  Get out.”
He could imagine her reaching out to touch him now, like she always had, and
awkwardly stopping short just before she did, her hand fluttering uselessly. 
He heard Eriko conspicuously chewing her apple slices.  “Guys, Miya’s getting
uncomfortable,” she said, quite obviously still chewing, “Kai, Megumi’s the one
that stitched you up.  She’s here to change your bandages.  Do you think you
can pretend you don’t hate her for just a few minutes?”
Kai gritted his teeth.  “Fine,” he said, rolling back onto his back.
The motion pulled his skin and it was painful.
Red eyes glittered above him.
A hand held something sharp and metallic.
Something heavy was on his arms and legs and he Couldn’t Get Out.
His throat hurt.
He was screaming.
ItwillfeelgooditwillfeelgooditwillfeelgoodyouwillbegmetodoitagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandHands
were gently cupping his face.  “Kai, you’re safe here.  You’re safe.”
Golden eyes filled his field of vision and he was so overwhelmed that he closed
his own, clenching the blankets in his fists as he tried to take stock of his
body again.  “I’m sorry, Mom,” he said hoarsely, feeling his shoulders shake
and trying to make them stop.
“My son,” his mother whispered, kissing his cheeks and pressing their foreheads
together, “I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.”
“This was all my fault!” he sobbed, lifting his trembling hands up to clutch at
his mother’s hair, “I deserved this! I baited him! I teased him! I challenged
him! I was stupid stupid stupid so stupid.”  His voice lowered until it was
barely audible.  “Stupid to think I could win.”
His mother pulled back to look at him, her eyes blazing like twin suns.  “Yes
you were stupid,” she agreed, “but not to think you could win.”
Kai’s words were stuck in his throat, only unintelligible sounds escaped. 
“Satou has been allowed to go unchecked for too long,” she said forcefully, “We
will raise whatever army we need to to destroy him.  This is our declaration of
war.”
She leaned in and kissed his forehead.  “I will never let a monster like that
hurt you again.”  Kai flinched.
Why was no one talking about what he’d done?
His mother changed the bandages, and Kai drifted back to sleep.  He was sure
that Megumi would want to come back and talk to him, and he refused to interact
with her right now.  Even when he woke up, he didn’t open his eyes, keeping
them shut until he fell asleep again.
He deserved the nightmares.
When Kai finally opened his eyes again, it was because of a feeling in his
tongue and the roof of his mouth, warm and electric.  Moonlight slanted through
the room, the stars on his ceiling glowing dimly.  Eriko stood a few yards from
the bed, back to him, arms out like she was blocking something.
“…Kai…Kai was hurt…we hurtKai…”
Immediately, Kai sat bolt upright, ignoring the pain that sliced through him. 
Eriko didn’t so much as flinch.  “Not one fucking step closer, Ghosty,” she
said.
“…we hurt Kai…we hurt Kai…we hurt Kai…” Satou’s shadow wailed, “…we didn’t want
to but we couldn’t do anything…we had to protect Eriko like Kai asked…we
didn’t…we didn’t…we didn’t…”
“Shadow?” Kai asked quietly, and Eriko immediately turned to meet his eyes. 
She was fiddling with the pendant she always wore, the pendant that she said
had a piece of a shadow in it.
“…we’re sorry Kai!  We’re sorry!  We hurt you!”  It sounded like it was crying.
Kai sighed.  “Come here, Shadow.”
Eriko threw her arms up in the air exasperatedly, and Kai heard the shadow
bounding towards him, before a sound that could only be the shadow falling to
its knees.  The shadow nuzzled his stomach, gentle enough that somehow it
didn’t hurt.  “…we did this…” it said sadly, “…we left Kai alone instead of
Eriko and then we did this…”
Slowly, Kai lifted his hand to pet the shadow’s head.  It leaned into his touch
and cried.  “Did you help Eriko?” he asked, looking up at Eriko curiously.
Eriko sighed.  “I’d’ve still been on the operating table if it wasn’t for
Ghosty here,” she said, “it just sort of materialized and carried me out of the
building.  The fucker wouldn’t put me down until Megumi and Miya showed up.”
Kai smiled.  “Good boy,” he said fondly, giving the shadow a scratch, “you did
exactly what you were supposed to do.  Thank you.”
“But we hurt you!” the shadow wailed.
Kai shook his head.  “Satou hurt me…not you.”
The shadow went still and silent, so much so that if it weren’t for the solid
feel of it under his hand Kai would think it had disappeared.  Then…slowly…like
the words were coming up from the bottoms of its feet, it said,
“…that’s…we’re…we……HE DID THIS.  It wasn’t us.  It was him.”  Then it started
crying again.
After a minute of this, Eriko cleared her throat.  “It followed us here,” she
said, “it’s been lying beside the door like a fucking dog, crying for you.” 
She sighed.  “I think Miya’s the one that let it in.”
Kai smiled.  “It’s okay,” he said, “it won’t hurt me.  Thanks for looking out
for me, but you can go back to bed now if you want.”
She raised her eyebrows up past her bangs and sighed.  “Okay,” she said,
shaking her head, “whatever.  I’m too tired for this shit.”
As Eriko stomped out of the room, the shadow rested its head in Kai’s lap.  Kai
tried to lean down and kiss it, but the motion hurt too much.  He sighed. 
There was no way he was falling asleep right now.
“Shadow,” he said gently, “Can you go get me a book from the shelf over there?”
The weight in his lap lifted, and Kai reached over to turn on the lamp.  A few
moments later, a floating copy of Le_Comte_de_Monte-Cristo came into his field
of vision.  He smiled and took it in his hands, running his fingers fondly over
its dog-eared pages.  “Why did you choose this one?” he asked.
“…seemed like Kai…loved it very much…”
He found himself smiling shyly, ducking his head down.  “Yes, well…” he said,
“Kei gave this to me when we were kids.”
He heard the shadow lying down on the floor, one of its limbs or maybe its head
nudging the bedside table slightly.  “You love Kei,” it said, no question in
its voice.
Kai drummed his fingers on the book.  “No one loves just one person or thing,”
he said, “I love Kei, and my mother, and Eriko, and riding my motorcycle, and
more.”
The shadow’s enormous hand closed gently around his forearm.  “…do you…do you
love…” it trailed off, its hand slipping away as it grew quiet.
Kai looked down at his book, opening it to read.  He couldn’t focus.  Maybe he
was too tired to be reading in French.  He could have sworn he had a Japanese
copy somewhere on his shelf…
“Shadow?” he asked, closing the book and putting it down, “Did you see what I
did to Dr. Kishi?  The man in the labcoat, I mean.”
A curious noise.  “…Kai…you…hit him…there was blood…he stopped moving.  Did he
die?”
“I killed him,” Kai said, and it felt like slitting his throat.
Rustling from the floor, and then the shadow spoke again, its voice seeming
closer this time.  “…is that bad?”
Kai tipped his head back and closed his eyes.  “It’s…not good.  But it’s not so
much that I killed him…I’ve killed people before.  But I…I didn’t have any
control over this.  This was…yeah, this was bad.”
He shivered.  “I’m scared,” he said quietly, “that I might do something like
that again.”  Satou was right.
The shadow licked away the tears Kai hadn’t even realized he’d been crying,
whining and nuzzling his face.  “…we’re sorry…we’re sorry…” it said, and Kai
threw his arms around its broad shoulders and started sobbing.
“Kiss me, shadow,” Kai gasped.
The shadow started licking at his lips, but just when he’d opened them to let
it in it immediately stopped, pulling back with a jerk.  “No,” it said its
voice sounding horrified, “…you don’t want…you…you’re trying to punish
yourself.”
It sank down and pressed its head to Kai’s knees, and Kai gritted his teeth and
pounded at its shoulders, ignoring the pain in his stomach.  “Oh now you won’t
do it?!” he demanded, “After all we’ve…even you won’t…”
“…we don’t want to be your…punishment…” the shadow said in a small voice, and
Kai’s heart felt like it stopped.
He opened his mouth weakly, but couldn’t find the words to say.  He’d always
been able to look at people’s faces and then say what he needed to to make them
feel what he wanted, but he couldn’t see the shadow’s face.  He couldn’t see
the shadow at all.
“That’s…that’s not…fuck, just, come here,” he said, pulling back the blankets
and patting the mattress next to him.
When the shadow hesitated, he tugged at its hands until it finally clambered
into the bed next to him.  He didn’t bother throwing the blanket back over
them…the shadow was so warm it was hardly necessary.  The shadow curled up at
his side, pressing every inch that it could into him.  He guided its arms until
they were wrapped around him, and though they should have made him feel trapped
they made him feel safe instead.  “This okay, Shadow?” he asked in a whisper.
There was no response from the shadow for a long time, no sounds except for the
mattress creaking under them and a clock ticking somewhere in the room. 
Footsteps in the hall.  Ah.  Probably Eriko, skeptical of Kai’s certainty that
the shadow wouldn’t hurt him.  Kai couldn’t blame her.  His judgment hadn’t
exactly been the best, lately.
“Our name isn’t “Shadow,”” the shadow said finally, one of its hands lowering
until it rested featherlight over Kai’s stomach.  Kai didn’t dare move.  “Our
name is Sam.”
Kai waited for the shadow…for Sam, to say something else, but after another
moment, Sam just shifted their position so that Kai’s head was now tucked
against their chest.  It was warm.  After a moment, Kai opened his mouth to say
something, but Sam just mumbled, “…go to sleep,” and Kai found himself unable
to keep his eyes open.
He didn’t have any nightmares.
***** Chapter 14 *****
Chapter Summary
     nurse porridge would like to remind you to stay hydrated in this
     summer heat

0537.  Kai was still asleep, his body curled around a shape that was no longer
there.  Black sand had covered him, clinging to his hair and eyelashes and the
seams of his clothes.  Eriko frowned uncomfortably, trying to blow some of the
stuff away from him as best she could.  Kai shifted in his sleep, and Eriko
froze.  …maybe later.  She’d hate to disturb him.
“I’m worried about him,” she said to her pendant as she leaned on the door out
in the hallway, “I’m afraid he’s going to shut us out.”  The voices whispered
reassurances without words to her, and she tucked the pendant under her shirt
where its warmth could sooth her.

0600. Megumi and Miya were meditating in a quiet corner of the garden, and
Eriko joined them, her body easily slipping into the routine despite everything
that had happened the past few days.  She urged Megumi to go see Kai again. 
Megumi hadn’t even gone near Kai’s room since what had happened yesterday, and
Eriko tried to emphasize that the longer she put it off the worse it was going
to be.  Megumi was as stubborn as Kai was, so the pleas fell on deaf ears. 
Angrily, Eriko stormed off.
 
Eriko poked her head in the door as she walked past Kai’s room, noting that he
hadn’t moved.  She realized she was late on her meds, and chewed the handful of
pills rather than swallowing them whole.  The bitter taste in her mouth was
familiar and soothing.
 
Eriko brought the laptop Kai’s mom had lent her into Kai’s room, poring over
the list of names she’d gotten from the lab.  She’d only been able to see the
names on the first page of results, but since those were apparently the
likeliest ones to actually be ajins, that was probably fine.  Then again, her
name was on the list, so maybe not.  Still, she had a list of about ten people
to start with, most of whom she was able to get information on just using basic
channels.  She could ask Megumi or Yuuki for more help later.
Kenji Nakahara. Makoto Inoue. Asuka Ikeda. Yoko Tainaka. Ren Nanase. Kiku
Takahashi. Airi Matsuoka. Yoshirou Honda.  Tetsuro Tachibana. Kou Nakano.
Tomoyo Satou. Yui Tanaka.  And then of course there was her brother.  Her hand
closed around her pendant.  And Kouji Tanaka.
She chewed her thumb thoughtfully.  Most of these people lived in Tokyo.  Some
of them were missing.  Finding them was going to be a huge pain in the ass…and
probably they weren’t all actually ajins.  She looked over the top of the
screen at Kai, still sleeping.  With Kai’s tendency to get into fights it would
be best to keep him here for as long as possible while he healed.

0737.Eriko burst through the door, and sagged with relief when she saw that Kai
still hadn’t moved.  Then she frowned as she looked at him a little longer. 
Hands crossed over her chest, she stomped toward the bed and glared down at
him.  “I know you’re fucking awake,” she snapped.
A smile slowly slid across his face.  “You’re late,” he said.
Fuck.  Already? “The fuck you talking about?” she demanded.
He opened his eyes and looked up at her through his eyelashes.  “You’ve been
checking on me every so often all morning,” he said, “you want me to think
you’re coming in at random times…but you’re not, are you?”
She narrowed her eyes.  “Instead of trying to provoke me to hit you,” she said
coldly, “if you’re awake, why don’t you eat something?”
Kai closed his eyes again.  “Not hungry,” he said lightly.
He stopped responding to her after that, and when Eriko couldn’t stand it
anymore she stormed out of the room.  Yuuki was drinking coffee downstairs, so
she poured herself a cup too, stirring a few spoonfuls of miso paste into it
and sipping it angrily while Yuuki pretended not to look green around the
gills.
Actually, that made her feel a little better.  The voices from her pendant
simmered down to faint white noise.

0807. After finishing her coffee, Eriko had resumed work on the laptop, but the
sound of running water caught her ears.  Megumi had gone out on an errand, so
it was just her and Yuuki in the house.  Yuuki noticed her worried expression
and smiled reassuringly at her.  “Are you worried about Kai?” she asked. 
Fucking duh.  “I’ve been doing safety checks on him every couple hours since he
got here,” she said, “he’s fine.”
It was a bit early for Eriko’s next check on him, but maybe it’d be good to
shake up the pattern a bit, she told herself as she walked back up the stairs
to his room, since the little shit had figured out her schedule al-fucking-
ready.
As she approached the room, she immediately noticed that the air was damp in
her lungs, and that there were visible clouds of steam wafting down the hall. 
Kai wasn’t in bed.  He’d made the bed neatly, tidying up the room so that it
looked like no one had been there.
She found him sitting on the floor of the shower, steam billowing around him. 
His skin was bright pink and flushed, his eyes lazy and unfocused.  “I’ll be
out in a few minutes,” he slurred as he saw her come in.
Eriko reached a hand in, and recoiled instantly when some of the water touched
her skin.  It was scalding!  Kai smiled a lopsided smile at her, his pupils
blown wide.  “It’s fine,” he said, panting between words, “I just need to get
clean.”
Gritting her teeth, Eriko stuck her hand into the hot stream of water to turn
it off.  The heat in the room was suffocating.  Kai’s head lolled to the side,
his face contorting into something ugly.  “Turn that back on,” he muttered
darkly.
At Eriko’s startled expression, he narrowed his eyes, before slowly schooling
his face into a disconcertingly normal expression.  “Eriko,” he said sweetly,
“Turn the water back on.  The temperature’s fine, it’s supposed to be that
hot.  Otherwise I’ll get sick.”
Eriko found her hand drifting toward the shower controls without thinking. 
Crying out in frustration, she turned the water back on, set as cold as it
could go.  Kai yelped and fell backwards, crawling into the corner away from
the stream of water.  Eriko turned the water back off and stepped into the
shower, crouching down to Kai’s eye level.  “Can you stand?” she asked.
Kai responded by wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to his chest, his
entire body shaking.  Even with the help of the cold water, Kai’s skin was
still alarmingly warm, steam rising off it in waves.  His legs went around her,
pulling her closer until it felt like she was being grappled by an octopus.  He
shook and shook and shook and didn’t make a sound.
Yeah, okay, this wasn’t weird at all.
No matter what she said, he wouldn’t verbally respond, so after a little while
she started calling for Miya.  Gentle efforts to separate Kai from Eriko proved
fruitless, so after a few minutes of this Eriko sighed and said, “Just pick us
up together.”  Kai’s hold didn’t weaken even a little as Miya picked the two of
them up and carried them out of the bathroom.
Out of a lack of a better place to put him, Miya laid Kai back on his bed,
which meant that she laid Eriko down on Kai’s bed too.  Not particularly
pleased with this, Eriko tried to squirm away once Miya had set them down, but
Kai didn’t budge.
“Don’t go,” he said in a small, broken voice.
Well fuck.  “You need to eat and drink something,” Eriko said, “you haven’t
eaten since before we went to the lab.”
Silence.  Eriko willed herself to be patient.  Miya chittered anxiously.
“I’m afraid it’s all going to taste like blood,” Kai said.
Eriko sighed.  “Okay, I get it.  Does cuddling me or whatever the fuck you call
this help you feel better?”
A nod.  Eriko groaned.  “Okay, here’s the deal.  Let go, and drink something. 
Let me help you get dry and get your bandages back on.  Then I’ll stay and
cuddle with you or what the fuck ever.”
“I will go get the required materials,” Miya said, and Eriko was grateful that
there was at least someone sane around here.
As Miya walked away, Eriko felt Kai’s grip slowly coming undone, and as soon as
she could she rolled away, gasping for breath.  “Shit dude, you’re like a
furnace, I’m dying,” she groaned, pressing her sweaty bangs away from her face.
Kai sat up, running his fingers up and down the puckered skin around his wound
as if he was in a trance.  Eriko sighed.  “Hey, hey,” she said, and his head
turned robotically toward her.  She pulled her shirt up enough to expose some
of her surgery scars and grinned. “Welcome to the club.”
Kai drank two glasses of water and one glass of juice.  After a great deal of
coaxing Eriko managed to get him to eat a small amount of rice.  With Miya
supervising, Eriko carefully dried off the skin around his wound and reapplied
the bandages along with some disinfectant.  Miya assured her she’d done it
exactly right, and opened the windows to let some cool air in once Kai was
completely dry.
The breeze felt nice on Eriko’s skin, and made the second round of Kai clinging
to her like an octopus a little more bearable.  She focused on keeping her
breaths deep and even, and eventually Kai started mirroring her.  After Kai
seemed a bit calmer, Eriko let her eyes close and decided that, fuck it, she’d
barely slept at all last night, she might as well take the opportunities that
came to her and sleep.

1526. Eriko woke up to see Kai sitting up in bed beside her, reading a book. 
As she stirred, his eyes dropped down toward her, and he smiled, closing the
book and setting it aside.  “Sleep well?” he asked.
“As well as can be expected when serving as a living teddy bear,” she retorted.
An embarrassed look flashed across Kai’s face.  “…yeah…sorry,” he said, “I’m
sorry you had to see that.  I think I got it all out of my system though, thank
you,” he added with an impossibly fond smile.  He leaned down and gently kissed
her cheek.
Eriko reached up and caught Kai’s face in her hands, squishing his cheeks. 
There was no point in calling him out on the lie.  She sighed.  “Remember that
I care about you, dumbass.”
Kai grinned, and shifted to lie down next to her, their noses almost touching. 
“Say,” he said quietly, “you end up getting any names from the lab?”
“No,” Eriko lied.
Kai blew air in her face.  “Liar,” he accused, and they both started giggling.
A little while later, they both went downstairs for dinner.  Kai was…completely
civil with Megumi.  He curiously asked where she’d been all day, and she
tiredly recounted that she’d been in Tokyo.  There’d been a terrorist attack at
Forge Security, and everything was utter chaos.  The police force alone had
taken enormous casualties, and the head of the company had been assassinated.
Kai took a delicate sip of soup.  “Wasn’t Keichi Kai one of Satou’s eleven
targets?”
Eriko took advantage of the awkward silence to pour some of the soda she was
drinking onto her rice.  Finally Megumi nodded and said, “Yes.  He’s…working
through them quite quickly.”
Kai nodded, then changed the subject to something yakuza business related that
Eriko didn’t bother trying to follow.  The soda-rice mixture in her bowl was
plenty distracting for her anyway.
Eriko should have known better, but the comforting family-type atmosphere
around the dinner table, combined with the boring conversation, had her falling
asleep right there.  Miya ended up carrying her to bed, tucking her in and
running her serrated arm gently through Eriko’s hair.  Eriko only barely
remembered to take her meds, falling asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

0100.Eriko awoke with a start, the voices in her pendant all whispering
frantically.  She felt cold.
Already knowing in her heart what she was going to find, she walked down the
hall to Kai’s room to find it completely empty.  His bag was gone, and when she
went down to the garage the motorcycle had been taken.
Kai was gone.
***** Chapter 15 *****
Chapter Summary
     meanwhile, thousands of miles away...
She found herself wondering, as the blood trickled down his arm to her hand, if
this is what ajins felt like, the first time they came back to life.
She’d woken up that morning with the certainty that she would die.  It hadn’t
been a particularly sad certainty…she’d cut her ties with anyone who might have
cared about her long ago, and the corrupt life she’d sold herself to had no
fond memories for her.  Really, it was a relief more than anything else.  She’d
canceled all her subscriptions with relish and given the keys back to her
landlord.
It was a nice thought, to serve as a sacrifice for the sake of everyone Satou
would hurt if he wasn’t stopped.
It was a nice thought to think that someone she had hurt so unforgivably much
would be the one to kill her.
His hand tightened around hers.  She’d been meant to die.  She’d closed her
eyes in that hallway and known she would die.  But she hadn’t.
Mr. Tanaka’s hand was slippery with blood but still warm and firm, tugging her
along even as her steps were as wobbly and wavering as a toddler’s.  The bullet
wound glared angrily back at her from his shoulder.  “You’re hurt,” she said
quietly.
Mr. Tanaka looked back at her and blinked owlishly.  Then, slowly, his eyes
dropped down to his shoulder, where they widened in surprise.  “Right,” he
said, and dismissed the thought, looking back ahead and showing no signs of
slowing down.  Didn’t it hurt???  She’d scraped her knuckles earlier, and even
though they’d stopped bleeding just a small wound like that was throbbing
reminders of pain every time air brushed over it.
They kept moving.  “Wait!” she said, digging her heels into the ground, “you’re
losing too much blood…we need to at least stop the bleeding before we run into
someone else.”
“Do you know how?”
She stifled a shiver at the honest curiosity in his voice.  “There’s a bathroom
around the corner,” she said, “I’m no EMT, but there’s a first aid kit in
there.”
Mr. Tanaka clenched one fist, then the hand holding hers.  His grip was still
firm, but it was slick, and definitely looser than it had been.  He nodded. 
“Okay, be quick.”
Kneeling on the tile floor and putting on gloves, she knew that she should be
elevating the wound and providing as much pressure as she could while keeping
the limb from exerting itself.  Too bad that wasn’t possible given their
current circumstances.  Still, she could at least wrap a lot of gauze around it
and hopefully slow the bleeding some.  They needed a doctor.  Did she know a
doctor?  Mr. Tanaka’s face had been all over the news recently and there
certainly wasn’t anyone in the greater Tokyo area that wouldn’t immediately
recognize it.
“So…you must be very important to Mr. Satou…” she said in an attempt to make
conversation, “for him to agree not to kill me just because you said so…”
He tensed, before throwing his head back and barking out laughter that shook
his body so much that the roll of gauze fell out of her hand.  Alarmed, she
crawled around to get a better look at his face as his laughter took on a more
manic tone.  His eyes were wide, and tears were streaming from them.  “Me? 
Important to him?” he asked incredulously, staring up at the ceiling, “Miss Li,
he didn’t fight me because I’d be a boring fight.  He already knows he’d win,
so there’s no point.  He didn’t kill you because he’s already gotten bored of
this.”
His hair had gotten mussed up under the hat, sticking out wildly in all
directions.  He rocked back onto his ankles and sighed, his eyes glazing over. 
Without thinking, Naomi reached out and tried to fix his hair with her fingers,
wincing when she only made it worse.  His eyes snapped down toward hers, wide
and unsure.  She swallowed.  “I wish there was somewhere I could take you,” she
said quietly, “where you didn’t have to fight anymore.”
He blinked, and looked down at his bandaged shoulder, then back at her.  His
eyes were two candle flames, and they hurt her eyes to look at for too long. 
Her gaze dropped to the floor.  “We should probably keep going,” she said,
“before someone finds us.”
“No one’s looking for us,” he said sharply, reaching down and yanking her hand
up.
Naomi’s eyes widened as he clumsily spread a bandaid over her scraped knuckles,
his face the picture of intense concentration.  Then he took a shaky breath and
closed his eyes.  “I’m really doing this,” he muttered, carefully holding
Naomi’s hand with both of his.
Naomi swallowed hard.  Her eyes fell to the scissors tucked away in the first
aid kit.  “If you killed me now,” she said, picking them up and pointing them
at her chest, “could you go back to them?”
Mr. Tanaka yanked them out of her hand with a feral snarl, his grip on them so
tight his knuckles went white.  “Does it matter?!” he growled, his voice making
her freeze.
They sat there silently for a moment, Mr. Tanaka panting heavily.  A stray
strand of hair fell into his eyes.  Naomi watched wide-eyed as he slammed his
fist into the floor, and stood up, angrily pacing in circles around her while
tearing at his hair with noises of frustration.
Naomi felt tears welling up in her eyes.  “Why did you save me?” she asked
quietly enough that she was certain he wouldn’t hear.
He stopped short, staring at her with wild eyes.  He pointed at her with an
accusatory finger.  “That’swhy I saved you.”  He pointed at her again with the
scissors.  “That’s why I saved you.”  He gestured wildly at his bandaged
shoulder.  “That’s why I saved you!”  He abruptly dropped to all fours and
crawled toward her, his face mere inches from her own, his lips parted in a
manic grin.  He lifted up her bandaged hand, running his thumb over the
knuckles with a discordant gentleness.  “That’swhy I saved you,” he said
softly, before a lock of hair fell into his eyes again.  “AAAAAHHHRGH!” he
screamed, his voice causing her to recoil sharply.  Without any hesitation, he
lifted the scissors up and cut the lock of hair off.
Staring at the scissors with wild eyes, he started laughing, cutting lock after
lock of hair off while tears streamed down his face.  Clumps of hair fell to
the floor like dead leaves until he abruptly stopped, gasping for breath and
standing there with the scissors.  He looked like an animal with mange.
Naomi Li hadn’t laughed more than a handful of times in the past few years, and
not at all within the past few months.  That’s why when she started laughing,
she almost didn’t recognize the sound.  Her body felt light.  “Do you want some
help?” she gasped out between the peals of laughter.
Mr. Tanaka looked at himself in the mirror and yelped, running his fingers
through his hair helplessly.  He handed her the scissors.  “Please…”
He sat cross-legged on the floor, while Naomi knelt behind him, smoothing out
the haphazard haircut he’d given himself.  She was no hairdresser, and the
scissors weren’t exactly meant for this, but at least she was able to get the
hair to almost all the same length.  It was short.  Very short.  Looking at his
reflection though, she mused that it made him look younger.
She ran her fingers through it, fluffing it up.  He closed his eyes and tipped
his head back to rest on her chest.  “That’s why I saved you,” he said, his
voice a deep rumble in her chest.  It made her feel warm.
She looked at her own reflected face, small and frightened under the
fluorescent lights in the bathroom.  But smiling.  A wild thought occurred to
her.  Slowly, deliberately, she undid her hair from the bun she’d put it in
that morning, when she’d known she would die.  She handed the scissors to Mr.
Tanaka.  “Cut my hair too,” she said, seeing something wild spark in her eyes
just like in Mr. Tanaka’s.
He looked up at her with a confused expression.  “But it…why?”
“Fresh start.  I only kept it this long because my boss made me, anyway.”
After a long, pregnant pause, he slowly turned around, and cut a single lock of
hair.  When Naomi didn’t tell him to stop, he kept going, steadily getting
faster until hair was flying everywhere and both of them were giggling.  When
he was done, Naomi surveyed his handiwork.  It looked absolutely horrendous. 
She loved it.
They ran out of the bathroom and made their way out of the building, mercifully
encountering very few people on their way down.  The ones they did encounter
were easy to hide from.  Everyone must be dead, or wherever Satou was.  Outside
the building was a different story, with swarms of police and medics and
reporters and civilians crowding around and making it both easy and impossible
to escape.
Mr. Tanaka’s police uniform helped part the crowd, and soon he’d yanked them
into an alley, the noises from the crime scene muffled by the surrounding
buildings.  Naomi felt herself breathing easier, but Mr. Tanaka’s shoulders
remained tense and his face was agitated.  Some loose litter rustled in the
wind.
“We need to get out of the city,” she said quietly.  Mr. Tanaka stiffly
nodded.  Suddenly, he went rigid, yanking Naomi behind him and holding up the
gun.  “What’s wrong?” Naomi asked in a whisper.
“It’s not over,” he grunted.
“Mr. Tanaka?” a voice asked.
Wide-eyed, Naomi peeked around Mr. Tanaka’s broad back and saw a man with a
cane, his face and features soft but his eyes sharp.  Naomi immediately
disliked him.  From the way he narrowed his eyes at her, the feeling was
mutual.  “Just back away, Okuyama!” Mr. Tanaka barked.
Mr. Okuyama pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.  “What are you doing?”
he asked tiredly, gesturing at Naomi, “What is this?  Are you bringing her back
with us?”
Mr. Tanaka’s hand was shaking.  He’d switched so that he was holding her with
his good hand, leaving the weak hand to hold the gun.  Naomi frowned tightly. 
“Mr. Tanaka,” she whispered, reaching forward to take the gun in her own hand,
“your shoulder.”
Mr. Okuyama’s eyes narrowed to slits, eyeing the bandages on Mr. Tanaka’s
shoulder.  “What is the meaning of this?” he asked, his voice curious and
strange, “why didn’t you just reset?”
Naomi blinked.  It hadn’t even occurred to her, but of course, Mr. Tanaka’s
wound would have healed if he’d killed himself.  She looked up at his face with
wide eyes.  Mr. Tanaka was flushed with anger or embarrassment, or some
combination of the two.  He gritted his teeth.  “I’m. fine,” he ground out.  He
tugged the gun away from Naomi.  “Miss Li, get behind me.”
Naomi’s mouth flattened, and she kept her hold on the gun.  “I know how to use
this,” she said firmly.
“She’s probably a better shot than you, Mr. Tanaka,” Mr. Okuyama said wryly. 
Mr. Tanaka scowled and let go of the gun, his arm falling to his side.
Mr. Okuyama sighed.  “That really isn’t necessary,” he said, holding his hands
up beseechingly, “I have no intentions of stopping you.”
Mr. Tanaka immediately relaxed, but Naomi kept the gun up.  “Come with us, Mr.
Okuyama,” Mr. Tanaka said, his eyes bright, “You’ve got to be able to see that
Satou is crazy.”
Mr. Okuyama blinked, and his face relaxed into a smile, his eyes shining with
something halfway to fondness.  “I knew you’d leave once you realized,” he said
quietly, “but I’ve known since the beginning.”
Mr. Tanaka’s face fell.  Naomi suppressed the vain thought that this was
somehow her fault.  She squeezed his hand and rubbed her thumb over his
knuckles, not knowing what to say.  He took a deep breath.  “I don’t
understand…” he said with a broken voice.
Mr. Okuyama shook his head and chuckled slightly.  “You wouldn’t.”
Naomi lifted her chin and stared at him.  “So you’re letting us go?” she
demanded, willing her knees not to shake.
Mr. Okuyama shrugged.  “I guess,” he said, “Just this once.”
Mr. Tanaka lowered his eyes.  “Thanks, Okuyama.”
“Try to fix your shooting stance before I see you again…I want to be able to
take you seriously as an enemy.”
They stared at each other for a moment, none of them moving.  Finally, Mr.
Okuyama sighed, his face resuming a flat expression.  “Well, I’m heading back,”
he said, walking away.  Over his shoulder, he added, “I’d take cover if I were
you.”
Suddenly Naomi was aware of Mr. Tanaka barreling into her, knocking them both
to the ground as a gunshot went off.  Up above them, standing on the roof of
one of the buildings lining the alley, Naomi could see a man.  She wrenched her
hand up and shot.  She absolutely wasn’t going to let Mr. Tanaka be shot at
like a fish in a barrel.
From above, she heard the man yell out in pain.  “TANAKAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!”
he cried, and suddenly a monster with enormous hands was falling down toward
them, landing on the ground about ten feet away.  It blocked the way out of the
alley.
Mr. Tanaka was pulling her up.  “Run!” he shouted, leading them deeper into the
alley, bullets at their heels and the monster in pursuit.
“Shouldn’t you have your own?!” Naomi cried, resisting the temptation to reach
back and shoot at it.
Mr. Tanaka shook his head.  “Not until tomorrow,” he said, “all we can do now
is run.”
“TRAITOR!!” the man shouted, bullets raining down all around them.
“Fucking Takahashi,” Mr. Tanaka swore under his breath, abruptly yanking Naomi
out of the way of a monstrous fist.
“One of your friends?” Naomi asked tightly, reaching up to fire another shot at
the shooter.
Mr. Tanaka chuckled darkly.  “Not anymore.”
Naomi had woken up that morning and known she would die.  The borrowed time
between Mr. Tanaka deciding to spare her and this moment right now slipped
through her fingers like sand.  The alley was a dead end.  There was nowhere
for them to go.  She looked up at the charging monster, at the shooter, at Mr.
Tanaka’s wild eyes, and smiled bitterly.  “You should leave me behind,” she
murmured, squaring up with the gun, “if I distract it you might be able to
escape.”
Mr. Tanaka responded by shoving her into the wall and bracketing her in with
his arms, shielding her from the monster’s claws with his own body.  Blood
sprayed as the claws raked across his back, but he only gritted his teeth. 
“Mr. Tanaka!” Naomi shrieked, horrified.
“Get down!” he shouted, pulling her to the ground and curling into a ball
around her as Mr. Takahashi shot at them again.
Mr. Tanaka slumped over her for a moment.  Naomi shut her eyes.  She couldn’t
bear watching him come back to life again.  “Please, stop,” she whispered,
tears streaming down her face, “just go.”
“What’s the point of being able to die if I can’t protect people who can’t?” he
asked, his voice frantic, “Why else am I alive?”
This was it, Naomi thought in horror, this was when she died, and Mr. Tanaka
was dragged back to people who would hurt him.  She reached around Mr. Tanaka’s
back and fired the gun uselessly, crying as the bullets bounced off the
monster’s body, until finally the gun was empty.  “I wish you’d killed me
earlier,” she sobbed, clutching at his shoulders.  The monster crouched, ready
to spring.
“I don’t,” Mr. Tanaka said simply.
The monster leapt forward, and Naomi flinched away, squinting her eyes shut. 
She selfishly hoped it would kill her quickly.
Shhhhhh.
Naomi kept breathing.  Her heart kept beating.  Tanaka remained curled around
her, his whole body braced for impact.  For a moment, there was absolute
silence.  What had happened?
She opened her eyes, and saw wings.
From above, Mr. Takahashi cried out in outrage, firing his gun manically at
them.  A wing shifted to cover them, the bullets harmlessly deflecting away. 
Mr. Tanaka’s eyes were wide, jaw dropped.  “Kotobuki?” he said incredulously.
“Tanaka?” the monster with wings asked, equally incredulously, swiping Mr.
Takahashi’s monster away with its other wing.  “I didn’t recognize you.”
Mr. Takahashi’s monster had lost one of its arms, something like ash leaking
out of the gaping wound.  Like it was dissolving.  “Decided to stop hiding in
jail, huh?” Mr. Tanaka said, a feral grin spreading across his face, “What
happened?  Decided to join Kei Nagai’s little club?”
“Hardly,” the monster said derisively.
With another swipe of its wing, it crushed Mr. Takahashi’s monster’s head, and
the entire thing dissolved into ash.  It spread its wings wide, filling the
alley with them and blocking out the sun, before bringing them down and soaring
up into the air, creating a gust of wind that would have knocked Naomi over if
she hadn’t already been on the ground.  The monster flew up to Takahashi, who
was fleeing across the roofs overhead.
No sooner had the monster taken off then Mr. Tanaka had stood up, lifting Naomi
up with him as they ran once again.  “What are you doing?” Naomi asked, looking
up at the monster with wings with no small amount of awe, “shouldn’t we stay
with him?”
“I can’t trust that he won’t hurt you once he realizes who you are,” Mr. Tanaka
said shortly, “I said I’d get you out of here, and that’s what I’m going to
do.”
This time, they ran and didn’t stop running.  Naomi watched the back of Mr.
Tanaka’s shirt flutter, the ragged claw marks left by Mr. Takahashi’s monster
only showing clean, unbroken skin.  The bandages were still on his shoulder,
useless now.  His hair was still short.
She fought back a smile.  So was hers.
They reached a train station, Naomi somehow having enough change in her pocket
to buy them both tickets, and they collapsed in one of the seats as they left
Tokyo behind.  Being before rush hour, the train was mostly empty, and Naomi
could see Mr. Tanaka beginning to relax, though his eyes were still suspicious.
What on earth were they going to do now?
“I’m sorry,” Mr. Tanaka said, and Naomi jumped.
“For what?” she asked.
He looked out the window, his expression softening.  “You didn’t get to say
goodbye to anyone.”
Naomi blinked.  What?  He actually thought…a person like her…
She couldn’t help it.  She started giggling.  Mr. Tanaka seemed taken aback. 
“What’s so funny?!” he sputtered.
Something inside her had come untwisted, just a little bit.  A tension in her
shoulders was lighter, her heart felt like it could pound just a little more
freely against her ribs.  “I’m sorry,” she said, gasping for air, fighting and
failing to stop giggling, “it’s just that I don’t have anyone to say goodbye
to.”
Naomi Li had woken up that morning with the certainty that she would die.  But
she was alive.  And for the first time in years she wondered if perhaps that
was a good thing.
***** Chapter 16 *****
Chapter Summary
     in which things go from kinda ooc/au to very ooc/au
All Nori had wanted was a quiet afternoon in the park, practicing baseball with
Kenji like they always did after school.  The bat shifted in his bag as he
shifted uncomfortably on the bench, glancing over his shoulder for the
umpteenth time at the source of his discomfort.
The boy leaned against a motorcycle like an anime character, his face bruised
and scarred.  His hair was dyed, and he had a piercing.  He held a large duffel
bag tightly to his stomach, no doubt filled with baseball bats and batons and
knifes and maybe even a gun.  The dark expression on his face was absolutely
murderous.  No one was within about thirty feet of the guy, wisely choosing to
give him a wide berth as they walked into the park.  No one except for Kenji,
who had walked right into the no-fly zone and sat down nonchalantly at their
usual bench like he had no fear of death.  Nori shifted uncomfortably. 
Technically, he supposed, Kenji didn’t.
None of this would have been so bad, Nori conceded.  They saw dangerous-looking
types on the bus or the subway or even at the convenience store all the time. 
Generally, it was just a little nerve-wracking, and then it was over.  He
glanced nervously at Kenji, who was playing with his phone without a care in
the world.  Unbidden, his eyes uneasily drifted back towards the boy.  This
wouldn’t be so bad, except that the boy had been staring at them for the past
fifteen minutes.
“Wow, Nori, look at this,” Kenji said with mock enthusiasm, and Nori leaned in
despite himself, “that nutjob’s released another video.”
It was probably something to commemorate having worked through over half of the
people on his list.  Nori felt sick.  Not that he particularly gave a shit
about any of the people Satou had marked for death, but what might come after
kept him up at night.  What could anyone do against a terrorist like Satou, who
had proven capable of infiltrating even a stronghold like Forge Security?
“Hey,” Kenji said, his voice getting a little softer, making Nori’s eyes snap
to his face, “you know I won’t let anything happen to you, right?”
Nori glared at him skeptically.  “Thanks, but if it came down to it, I’d much
rather have someone like thatguy,” he jabbed his thumb in the direction of the
motorcycle, “protecting me, seeing as you…can’t…” he trailed off.  The boy by
the motorcycle was gone.
“Hi,” a soft voice said behind them, and they both yelped and whirled around,
coming face-to-face with motorcycle boy.  Nori blinked.  He looked like a
different person.  The light in his golden eyes had tempered from a sharp focus
to a comforting warmth, the entire way he carried himself had become gentle and
unintimidating.  He smiled, and it was absolutely disarming.  “Whatcha looking
at?” he asked curiously, looking over their shoulders at Kenji’s phone.
Nori’s stomach clenched.  Somehow, this was even worse than when he’d looked
scary.  Up this close, Nori could tell that this boy had definitely been in at
least a few fights recently.  Kenji, the moron, didn’t seem to pick up on any
of this at all.  “Just lookin’ at Satou’s newest video,” he said, “might as
well know the exact way he plans to kill us.”
An odd montage of expressions rapidly cycled across the boy’s face, before it
settled back into the same charming one he’d been using.  He gripped the back
of the bench tightly enough that his knuckles turned white.  “Oh?  Can I see?”
“Hey, why not!” Kenji said like an idiot, holding up his phone so the stranger
could also see it.
Nori wanted to move away as the boy leaned in, but he was afraid of how the boy
would react, so he kept himself perfectly still.  Maybe he really just wanted
to see the video, and then he’d go.
“Hello again,”Satou’s voice crackled through Kenji’s phone speakers, his voice
as affable and fond as usual, “This is Satou the ajin.  How are you all?  I’ve
missed you.”
“God, what a creep,” Kenji muttered, and Nori nodded agreement.  The boy was
motionless.
“I’ve made this video to announce the next target of our purification,” Satou
continued, his voice becoming more serious, “this is someone whose crimes
against us stand above all the others.  The man directly responsible for the
capture and torture of Kei Nagai.”
“Do you mean the bigwig that ordered it, or the poor cop that happened to be
the one to find him?” Kenji spat, “or do you mean you?” Nori winced.  He’d
heard Kenji’s theories that Satou was finding ajins and then deliberately
staging their exposures many many times.
“What are you doing…?” the boy murmured, and Nori turned back to look at him. 
Fear, anger, and curiosity juxtaposed on the boy’s face in the set of his jaw
and the wideness of his eyes.  He covered his mouth with one hand, like he was
about to be sick.  His whole body was shaking.
“I’ll admit, I’m announcing this largely for selfish reasons,” Satou said, his
voice becoming a little bashful, which was extremely unsettling coming from
him, “There’s someone I’m hoping might join me.  I could use his help.”
The boy scrambled backward, falling to the ground and hyperventilating.  He was
sweating, and his eyes were dilated, like he was on some kind of drug.  “Hey,
are you okay?!” Nori asked, springing off the bench and running toward him.
“In three days, we will purify the world of Yu Tosaki.”
Nori gently placed his hand on the boy’s forehead, and the boy recoiled
instantly, snarling, “Don’t fucking touch me!”
“I really hope you’ll join me, Kai.”
“Get back, Nori,” Kenji said calmly, stepping between him and the boy.
The boy’s eyes narrowed, and he slowly rose to his feet, his face contorted
from pain.  He clutched at his stomach.  “What a pain in the ass,” he
muttered.  Was he injured?
“Kenji,” Nori said, “I don’t think he’s dangerous.”
“Of course he’s not.  I’m here.”
The boy immediately smirked, and he shook his head, brushing the dirt off his
pants.  “Ah, how naïve,” he said, “it’s sweet.”  He stepped back toward them,
smiling cheekily at Kenji.  “You know…” he added quietly, his voice barely
audible, “you really shouldn’t be so brazen with that thing.  Just cuz only
other ajins can see it doesn’t mean you’re safe.”
Kenji’s face went white.  Nori couldn’t breathe.  His baseball bat was suddenly
out of his bag and in his hands, the grip smooth and familiar.  The boy’s eyes
widened.  “Whoa, easy there,” he said, his attention completely shifting away
from Kenji, “I’m not about to sell him out.  Don’t do something you can’t take
back.”
“Sell me out for what?” Kenji asked flatly.
The boy smiled, then walked over to the ground a few feet to Kenji’s left.  He
held his hand out into empty air, feeling around for a second before starting
to pet something Nori couldn’t see.  Kenji choked.  “No, I can’t see it,” the
boy said softly, “but I’ve learned how to tell when they’re around.  Wow, I’ve
never met one that has fur before…”
Who the hell was this?
The boy smiled.  “You seem nice,” he said to Kenji, “I’d hate for Satou to hurt
you too.”
Kenji raised an eyebrow and glanced meaningfully at Nori.  “Haven’t you got it
backwards?”
The boy’s smile turned bitter.  “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.  Believe me
when I say he can hurt you so much more than he can hurt him.”
“What do you mean ‘seen what I’ve seen?’” Nori asked, “you haven’t…you haven’t
met Satou, have you?”
The boy laughed, one of his hands absently resting on his stomach.  “Something
like that…”
Nori felt his jaw drop.  “No…” he said in shock, “you’ve fought him.”
The boy shrugged.  “Someone’s gotta.  And I’ve got people to protect…”
“You’ve fought Satou, and lived…” Kenji said reverently.
The boy shifted uncomfortably.  “Yeah I guess.  Not bad for a human with just
one life…”
“Take me with you,” Kenji said abruptly, and Nori felt his heart stop.  No.  No
no no no no no no no no no—
“No.”
“What?!” Kenji cried, “But if you’re one of the people fighting Satou, I want
in!  I’m sick of just sitting around waiting for Satou to do something else.  I
want to be able to help, like the Angel!  You must be working with him, right?”
The boy blinked, obviously taken aback.  “The Angel?” he asked.
“Yeah!  People say he’s cutting off black market sources of weapons.  Guerilla
warfare against Satou, right?”
“Lots of people have also been claiming to be saved by him,” Nori added, “the
number of people who have been kidnapped or murdered in Tokyo has been cut in
half since people started seeing him a couple weeks ago.”
“To get the public feeling sympathetic towards ajins, obviously!” Kenji cut in,
“but how do you guys do it?  It’s obviously an ajin’s ghost, but how is it that
everyone can see it?  What’s the trick?”
The boy blinked again, his eyes lazily drifting around them.  “Keep your voices
down,” he said softly, “they’re all busy trying to avoid looking at me but
there’s only so far that will go.”
Kenji flushed.  “Right!  Sorry…”
The boy shook his head.  “What an idiot,” he muttered, his voice fond, “I told
him to keep a low profile…”  He ran his fingers through his hair, his eyes
getting misty for a moment.  “My best guess is that the Angel is a vigilante,”
he said, “but then again, I suppose that’s sort of what I am too.”
Kenji gaped.  “But you’re just a human!” he whispered, “How can you—”
“The fight between me and Satou is personal,” the boy said firmly, “I won’t
have anyone standing between me and him again.  However…” he added, “if you
really want to make war on him, then there is someone you should try to find…”
Without so much as a by-your-leave, the boy reached forward and took Kenji’s
school bag from him, rifling through it until he got a notebook and a pen. 
Kenji sputtered indignantly, but the boy worked quickly, writing something in
the notebook and then tearing the page out.  He tore that paper in half,
handing one piece to each of them.  Nori looked down at his.  An address he
didn’t recognize was written on it.
“Go there,” the boy said, “and tell them you want to speak to Eriko Nagai.”
Nagai?
Eriko Nagai??
The boy smiled.  “Vive la resistance,” he whispered mischievously.  He patted
them each on the head affectionately, before turning to head back to his
motorcycle.  “Thanks you two,” he said, “I’ve got my motivation back, thanks to
you.”
“Wait!” Nori cried, “who are you?”
The boy stopped, looking over his shoulder.  “…Nori, right?” he asked, “Don’t
let him leave you behind.”  He sighed, his eyes gazing off into space for a
moment.  “My name is Kai,” he added quietly.
Before either of them could say anything else, Kai had hopped back onto his
motorcycle and was driving away.  Kenji and Nori watched him go.  Suddenly,
Nori had an unbelievable thought.  “Kenji, give me your phone,” he said.
Kenji looked at him strangely, but handed it over.  Nori pressed “replay” on
Satou’s video, skipping past most of it until near the end.
“I really hope you’ll join me, Kai.”
I really hope you’ll join me, Kai.
Kai.
“Holy shit,” Kenji whispered.  Nori nodded agreement.
Kenji glanced back down at the piece of paper in his hands.  “So…” he said,
“what are the odds that this isn’t a trap?”
Nori rolled his eyes.  “What are the odds that I could dissuade you from going
if I thought it was?”
Kenji grinned.  “C’mon, namedropping Eriko Nagai? I can’t say no to that.”
Nori shook his head.  “Then I guess I can’t either.”
***** Chapter 17 *****
Chapter Summary
     i'm so sorry, but I swear to God something will actually /happen/
     next chapter >->;;;;
Eriko had wanted to go out guns blazing after Kai and drag his sorry stupid
avoidant ass back kicking and screaming because what the hell she’d been trying
so hard he didn’t get to just fucking fly the coop after some serious bonding
time like that!  Fucker was going to get tied down and fed nothing but kimchi
and ice cream for the next month.  Had Satou’s stupid ghosty come back?  Was
that what was going on?  Had the two of them fucking run off together?  Unbe-
fucking-lievable.  The voices in her pendant quietly roared their anger as a
nice harmony to her own righteous fury.
Unfortunately, in the hours after his disappearance her body had decided to
fuck with her just as much as Kai.  She was so mad she almost didn’t notice at
first, but as she was seething in the kitchen, sipping some tea, she realized. 
She had a sore throat.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,” she said, holding her mouth open wide in front of a
mirror.  It didn’t look like strep, but then again the sore throat had only
just started.  “Damn it!” she swore, punching the sink and subsequently wincing
from the pain.  It hadn’t even been four months.  It wasn’t fair.  She pressed
her hands to her cheeks in an effort to keep her face under control, and the
skin felt hot under her hands.  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.
She felt like shit announcing that she was Sick to Kai’s parents (parent and
associated chaperone?  Who knew…) in the midst of all the other shit going on,
but life was shit and she’d learned the hard way to not play around with this. 
While Yuuki remained on Kai-search duty, Megumi (well, Miya, really) had taken
on the frustrating but also slightly comforting role of caretaker.
“Are you certain you don’t need to go to the hospital?” Miya fretted, waving
her serrated arms around uselessly as she brought what must be the seventeenth
mug of tea now.  Really, tea didn’t actually help that much.
“I’m just Sick, it’s not an Episode yet,” Eriko said tiredly, lying in bed with
a wet rag on her head and a smear of Vic’s Vapo Rub on her chest.  “Mom always
just threw me in the hospital at the first sign of anything, but there’s
nothing I really need them for unless it gets really bad.”
(and they’d wheel her down strapped to a table into the operating room and cut
her open again)
She still took her handful of meds faithfully every morning, even as the fever
and sore throat persisted.  A colorful cocktail of immunosuppressants and
antibiotics and narcotics designed to hopefully prolong the inevitable sweet
release of death.  She’d noticed the voices in her pendant started getting
louder and more anxious-sounding if she didn’t take her meds, so she kept
taking them.  She still had shit to do anyway.
In the absence of Kai and her own ability to fucking leave her bed, Eriko
wanted to (temporarily) delegate the task of starting to build her ghost army
to Miya, and pushed the list of names at her more times than she could count. 
But Miya always shook her head and said that Eriko should take more time to
consider what she wanted to do before she started doing it.  Eriko took that to
mean that Miya was refusing to go far, which pissed her off but there wasn’t
much she could do about it.
Since Miya couldn’t be manifested all the time, Megumi would often be in the
room with Eriko instead, bringing her soup and what little news there was.  Kai
being his mother’s son knew exactly how to hide himself from her, and since he
obviously didn’t want to be found there wasn’t much that they could do.  Yuuki
had revised her strategy to attempt to find Yu Tosaki, since he was Satou’s
next target and Kai might decide to make an appearance there as well.
Often though, she was alone, lying in bed trying to muster the energy to sit up
and ignore the coughs that had started halfway through day two.  Megumi and
Yuuki were getting more anxious the longer Kai was missing, and that kept them
from fretting too much over her, some relative stranger.  The human mind could
only handle so much shit at once, after all.
She kept the lights off and the blinds closed so the room was as dark as
possible when no one was around.  If she was to be holed up and miserable, her
environment must reflect that.  It was eerie in the lack of light how distinct
and clear the grains of ghost sand in her pendant appeared, even when she
closed her eyes.
She’d cough, and it would pull painfully at her most recent surgery scar (not
really fresh, but still very pink and angry-looking).  The voices in her
pendant (in her head?) seemed concerned by her quiet groans of pain, so between
the coughs she took to narrating for them the various valve-repair/replacement
surgeries she’d had on her heart, wondering if they’d be less worried if they
understood.
There had been a time, before her mother had opted to pull her out of school
completely, when she’d gleefully tried to explain to her classmates what
exactly the surgeons had been up to in her ribcage, but they’d always gotten
grossed out and that had made Eriko feel gross and so she’d stopped talking
about it.  But the pendant voices only ever sounded curious or sad, so Eriko
started babbling about every gross yucky detail regarding her Illness that she
could think of, and felt the pendant getting warmer and warmer on her skin the
longer she talked.  It pulsed to match her heartbeat.
She started talking about other things too.  The mortification of getting her
first period in the hospital, and having some disinterested male doctor poke
around her vagina without any particular reason to “just in case there was any
inflammation” and reaching the point where she didn’t bother learning the names
of the aides and nurses and doctors because they were never the same and they
were only useful as a means of counting the passing of time.  The time she’d
woken up on the operating table.
She’d flip the hourglass over again and again as she talked, noticing when the
grains didn’t fall quite right and when they fell just like sand.
Around day four, she started hearing words in the noise, the garbled voices
layered over each other enough that a few sounds would become distinct. 
“.̞͖̯̟͓̬̠͡.̱͙̞͉̥̖͉̼.̦̹͇ͅe͕̘̗͇͢.̴̩̻͍̲̮.͈̜̦̪̞͍̯͍͜.̙̳̦͎̫͍̙̩r̵҉̜̻̲̞̯̦i̡̥̘̠͜.̛̥͎͎̗.̴͓͈̫̮͈͔͎̮͠.͉̤̫̳͉̹̯͜͞k͞͏͚̫̲̭o̴̴̢̖̥̪̝̥.͕̤́.̙̫͟.͚”
and
“.̱͍̻͕̩̞̼̪̕͟͝.̶̨҉͇̖̘̲̬̳̘.̝͓b̘̰̭̗̘̜̱r̷͔̳̳͎̟͕͝.̖̤̳͞.̛̣.̸̠͔̩͍̫͎ͅe̡͏̘̳̩̝͓ͅà̧̬̖̗͈̖̼̖t̶͉̳̻h̸̵̛̼͖͓͕̱̬͉e̥̰͟.̭̼͈̗̻͇̤̀̕ͅ.̪͚̳͢.̡̩̟̰̞̭͖͢”
and
“.̲̭̳̹͎͖ͅ.̳̗̬̦̯̩͖͙.̤̣̘͔̼̭͖́ś͕̙͙̼͓ͅl͍̥̙̕.̼̭̗̟͓̻͖͔̝͢.̢̼̣̼͉̩̖̙.̴̙̥̻͓͍̩̫͢ͅe̤͔̩̠͕e͚̫̫̤̬̣.̶̷̩͈̙̞̥̲̻.̣͎́͟.̧̻̳͇̱͡͠e̖̖̻͇͕͘͢͝è̮̲̲̘̲̳̲ͅȩ̱͔̭͖̱͓͚͚̺ẹ̗͚͠ḛ͓̯̲͢͝e̶҉͔͔͍͔e̡̯̺̘͖̲̟̥͠ͅp͍̙̙.͓͙̠̫̕.̦̘.̭̗͉͝”
and in the morning as she was waking up
“.̯͍͈̘̭.̷͙̤̕͡.̥̰͇m̨̪̝͈é͔d̵͍̥͈̟͚.̨̛̺̞̬̥̤.͚.̘͖̗̕͘í̴͕̩̠̘͙͈̯͈̳.͇̟͖͖̰̗͟ͅ.͏̨̻͖̬͇̪́.̡̩̤̪͡c̛̘̬̳̬̟̭͇̀̀i̸̵̢̭̲̹̟͖̹̹n̶̤͢e̛̙͍̳͈̖̮͕͔.̗̞̣̦.̛͉͉͇̖́ͅ.̸̧̯̩̲̺̱͠.”
 
The cough and sore throat started lessening, and her fever broke.  Perhaps this
wasn’t going to be an Episode after all.  She had the energy to sit up in bed
more, and found herself mostly scouring the internet for anything to be found
on the ajin Kouji Tanaka.  Basic information like date of discovery, date of
capture, date of birth, where he was from, all were easy and told her
absolutely nothing about him.  The leaked videos of his torture were a little
harder to find, but still easy.  She’d seen them before, but she started to
rewatch them anyway, only stopping when she realized that the voices in her
pendant were screaming.  She hushed them, and spent a couple hours calming them
down by reading stupid youtube video comments out loud and breaking down
exactly what was stupid about each one.  Not exactly traditional, but
whatever.  Captive audience.
Further digging got her slightly more personal information, like what high
school he’d gone to, which had led her to an old geocities page filled with
pictures of his school’s cultural festivals.  Some student body government
dweeb must have run it.  She scrolled through them, sifting through the dozens
of pictures that didn’t include him to find the odd one that did.  It was
strange to see him so young.  He must have only had to worry about grades back
then…  Some of the pictures made her laugh, and she didn’t cough.  That was a
good sign.
Embracing the full-on stalker mode she had entered, she started looking to see
what other archives from that time had pieces of Kouji Tanaka in them.  Some of
them weren’t that surprising…a police blotter reporting him as involved in a
small car collision, or the discovery of his class ranking upon graduation
(nothing impressive from either side).  Others were very surprising…newspaper
clippings about local festivals had him sitting with other musicians, holding a
shamisen.  A shamisen!  She wondered if he was any good.
She wondered if his parents missed him, or if they were like hers.
Later that day, Miya carried her out of bed and, at Eriko’s reluctantly
expressed concern of fainting in the steam, sat with her in the shower.  The
steam made snot drip out of her nose but made it easier to breathe.  Steam
condensed on and dripped off of Miya’s mandibles and it made Eriko giggle.
 They washed each other’s backs, even though it was sort of a moot point for
Miya.  It was the most normal form of human interaction Eriko had had in days. 
Kind of sad, but Eriko took what she could get.
The next day, she had the house to herself.  Satou’s plan to kill Yu Tosaki was
due to happen the next day, so Megumi and Yuuki had both gone to try to find
Kai before it was too late.  There were various underlings around, but none
entered the private area so it was as though Eriko was alone.  She walked
quietly through the different rooms, glaring thoughtfully at pieces of family
memorabilia that Yuuki had evidently hung onto, enjoying her regained ability
to breathe like a normal person.
 
She wanted very badly to know what was happening, but she didn’t dare turn on
the news.  She didn’t particularly give a shit if this “Toe-Sucky” guy lived or
died, but on the off chance that there was anything about Kai, she didn’t want
to hear about it from some news reporter.  She at least wanted to hear it from
people, preferably from Kai’s stupid mouth.  Fucker.
To distract herself, she started poring over the list of names, their locations
and sometimes a few other tidbits of information penciled in next to them.  It
didn’t seem like much.  How many ajins did Satou have working for him?  What
kind of army was she going to need to stand a chance against him?  …what would
she do with that army, after…?  How would she get them to trust her in the
first place?  Could she really expect them to rally to her?
Maybe she could visit Kouji Tanaka’s hometown.  Was he still working with
Satou, or had he come to his senses yet?  Did he even have any senses left to
come back to?
Her thumb ran over the pendant slowly.  That was an uncharitable thought.
That night, lying in bed and trying to fall asleep with nothing but the voices
for company, she told them, solemnly, “I need to find him.  He’s important, I
think.  Necessary.”
The voices whispered agreements.  Eriko blew her nose and admired the color and
consistency of her snot, a sign that the sick was on its way out for sure.  She
turned off the light and let the room get dark, so that all she could see was
the black sand.
“Where is he?” she asked quietly, not really sure what she was expecting.
The voices chittered to themselves unintelligibly for what felt like hours,
lulling Eriko’s eyes closed until she was almost asleep.  Then suddenly, they
went silent.  The sand was pressing itself against one side of the pendant,
toward the window.
“.̸̰͚͜͠.̨̬͈̯͖̠̖̙͘.̛̰̙̣͝c̖̥͖̫̣̣̘͢ǫ͉͓͔͕̙̙̺̤̲͝m̡̢̞͕̪̭̼̫̫͎.̢̬͉̩̥̘̫̗͞.̵̨͏͉̪͈̺̣͖͚̥̮.̨҉̩͕͚̦̙̳͎̲͟i͏̙̯͇̳̲̹͔ǹ͖̙̩̳̻̩̤g̨͙̼̼̤̞̘̀͟.͏̨̘̬̼.̵̛̲̤̠͈ͅ.̛̼̖̜”
***** Chapter 18 *****
Chapter Summary
     holy shit she isn't dead. wooo!!! and she's made it past 50k omg!
     lmao does this count as beating nanowrimo? xDDDDD
     this chapter was extremely hard to write, being from tosaki's pov
     which is not one I expected to use when I started this fic xD
     hopefully it'll be easier in the next chapter, which also needs to be
     from his pov for Reasons. ideally y'all won't have to wait months
     like last time >->;;; who knows, real life is a drag. still, thanks
     y'all for reading and commenting, as always. I treasure all of you
     dearly, and your nice comments have gotten me through some bad mental
     health days.
     ALSO!! in case any of you weren't aware, the lovely talented and
     amazing kelpie-hearts has DRAWN ME FANART. I DIE. WITNESS THE
     GLORIOUS ART HERE.
By the time he’d found a key for Shimomura’s handcuffs, it had become apparent
that the only course of action left to them would be to retreat.  Shimomura’s
eyes had been alight with some self-sacrificial righteous fury, but mercifully
she’d come with him anyway.  In the commotion, they were able to slip away. 
His phone burned in his pocket.
The car was right where they’d left it, so there was that at least.  Shimomura
glanced between him and the Forge Security building with steady eyes.  “We
don’t need to wait for anyone else,” she said.
“Mmm,” he replied.
“If the operation has failed,” she continued, “it’s unsafe to remain here.”
Yu popped some mints into his mouth and kept his face thoughtful.
A few minutes later, Nakano appeared, running towards them at a surprising pace
considering that he had Nagai slung over his shoulders.  “He was still
regenerating,” Nakano explained, breathing heavily, “it was either leave him or
carry him.”
Despite the two of them both obviously being unharmed, Nagai had a strange
glassy look in his eyes, and Nakano an angry one.  “We’re all that’s left,”
Nagai said dully after Nakano had set him down, “Just us four.”
“Where is Satou?”
An apathetic shrug.
There was nothing to say, so they all piled in the car and drove off, Yu half-
wondering why they were even bothering.  There was no point to any of it
anymore.  He ate through his entire container of mints without noticing until
the pads of his fingers were scraping the empty bottom.  His tongue felt
strange in his mouth.  Shimomura didn’t say a word as she drove.
The sound of knuckles rapping against the window jolted Yu out of his
thoughts.  Ogura looked down at him through the glass, the walls of the safe
house rising up behind him.  Yu blinked, his eyes slipping toward the clock and
noticing the time with surprise.  Ogura opened his car door, leaning in over
him and looking into the back seat.  “I take it things didn’t go well,” he
said.
“What do you mean?” Yu asked stiffly.
“The fact that you’re asking stupid questions is only hurting your case,” Ogura
said, taking a long drag from his cigarette and blowing into the backseat. 
“Man, the kids are really conked out, aren’t they?”
Yu craned his neck to look over his shoulder.  Nagai had fallen asleep with his
head on his knees, curled into a ball leaning against the door.  Nakano had
collapsed atop the rest of the backseat, having apparently abandoned his
seatbelt at some point.  “Must be mental exhaustion,” Ogura said, “since dying
would reset the physical need for sleep.”
“You should rest as well, Mr. Tosaki,” Shimomura said quietly, not looking at
him as she unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped out of the car, slamming the door
shut behind her.
The sound jolted Nakano awake, who jumped enough to fall off the seat and onto
the floor of the car.  He cried loudly in pain, and slowly, almost
imperceptibly, Nagai stirred, bangs covering his eyes.  Nakano groaned like a
child, making a show of picking himself up and getting back onto the car seat. 
“Wow,” he said, “Satou sure kicked our asses, huh?”
“You four all that’s left?” Ogura asked, blowing smoke into Yu’s face.
Nakano stiffened, and nodded.  “Yeah…we…we lost them.  Even Hirasawa.”
At least he wouldn’t have to pay them now.  Not that Yu had any use for the
money anymore anyway.  Everything had fallen apart.  The fact that his last
desperate hurrah had failed so spectacularly was only cruel irony in light of
the greater loss of any reason to have attempted resisting Satou in the first—
“So what’s the plan?”
Yu blinked.  Nakano was sitting cross-legged in the backseat, watching him with
wide curious eyes.  Yu furrowed his brows.  “Excuse me?”
“Well, Satou pretty clearly won this round,” Nakano said, “so we’re going to
need to do something else to stop him before he manages to pull off his Wave
Three.  What’s the plan?”
Plan?  Did he…did he actually…could he possibly believe that they were still
fighting?  That it wasn’t over?  Yu couldn’t help but throw his head back and
laugh, tears streaming down his cheeks.  Nakano had always seemed to be in it
for more than self-interest, but this was just sad.
“There is no plan,” Nagai said quietly, raising his head.  His eyes were slits.
Nakano started.  “Then what are we doing just sitting around here for?!” he
shouted, “We don’t have much time before Satou makes his next move!  We have
to—!”
“Nakano!  It’s over!!” Nagai snarled, “This was our last shot.  Satou won.  All
that’s left to do is sit and wait for him to come and find us.  That’s the
plan.”
“What, are you just going to let him come and cut your head off like he
wants?!” Nakano demanded, and Ogura whistled.
For a minute, Yu wondered if Nagai was going to kill Nakano, here in the car,
or if Nakano was going to do it first.  But after a long, tense silence, Nagai
opened the car door and walked away, heading inside.  Nakano screamed and
pulled at his hair, before bursting through the other door and storming away in
the opposite direction.  “Nakano, where are you going?” Ogura asked lightly.
“Out,” Nakano said, not volunteering any other information.
“Pick me up some smokes!” Ogura said, unperturbed.
Ogura scratched his chin thoughtfully as the two boys disappeared.  “I suppose
I could just leave,” he mused.
Yu glared at him dully.  “I don’t care.  Go.  Advise Satou instead or
something.  I don’t care.”
Ogura took a long drag from his cigarette.  “I can’t deny that it would be fun
to spend a little quality time with Mr. Owen,” he said, “but you know what? 
Call it Stockholm Syndrome, but I don’t really feel like leaving.”
Yu couldn’t take the smell of Ogura’s smoke anymore.  “Do what you want,” he
said, getting out of the car and walking into the hideout, Ogura trailing
behind.
“What, are you just going to go sit and mope?”
“I don’t mope.”
“Sorry, sorry, brood.”
“I suppose I could cut your fingers off again, for old time’s sake.”
“Ooo, kinky.  But pass, I don’t really feel like sewing them back on again.”
“I thought you didn’t need them to smoke.”
“Want me to convince you I should keep them?”
“…”
“Hey, the world’s probably going to end soon, at this point I’m not above
making innuendoes at the guy who cut my fingers off.”
Yu stopped short, whirling around and knocking the cigarette out of Ogura’s
hand.  “I’m going to go mourn,” he said through gritted teeth, storming off. 
Ogura didn’t say anything.
Yu didn’t sleep that night.
The next morning, wearing the same clothes he’d worn the day before, he
stumbled into the kitchen area, wondering if there was any alcohol.  There
wasn’t, so he settled for a glass of water.  He’d run out of mints somewhere
around midnight.  Maybe there was at least some gum around.
A mug of coffee appeared in his face.  Shimomura.  Clean suit, fresh makeup. 
Every bit as professional as always.  “Good morning, Mr. Tosaki,” she said,
holding out the coffee.
Yu drank it without tasting it, or even noticing the temperature.  At some
point he sat down.  Shimomura remained standing, arms folded behind her back. 
Nakano stumbled in some time later, hungover and covered in hickeys.  “Where
were you?” Yu asked mechanically, taking a sip from his mug before realizing it
was empty.
Nakano made a face.  “Having a shitton of sex…the fuck else?”
“You risk exposure, thus compromising the rest of us,” Shimomura said calmly,
“Don’t go off on your own like that again.”
Nakano rolled his eyes.  “Oh sure, like it matters.  Four-eyes over here
doesn’t have the motivation to shave, let alone fight Satou again, and
Nagai…fuck Nagai,” he spat, dropping his head down to rest on the table, “if
we’re just waiting for Satou’s Wave 3, then what does it fucking matter if some
cop spots me?”
“Satou will not engage his third wave,” Shimomura said calmly, “to do so would
mean completing his second wave.  As long as Mr. Tosaki is alive, wave three
cannot commence.”
Crash.
Oh, the coffee mug.  Yu poked at one of the larger shards with his foot.  He
must have dropped it.  “I wonder if I can kill myself with this,” he said,
“save Satou the trouble.”
Shimomura immediately scooped the shards away with her hands, a few drops of
blood landing on the floor.  “It’s not over,” she said, “another fight may well
have a different outcome.”
Not over?  Yu felt a smile splitting his face.  He shook his head.  “No,” he
said, starting to laugh, “there won’t be another fight.”
“You’re still alive, Mr. Tosaki.”
“An unfortunate oversight!” Yu roared, slamming his hands down on the table and
standing to tower over her, “It’s over!  There’s nothing left to fight for!”
Shimomura met his gaze evenly.  “Is that all, Mr. Tosaki?”
Yu didn’t say anything.  Shimomura took a deep breath and punched him in the
face, the blow hard enough to make him stumble.  Before he could recover, she’d
grabbed his collar and yanked his face down so their eyes were level.  “How
dare you…” she hissed, her hand shaking slightly, “I’ve kept you alive to
protect my freedom, and now you’d throw that all away just because you’re a
poor loser?”
Her breath smelled like cigarettes.  Yu’s eyes drifted slowly down to her
wrists, a scab formed on one of them from where the handcuff had rubbed her
skin raw.  Shimomura.  He blinked.  It hadn’t sunk in yet that at some point,
he’d stopped thinking of her as someone he’d throw on the dissecting table
without another thought if she stopped being useful.  He lowered his eyes. 
“Soon it won’t matter whether or not the world knows that you’re an ajin.”
“Only if Satou wins,” she said, her voice steely.
“He already won.”
A few days pass.  Yu doesn’t see any signs of Nagai, though he hears Nakano
yelling at him enough to safely presume that Nagai is still in the safe house. 
Shimomura asks him every morning what they’re going to do, and every morning Yu
ignores her.  Ogura seems to be carrying on the same as always; smoking and
making irritating comments.  Yu finds himself wondering what he’d have to say
to make one of them kill him.
“Did it hurt when I ran you over?” Yu asked Nakano one afternoon.  Ogura choked
back a sound that might have been laughter and promptly excused himself.
Nakano was eating an apple, and continued eating.  “Oh sure,” he says with his
mouth full, shrugging, “not as much as getting electrocuted though.”
“I’ll bet if I tried I could make it hurt more.”
Nakano furrowed his eyebrows at him, before putting the apple down.  “Alright,
dude,” he said amicably, “how about you tell me the real reason you’ve been
such an emo asshole.”
Yu blinked.  “I thought you were the stupid one.”
“Nagai and I have different strengths.  Now spill.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll keep asking,” Nakano said with a grin.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Fucking excuse me?  Whatever it is has got you losing your will to fight,
which is extremely relevant to my quality of life.  Geez, what’s got you all
worked up, did someone die or something?”
Yu froze.  Nakano swore.  “Shit, dude, seriously?”
It was entirely because he couldn’t let Nakano believe a falsehood, even a
mostly-true falsehood, that Yu spoke up.  Yes.  “She’s not…well, she’ll be dead
soon, but not yet.”
Nakano scooted his chair closer to Yu and propped his head in his hands,
looking up attentively.  It was childish and stupid and maybe just a little bit
calming.  “Who?”
“…Ai,” he said, feeling the word slip out of his mouth like a eulogy, “…my
fiancé.”  He immediately narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Nakano, but Nakano
remained solemn and attentive.  It was…odd, to see.  “She’s been in a coma for
a very long time.  And I just received word that her organs are failing. 
They’ve reached the point where there’s nothing left they can do for her.”
Nakano took a deep breath.  “Holy shit,” he said, his voice wet and his eyes
shimmering, “you mean you’ve been dealing with this?”
Taken aback, Yu cautiously nodded.  Nakano flushed, and scrubbed his face with
his arm sullenly, abruptly getting up and leaving the room.  Before Yu could
completely process what had happened, Nakano came back, carrying a box of
mints.  “Don’t get mad,” he said, “I just hid it cuz I was pissed at you. 
You’re still an asshole, but…” he sputtered and sat down, shoving his hands in
his pockets, “anyway whatever, just take them.”
(“Yu.  I want you to quit smoking.  You’ll live longer that way, and I don’t
want to miss out on a single moment with you.  Please, dear?”)
Yu gripped the box of mints so tightly his knuckles turned white, tears falling
from his eyes and landing on the painted metal.  Maybe he should ask Shimomura
for a cigarette…it’s not like she’d made her habit a secret…
A hand suddenly gripped his own with startling strength, yanking him out of the
chair and dragging him out of the room.  “What are you doing?” Yu asked through
gritted teeth as Nakano lead him up the stairs.
“Taking charge,” Nakano said, bursting through a door, “Nagai!”
Nagai was lying on the floor in the middle of a nearly empty room, underneath a
small table lamp.  He was indifferently spinning the lampshade with his hand,
staring into the illuminated lightbulb and betraying no signs that he’d heard
the two of them come in.
Nakano screamed in frustration, tearing at his hair before stomping over and
unplugging the lamp.  Nagai immediately rolled over to glare at him.  “What was
that for?” he asked petulantly.
“Nagai,” Nakano said, ignoring him, “I’ve decided what we’re going to do next.”
“Oh?”
“Tozaki’s fiancé is dying in the hospital…” he suddenly turned to look at Yu,
“she is in the hospital, right?”
“Tosaki, and yes.”
Nakano reached up to pat his head.  “See, you’re still in there.  But anyway,
she’s in the hospital,” he said, addressing Nagai again, “We’re going to go
take him there to see her before she passes on.”
Wait, since when had anyone decided that?  And why on earth would Nagai even—
“Okay.”
Yu blinked.  “What?”
Nagai rolled away, and resumed spinning the lampshade.  “Two reasons,” he said,
“First: I don’t have anything left that I want to do.  All I wanted was to live
a peaceful life, which isn’t going to be possible.  So, I don’t have anything
left that I want to do.  Ergo, I don’t care what we do.”
“Really, Nagai?” Nakano snapped, “you really have no one you’d want to say
goodbye to?  Nothing you’d want to say?”  He said this like this was an old
argument.
Nagai shrugged his bony shoulders.  “We’re ajins, Nakano,” he said, “we don’t
form attachments to humans.   There’s no point.”
Nakano looked like he was about to explode.  But before he could do anything to
act on that, Nagai calmly got up off the floor and held up his phone. 
“Secondly, is this.”
It was another one of Satou’s videos.  Yu listened to it without hearing it,
until he suddenly heard his own name in striking clarity and then couldn’t hear
anything else.  He was next?  But that meant he didn’t have much time before—
“I dislike prolonging the inevitable,” Nagai said flatly.
“And you’re sure that’s the only reason this video caught your attention?”
Nakano said with a smirk, wrapping his arm conspiratorially around Nagai’s
shoulders.
“Nakano.”
“I’m just saying, seems like it might be a little more personal than that…”
“Kai is a common name, Nakano.”
“Who said anything about “Kai” having anything to do with it?”
Nagai narrowed his eyes at him for a moment, before disregarding him completely
and turning toward Yu.  “Satou released that video yesterday,” he said
steadily, “It is likely that he will make his move tomorrow.  If you want to
see your fiancé, we will need to act quickly.”
Yu lowered his eyes, unnerved by Nagai’s inhuman stare.  “She’ll still be in a
coma,” he said softly, “completely unresponsive.  Her organs may be only
failing now, but she’s been as good as dead for years.”
“Precisely.  To go to her would be completely pointless.”
Yu blinked and looked up.  Red eyes met his evenly.  Had Nagai’s voice
sounded…disappointed?
Yu gritted his teeth.  “Shimomura will raise no suspicions accompanying me, and
Nakano isn’t so well-known that he can’t avoid attention.  But you will need a
disguise.”
“Seems as though I shouldn’t come.”
Yu glanced down at the container of mints, giving it a slight shake.  “No,” Yu
said, “I’ll need all of you there if I’m to have any chance of walking out of
there alive.”
Nakano gaped at him.  Yu raised an eyebrow.  “Don’t look so surprised.”  Back
to Nagai.  “Think of a way to disguise yourself by tomorrow morning.  I’m going
to go find Shimomura.”
Yu walked out of the room, pocketing the mints as he did so.  They rattled
comfortably in his pocket.  This was good.  This was right.  If Satou was going
to kill him tomorrow, then he wouldn’t die in some nameless place miles away
from the only person who’d ever loved him.  He had at least that much pride
left in him.
Shimomura was, surprisingly (or perhaps not), with Ogura when Yu found her. 
They stood side-by-side, leaning over the balcony railings with an impersonal
amount of space separating them.  The smoke from their cigarettes merged into
one, rising high above their heads and into the cloudy sky.  Yu couldn’t tell
if they were talking.
He walked up into the space separating them.  Shimomura didn’t acknowledge
him.  Ogura, however, whistled.  “Well look at you,” he said, taking another
drag from his cigarette, “I was beginning to think your replacement will-to-
live had gotten lost in the mail.”
Yu fanned the smoke away from his face.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ogura narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, tapping the ashes from his cigarette. 
“Maybe it won’t mean anything.  But you’re less annoying this way.”
Yu grabbed the cigarette from Ogura’s mouth angrily, throwing it off the
balcony before Ogura had a chance to react.  He smiled as Ogura mournfully
looked down at the ground, before turning around and glaring at him.  “I take
it back,” Ogura snapped, “your will-to-live is an asshole.”
He turned away and walked off indignantly, leaving Yu and Shimomura alone.  She
watched him steadily, grinding out her cigarette without a word.  Yu looked
away, unable to meet her eyes.  “You’d be better off leaving,” he said softly.
“And why is that?”
“Your chances are better if you run than if you stay and try to protect me,” Yu
said, “You could make it out of Japan.  I…wouldn’t stop you.”
“Is that so?”
The wind ruffled Yu’s hair softly, making him shiver.  Perhaps it would rain
tomorrow.  That would be convenient, but probably too much to hope for.  Yu
looked up and eyed the clouds overhead thoughtfully.  Maybe…
A sharp tug at his throat yanked Yu’s head down and right into Shimomura’s
face, her hand like a vice around his tie.  She narrowed her eyes, a smile
cutting across her face like a knife.  “When have I ever given you the
impression that I’m the kind to run and hide instead of fight?” she asked, her
voice vibrating in his bones.
Yu tried to pull her hand away from him, but found to his shock that he
couldn’t move.  He swallowed.  Shimomura’s eyes glittered like geodes. 
“You…can’t…fight him…” he forced out.
She jutted her chin forward.  “And why not?” she asked.
He couldn’t breathe.  Her voice was like a noose around his neck.  “Not enough
of us,” he said, “of you,” he amended.
She relinquished her grip on his tie, turning away and leaning on the balcony
railing.  “And whose fault is that?”
Yu currently lacked the ability to squirm uncomfortably, but that didn’t
matter.  “If the ajins of Japan would not rally under Satou,” Shimomura said,
squaring her shoulders, “perhaps they will rally against him.”
The tin of mints was heavy in his pocket.
“I…”
I want to live.
“I’ll help you however I can, but…”
“Yes?” Shimomura asked without turning around.
Yu swallowed hard.  Shimomura was going to be the hard sell.  But she was also
the critical one.  “Ai is dying.  I don’t…I don’t have much time left.  It
might already be too late.”
“I know.”
Yu blinked, but he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that Shimomura knew.
 She’d changed a lot since she’d started working for him.
“You’re marked to die,” Shimomura continued, “Satou plans to kill you
tomorrow.  The only rational course of action would be to go on the run,
someplace Satou had absolutely no chance of finding you.  Your survival is our
one last chance.  If Satou kills you, it’s over for all of us.”
Yu slumped, feeling tears welling in his eyes.  He knew that.  He gritted his
teeth and clenched his fists, curling in on himself.  He knewthat, but he… 
“But I want to see her,” he said, his voice small.  He had no other
justification, no rationalization, nothing.
Hands on his shoulders, firm and warm.  He looked up with surprise into
Shimomura’s shimmering eyes.  “I want to see her too,” she said.
Tears streamed down his face and his whole body shook with sobs, catharsis
wringing his body out like a rag.  Shimomura offered no comforting touches or
words, not even when it started raining, not even when Yu sank to the floor. 
But she stood there steadily until he had stopped crying, before taking his
hand and leading him back inside.
***** Chapter 19 *****
Chapter Summary
     This is a work of fanfiction. Names, characters, businesses, places,
     events and incidents are either the products of the author’s
     imagination or used in a fanfictitious manner. Any resemblance to
     chapter 45 is purely coincidental.
     Thank you for the lovely comments, as always <3
Yu, despite his best attempts, slept fitfully, and awoke early, before the sun
had had a chance to burn away the early-morning mist.  It felt appropriate.  Ai
had never let him sleep in, citing justifications ranging from the health
benefits of rising early to just enjoying seeing how grumpy he looked when he
first woke up.  He’d always felt a little more sincere early in the morning,
ever since that first day all those years ago when they’d both fallen asleep at
the office the night before a deadline, and they’d both walked home in their
bare feet early the next morning.
The cold air made his toes numb and sliced through his clothes until he
shivered.  His breath misted in the air in front of him, and the ground was as
firm as she’d been when she’d kissed him.  The thought made him smile, though
tears rose unbidden to his eyes even as he did so.
If she was still alive when he got there, he’d have them cut off life support.
“I notice you didn’t invite me on your suicide mission,” Ogura said.
Yu jumped.  Ogura sat on the ground nearby, enough snuffed-out cigarette butts
around him to give the impression that he’d been out there all night.  The
smoke from the cigarette in his mouth rose up until it was indistinguishable
from the mist around them.  Sitting there, wearing nothing but a pair of
threadbare jeans and a tattoo made of incomprehensible lines stretching across
his back, he looked nothing like a scientist.  “It’s not a suicide mission,” Yu
said coldly, “and I didn’t think you’d want to come.”
Ogura took a long drag from his cigarette, locking eyes with Yu as he did so. 
“You’re taking the only interesting people in the area away with you, maybe I
do want to come,” he drawled.
“Do you?” Yu asked stiffly.
“Nah.”
The urge to kick Ogura in the face came with its normal ferocity, and Yu rode
it out steadily, keeping his feet firmly on the ground.  A deep breath.  “We’re
not coming back,” he said.
Ogura snorted.  “Obviously.  If you manage to survive today, the only way
you’ll keep surviving is to keep moving.  Hole up somewhere and it’s only a
matter of time before he finds you.”
“He’ll find you if you stay here too.”
A smirk.  “Awww, are you worried about me?  Maybe I want him to find me.  It’d
be a nice palate cleanser after dealing with your whiny sub ass for so long.”
“Do you care about anything besides your science and your smokes?” Yu bit out.
Ogura rolled his eyes and rose to his feet in one fluid motion, walking over to
Yu and hooking under Yu’s chin with his finger.  “I can’t blame you for
misunderstanding us,” he said, the taste of his smoke bitter in Yu’s mouth,
“based on your past experiences.  But I’m a scientist, and I have things that I
want too.  And whether you believe me or not, they run contrary to Satou’s
goals.”
Yu gritted his teeth and forced himself to breathe through his mouth.  “What do
you want?” he asked.
Ogura lowered his eyes and smiled.  “What do you think I want?”
After squirming for a moment under Ogura’s gaze, Yu tried to lower his eyes to
glance at his watch.  Ogura’s hand firmly held his face in place.  For a brief
moment, something in his expression shifted to be slightly more gentle.  He
took the cigarette out of his mouth and placed it cheekily in Yu’s, before
quickly turning and starting to walk away.
Yu coughed and spat the cigarette out, grinding it out angrily with his foot. 
“I’ll be leaving soon too,” Ogura said, cracking his neck as he walked away,
“You’re going to have a hard enough time surviving today without also needing
to worry about me.”
“And what do you plan to do exactly?”
Ogura shrugged.  “In the short term, I’m not sure.  But I have a feeling we’ll
both end up in the same place.  Until then…” he winked over his shoulder and
blew a kiss, “take care darling.”
Yu saw red for a moment, a strangled scream dying in his throat.  As Ogura
walked away, whistling, Yu whirled around and stormed back into the safe
house.  Enough messing around.
There wasn’t really anything to pack, but Yu made sure he took a good shower
and shaved for the first time since they’d gotten back.  Maybe it was stupid,
but he wanted to look his best for today, however it ended up.  As he made his
way through the house, he found Nakano sulking on the floor near the door to
Shimomura’s room, head propped on his hand.
Yu furrowed his brow.  “What are you doing?” he asked.
Nakano stretched and leaned back against the wall, not quite making eye
contact.  “Waiting,” he said, “Miss Shimomura’s helping Nagai with his
disguise.  Theywon’ttellmewhatitis,” he added in a rush, his voice small.
Ah.  Yes that was one more snarl to this already ludicrous idea.  Managing to
get Kei Nagai, whose face at this point was probably more well-known than
Satou’s, into a large public place without anyone noticing him.  This wasn’t
exactly Kyushu after all.  “I’ll be surprised if they manage to come up with
something that doesn’t just attract more attention to us.”
“I dunno,” Nakano said, rubbing the back of his head anxiously, “She went out
shopping for stuff yesterday, so maybe they have an idea?  But they’ve been in
there for over an hour.”
The door opened, Shimomura striding out confidently.  She smiled at Nakano. 
“Sorry to keep you waiting, little one,” she said, patting his head, and damn
if the look on Nakano’s face wasn’t enough to completely fix Yu’s outlook on
the day.
“I hope you are ready to go, Mr. Tosaki, because we should leave immediately,”
a soft voice said.
Yu started, and looked down at a face he did not recognize.  Frills.  Frills
and pastels and big big eyes that the more he looked at the more he realized
they could only belong to… “Nagai?!” Nakano sputtered, pointing at him
accusingly.
Shimomura had clearly worked some makeup magic on him, because the contours of
his face were all wrong.  Something about the cheekbones and the shape of his
nose was completely not like Nagai at all.  But honestly, even if she hadn’t
done that, the painted eyes and mouth and the outfit that looked like it could
have been lifted out of a Harajuku fashion magazine were enough that Yu
couldn’t imagine anyone looking at this person and thinking it might even
possibly be Kei Nagai in disguise.
“NAGAI WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WEARING?!?!?” Nakano demanded, his voice rising
higher and higher in pitch.
Nagai rolled his eyes.  “Something that takes advantage of my appearance,” he
said shortly, “This is a simple solution to our problem.  We’re lucky I can get
away with it.”
“I think he looks nice, doesn’t he, Nakano?” Shimomura said gently.
Nakano made a strangled sound in his throat, but otherwise said nothing.  Yu
shrugged.  “Good job, Nagai,” he said.
They all got into the car, and left without fanfare.  Ogura had either left
already or was doing a very good job keeping to himself.  As they left the safe
house for the last time, Yu found himself wondering what they were actually
going to do, after this.  Sure, abstractly, Shimomura seemed to have some
ideas.  But beyond staying alive Yu was completely at a loss as to what they
could do.  Then again, perhaps that was enough for now.
The drive went by quickly, to Yu’s surprise.  Perhaps it was dread that sped
things along.  Although he knew that a couple hours had to have passed, it
barely seemed like any time at all had gone by when Shimomura parked the car. 
As they walked up the street toward the hospital, they passed by a convenience
store, and Nakano stopped short, looking in the window.
“Hey…” he said, walking up to the storefront where some newspapers were
displayed, “Nagai…isn’t this…?”
Moving a little closer, Yu quickly scanned the headlines Nakano was looking
at.  Something about the US, something about sports, the prime minister,
something about an “angel” in Tokyo, and…
“‘Eriko Nagai Still Missing, Law Enforcement Baffled,’” he read out loud.
“Dude, is this your sister??” Nakano asked.
Nagai had a strange expression on his face, enhanced by the makeup he was
wearing.  He stared at the display for a moment, before turning away.  “Well,”
he said shakily, “there’s nothing I can do about that.”
Nakano looked like he wanted to say something else but he was silenced by a
glare from Nagai.  “We don’t have time for this now, Kou,” he hissed, “We have
more important things to worry about.”  He strode over toward Nakano and
deliberately took his hand.  “We’ll be going ahead, Mr. Tosaki.  Miss
Shimomura.”
Nakano ripped his hand away.  “The fuck are you doing?” he demanded, taking a
few steps back.
Nagai pinched the bridge of his nose.  “The four of us going in together is
going to look too odd,” he said slowly, “It’s normal for those two to be
together, but you and I need to look as anonymous as possible.  Going in
separately is the best strategy.”  He stepped forward and took Nakano’s hand
again.
“And what is this all about?” Nakano asked icily.
“We already look like a couple anyway.  We might as well do what we can to make
the illusion more believable.  Now stop looking so upset.  I’m counting on your
ability to get along with people to get us past the front desk.”
Nagai was right.  It was also better this way, if Satou ended up in that
hospital.  Splitting his attention between Yu and Nagai was probably the best
strategy they had, since they certainly couldn’t beat him head-on.  Nodding, he
briefly explained to them where Ai’s room in the hospital was, and finished
with, “in the event that we can’t reconvene in the hospital, we’ll meet back
here in two hours.  Don’t be late.”
Nagai nodded.  “Right.  Alright, come along, Kou,” he said, tugging at Nakano’s
hand and leading them down the street.
“Not so fast, Keiko, darling,” Nakano snarled.
Shimomura watched them go with a sigh.  After a minute, she said, “You know,
from a distance, they really do look a bit like a couple.”
Yu refused to dignify that with a response.  For some reason this made
Shimomura smile.  “Well, shall we go?”
They recognized him at the front desk, and waved the two of them in without any
trouble.  Soon they were sitting in Ai’s room, surrounded by beeping machines. 
With a brief word to the aides coming in and out of the room, they were alone
in the windowless room.  Yu sat by the bed and held Ai’s thin hand in his own
shaking one, unable to bring himself to look at her face.
The clock ticked.  Shimomura stood a respectful distance away, arms folded
behind her back.  Ai had told him once that the only time he would be allowed
to sit by her hospital bed and hold her hand was while she was giving birth. 
Otherwise, he’d have to manage without her for a while and leave her alone to
get better.  If she was conscious she’d probably be scolding him right now. 
The thought made tears well up in his eyes.
“Was it like this with me?” Shimomura asked suddenly, interrupting his reverie.
Yu blinked and looked up at her.  “What do you mean?”
“When I was dying in the hospital.  Was it like this?”
Yu looked around the room.  “…no…” he said, “It wasn’t.”
“Oh?”
“Ai is in a much nicer facility, with better care.  There was none of that for
you.  And…”
“And?”
Yu swallowed.  “I didn’t particularly care whether or not you died.  As far as
I could tell, no one did.”  He didn’t feel guilty, exactly, as he admitted
this, but he felt like he should.  Maybe Ai would have.
Shimomura shrugged.  “The only one that’s ever cared whether I lived or died is
me.  That’s how it’s always been.”
“Ah.”
They’d cut her hair.  It was probably easier to care for this way, but it made
the body lying on the hospital bed look even less like the woman Yu had loved. 
Still loved.  Present tense.  He ran his fingers through the short hair,
shorter than his, wondering if she would have liked it or not.  Wondering if it
mattered.  He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her temple, cupping her
cheek with his hand.
“Yesterday, you said you wanted to see her too,” Yu murmured, pressing his
forehead against Ai’s.  He hadn’t questioned it in the heat of the moment, but
he’d been wondering about it since. It’s not as if Ai had been famous or
something. “Why?”
He heard a faint rustling sound, and looked up to see Shimomura grasping Ai’s
shoulder lightly, an unreadable expression on her face.  “She knew Yoko
Tainaka,” she said quietly, “before.  Not as well as she knew you, but…”
He hadn’t expected that.  “She knew you?” he asked, eyes wide, “how?”
“She didn’t know me, she knew Yoko Tainaka,” Shimomura said stiffly, walking
toward the door, “and Yoko Tainaka is dead.  You saw her die.”
“Shimomura…”
“We should leave soon.  We’ve been here long enough.  I’ll give you a moment
alone with her before we go.”
Yu sighed as the door slammed shut behind her.  He knew she wouldn’t go far,
but it was still strange to be separate from her.  He smiled despite himself. 
He really must have touched a nerve if she was leaving him unguarded like
this.  Despite everything, she was still so young and inexperienced.  No
seasoned bodyguard would have made this mistake.
“I’ve not been a very good person, Ai,” he said without any particular emotion,
taking her hand in his once again, “I’ve made a lot of choices you wouldn’t be
proud of.  And it was all for nothing…”
The music of her faint heartbeat beeped on one of the machines, sputtering and
irregular but still there.  He fancied, for a moment, a miracle taking place,
and Ai waking up to meet his eyes and scold him just like she always had.  And
he would slave away the rest of his life until she forgave him.
But the moment passed, and she remained still and cold.  Yu took a shaky
breath.  “I’m…not sure what to do next.  I know you’d know what to do.  Maybe
that’s why I’ve been like this…I counted on you telling me what to do for so
long that when I lost you, I lost all the purpose I’d had.  I…”  He bit back
tears, “I’ve missed you so much.  I—”
Abruptly, it was dark.  He heard the whine of machines powering down, and most
of the beeps around him stopped.  A roar underneath him as the building’s
generator kicked in, and a few feeble emergency lights flickered on in the
hallway.  Yu sighed, leaning forward to kiss Ai one last time.  “Goodbye, Ai.”
He stepped into the hallway, straightening his tie as he did so.  “Satou?” he
asked the darkness.
“No,” said a young voice, cold and dangerous, “worse.”
A boy leaned on the wall, just barely illuminated by one of the lights.  He was
young, with wild hair, and eyes that glittered ruthlessly in the flickering
light.  He also looked familiar, though Yu couldn’t exactly remember how.  “I
wasn’t aware that Satou had someone this young working for him,” Yu said
carefully.
The boy’s eyes almost seemed to glow in the light.  “I don’t work for Satou.”
He noticed the boy moving, but not until he’d been knocked over and the boy was
on top of him, a knife pressed to his throat.  Okay, so much for talking his
way out of this.  Where was Shimomura?  “I’m deciding,” the boy said silkily,
“whether I should kill you quickly or not.  It certainly wasn’t a privilege you
granted to Kei.”
Oh.  Oh.  Now he knew who this was.  Yu hadn’t met him before, but he’d read
his file after he’d been arrested.  Yu had judged the boy not dangerous enough
to expend more time or energy on.  Evidently, he’d been wrong.  “Kaito…” he
said softly, hyperaware of the blade on his throat.  “Kaito, listen.  Let me
go, and I can help you find Kei.  You’re looking for him, right?”
Kaito’s hands were shaking.  Actually, his whole body was shaking.  While in
the half-light and from a distance he’d seemed poised and in control, up close
he looked like a wreck.  Not that that made him any less dangerous right now,
but it was important to note.  His hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in
days, and his skin looked pale and clammy.  “It would be wise for you not to
talk,” he said, his eyes manic.  “Get up.”
Kaito eased off of him and pulled him up by the shoulder, keeping the knife
pressed to his throat.  Where the hell was Shimomura?  “Walk.  We’re leaving.”
“You’re not going to kill me here?”
“I’m going to take you somewhere Satou can’t find you.  Somewhere no one can
find you.”
“You really want to steal Satou’s kill from him?”
Kaito barked out a laugh, nudging Yu down a flight of stairs.  “Satou doesn’t
give a shit about you.  He wants to get killing you over with as quickly as
possible.  You bore him.  Make no mistake, that video he made wasn’t about you
at all, it was for me.”
Kaito suddenly stopped short, pulling Yu back before he could take another step
forward.  The emergency lights gleamed eerily around them.  For a moment, there
was silence.  Then a familiar sound, a sound he’d heard back at Forge.  Kaito
tsked.  “Sounds like the place is already crawling with cops,” he muttered,
“reckless maniac.”
The distant sounds of people shouting and running and firing guns echoed in the
stairwell.  It sounded like they were getting closer.  Another possibility
occurred to Yu.  “Did someone recognize Nagai after all?” he asked softly,
barely realizing he was saying it aloud.
Kaito slammed him into the wall, twisting his arm behind his back until it made
his eyes water with pain.  “Mind running that by me again?” Kaito hissed, as
the sounds of gunfire and shouting got louder and louder.
Yu grunted, tasting blood on the inside of his cheek.  “Nagai came with me in
disguise, but I guess they must have recognized him.”
“Kei is here?”
The sound of a door slamming open echoed around them, and suddenly the
stairwell was filled with police officers.  Kaito swore, and without hesitation
threw the knife aside and kicked at a pipe on the wall until a piece came away
and water started spraying everywhere.  “Here?!” Kaito roared, kicking Yu down
the flight of stairs and into the path of the police officers, “You brought Kei
here?!”
With a murderous look in his eyes, Kaito adjusted his grip on the pipe,
crouching like a wild animal on the stairs above Yu.  Yu tried to drag himself
up against the wall and out of the way, his head spinning.  He must have hit it
when he fell.  Pain blossomed out from his chest and spiked when he breathed. 
Damn if that kid didn’t kick like a mule.
Kaito leapt into the crowd, cracking one of the officers in the head with his
pipe.  “What the fuck!?!” Yu cried, the pain in his chest nearly unbearable as
he shouted, “Are you trying to kill them?!”
“If Kei is here, then they are all a threat to him,” Kaito replied, barely
audible above the noise.
And then, suddenly, silence.
“Kai, you came,” a low voice purred.
Yu and the police officers turned in shock toward the bottom of the stairs,
where Satou stood nonchalantly, a smile on his face.  “I’d wondered what could
have caused all this commotion…though of course I hoped it was you.”
Kaito looked feverish, listless and glassy eyes set in a flushed face.  Satou’s
smile widened to show his teeth, and he started strutting up the stairs,
pulling out a gun.  After a brief hesitation, the officers began to scramble,
firing fruitlessly at Satou as he came up the stairs.  Yu heaved himself to his
feet, the pain making him want to vomit.  “Look at my industrious Kai,” Satou
crooned, punctuating his words with shots from his gun, neatly disposing of
several officers as he parted the crowd, “I’ll bet you could take care of every
person in this room if you wanted.  It would be fun to watch you.”
Kaito was shaking, and he backed away as Satou drew closer, causing Satou to
chuckle.  A stray bullet came close to Kaito and Satou shielded him with his
body, pinning Kaito against the wall with his arm.  His body reset quickly, and
he opened his eyes, throwing his gun away and cupping Kaito’s cheek with his
now-free hand.  None of the officers seemed to know what to do.  Yu started
dragging himself up the stairs and away from whatever the fuck insanity was
going on, but for some reason he couldn’t…look away.
Satou leaned in to press a tender kiss to Kaito’s lips, and though Yu’s vision
was swimming, the shell-shocked look in Kaito’s eyes made Yu want to vomit. 
“I’ve missed you, Kai,” Satou said, his hand trailing down Kaito’s body from
his cheek to his stomach, “let’s finish things up here, and then we can get
back to what we were doing before you were taken away from me.”
“Someone take him out!” one of the officers cried, and Satou turned to look at
them with a fond smile.
“Tell you what,” he said conspiratorially, leaning down to pick up the knife
Kaito had discarded, “whoever kills more can take the lead afterwards.”
That seemed to snap Kaito out of whatever daze he was in, and he shoved Satou
away.  “I’m not competing with you,” he said, bringing down another officer
with a swing of his pipe.
“No,” Satou said happily, stabbing an officer in the throat and stealing her
gun, “but you’re using me.”
“I use whomever I have to,” Kaito said darkly, vanishing into the sea of
bodies.
Yu lost his balance and slipped, starting to fall back down the stairs, when a
heavy pair of hands caught him and hoisted him up the rest of the way. 
“Shimomura,” he breathed, recognizing the feel of her IBM’s hands, safely out
of range now of the burst of water coming from the ruined pipe.
“Mr. Tosaki, we need to get out of here,” he heard her whisper, and he tried to
focus his vision enough to make her out in the gloom, “while Satou is
distracted and before you are hurt even worse.”
“Where are Nagai and Nakano?”
“I don’t know.  I lost sight of them after the initial commotion, and rushed
back to find you.”
Yu felt Shimomura’s IBM shift him in its grip until he was cradled against its
chest, looking out over its shoulder as Shimomura and her IBM ran down a dark
hall.  He must have hit his head harder than he thought, he thought to himself
as he saw a white figure that looked like Ai standing in one of the doorways as
they breezed by.
As they ran, Shimomura muttered, “I hope Nagai didn’t try abandoning Nakano. 
Nakano’s the only one of the two of them that can hold his own in a fight that
isn’t one-on-one…”
“See!?!  Shimomuragets it!” a voice hissed, and around the corner crept Nagai
and Nakano, both of them looking like they’d been in a couple fights.
Shimomura sighed.  “I’m glad you’re both alright.”
“We were careless,” Nagai muttered, “Do you think you would survive jumping if
Shimomura’s IBM was carrying you, Mr. Tosaki?”
“I’m worried about the possibility of additional head trauma,” Shimomura said,
“it looks like he’s fractured a rib and hit his head really bad.  Look, his
eyes aren’t focusing.”
Nagai tsked.  “We’ll have to try to burst out the front together then,” he
said, “and shield Mr. Tosaki as best we can.”
“We need to be careful,” Shimomura warned, “Satou’s in the building.  I saw him
in a stairwell on the east side.”
The boys went rigid.  They’d all been expecting Satou to appear, but expecting
him and seeing him were two very different things.  Yu might have been more
afraid if he wasn’t so distracted by the pain.  He thought about telling Nagai
that his friend was here, but decided against it.  There was enough distressing
Nagai as it was.
They cautiously made their way down a different stairwell, the sounds of police
officers fighting for their lives growing louder and louder.  Sickly, Yu
realized they were probably trying to escape the building as well, not that
they had a chance.  He only hoped there was enough of a buffer between them and
Satou (and Kaito?) that they’d make it out alive.  Or that he’d make it out
alive, he supposed.  The other three could probably manage otherwise.
No such luck, for as they approached the ground floor, they could see Satou
fighting his way through a much smaller group of police officers as civilians
continued to flee the building.  His movements were as light and ecstatic as a
dance, and it made Yu feel sick to look at it.  He turned and looked at them,
and winked, before resuming his attention on the officers he was fighting.
And then several things happened at once.
Out of nowhere, an enormous IBM arm burst through one of the walls, forming a
barrier between them and Satou.  An ear-piercing scream made the walls rattle,
and Satou looked up and cocked his head curiously.  Yu's heart stopped
beating.  Just its arm, and it was bigger than any IBM Yu had ever seen. 
Weren't they supposed to be vaguely human-sized?
Out of the corner of his eye, Yu saw Nagai stiffen in shock and muted horror,
and directed his attention across the room to where Kaito had suddenly
reappeared, a feral snarl on his face as he lunged toward another officer with
his pipe and beat the officer’s face in until he lay motionless on the floor.
“Kai…” Nagai whispered, and Yu’s legs felt like water.  Kaito kept on fighting,
and tears welled up in Nagai’s eyes.  “KAI!!” he screamed, the word echoing in
the room around them.
Across the room, Kaito froze, and turned in slow motion toward them.  There was
blood on his hands, on his face, on his clothes.  The savage expression on his
face morphed into fear and horrified dismay.  “Kei?” he said disbelievingly,
frantically looking at the carnage around him and then back at his friend, “I—”
“And that’s enough of that!” Satou said cheerfully, grabbing a tranquilizer gun
from a fallen officer and shooting Kai in the neck with it, matter-of-factly. 
Kaito immediately slumped to the floor, the pipe falling out of his hands with
a clank.  Satou smiled down at Kaito’s motionless form, before eyeing the giant
IBM arm suspiciously and picking Kaito up, slinging him over his shoulder.  “As
much as it pains me to say this,” he said with great regret, “raincheck?”
Nakano lunged forward, only barely held back by Shimomura.  “Listen you piece
of shit,”he spat at Satou, clawing at Shimomura’s arms, “I swear—”
Nagai was motionless, but with a shriek his IBM manifested and charged toward
Satou, screaming Kaito’s name.  Satou chuckled, and snapped his fingers, his
own IBM manifesting and grappling with Nagai’s without any trouble.  Nagai
slumped to his knees, and Satou got away.
Still, Yu was alive, so he was calling this a win.
"Who is that, do you think?" Shimomura asked him quietly as the giant IBM arm
disintegrated.  Yu had no answer.
They made it out of the hospital before additional law enforcement arrived, and
they walked back to the car in silence, Nagai scrubbing at the makeup on his
face but only succeeding at smearing it.  It still hurt for Yu to breathe, but
he did his best to grit his teeth and bear it.  Nakano watched Nagai with wide
eyes as they walked, and Shimomura kept her eyes resolutely ahead.  The only
thing there was to do, really.
“I don’t understand…” Nagai finally said, stopping short in front of a shop
filled with TV screens, “that’s…I…how could this have happened to him?”
Nakano gave Nagai a sidelong glance, before cautiously resting his arm on
Nagai’s shoulders and tugging him close.  “Don’t convince yourself that this is
your fault,” he said, “we just have to keep moving for now.”  Nagai looked like
he’d blow away in a strong gust of wind.  Nakano set his jaw.  “Kei, stay with
me man, please.”
“Keiko,” Nagai corrected weakly.
Kaito had wanted to kill Yu, so he couldn’t exactly find it in himself to feel
bad for him.  Then again, he couldn’t exactly blame Kaito for wanting to kill
him.  And wouldn’t wish being Satou’s captive on anyone.
He thought of that blank shell-shocked look in Kaito’s eyes while Satou kissed
him, and shuddered.
He was startled out of his reverie by Shimomura patting him urgently on the
shoulder.  He looked up and was startled to see Satou on all of the screens in
the shop, smiling at them from his chair.  “He doesn’t normally broadcast on
TV,” Shimomura whispered, looking anxiously at him.
“Hello again,” Satou said in his infuriatingly friendly voice.  How the hell
had he already gotten back to his headquarters to broadcast?  “This is Satou
the ajin.  How are you all?  I come to you today with sad news…”
Nakano gritted his teeth and glared at the screen.  Satou sighed and
continued.  “Unfortunately, the latest target of our purification, Yu Tosaki,
has proven slipperier than expected, and has escaped me today.  But not
without…” and here he stood up, walking to the side as the camera followed him,
and Nagai made a faint strangled noise, “…not without harming one of our
allies.”
“Sick fucking bastard,” Nakano muttered, as Satou walked up to a hospital bed,
where Kaito had been laid out, still unconscious and covered in blood.
“So for all of those that wish to see a better Japan, indeed, a betterworld,
let this be your call to arms.  Find the man who calls himself Yu Tosaki, and
bring him to justice for all of us.  The one who succeeds…” he turned to flash
a devilish grin at the camera, running his fingers through Kaito’s hair, “will
be greatly rewarded.”
So now there was a bounty on his head.  Perfect.  As if it wasn’t going to be
hard enough to be on the run already.  He dug in his pockets and popped a few
mints into his mouth.  Shimomura narrowed her eyes.  “This is odd,” she said,
“Why did he leave?  Was he afraid?”
Satou opened his mouth to say something, but then narrowed his eyes at a soft
voice from off screen.  Suddenly the image flickered, another image appearing
for an instant.  The audio started cutting out.  As they watched, Satou began
to appear frustrated, then intrigued, and then Satou’s feed abruptly cut off,
and all they could see was a simple, Japanese-style garden.  Nakano blinked. 
“Did someone just hack Satou?”
Two pairs of boots came into frame, and a girl knelt in front of the camera,
while another figure visible only from the waist down stood beside her.  Yu’s
heart leapt into his throat as he realized that he recognized the girl, though
her edges looked sharper and stronger than the last time he’d seen her. 
Something burned in her eyes that made him unable to look away.
“Ajins of Japan,” she said in a steady, commanding voice,“I am Eriko Nagai. 
This is your call to arms.”
***** Chapter 20 *****
Chapter Summary
     and slowly the pieces start to come together
Naomi pressed some coins into the vending machine carefully, selecting one
drink with no caffeine…and one with lots of it for herself.  She took a sip
before it was strictly cool enough to drink, years of drinking office-brewed
coffee rendering her immune to scalding her mouth.  She sighed contentedly as
the warmth settled in her belly.  While it wasn’t winter, she couldn’t think of
a single time of year when it wasn’t chilly at sunrise.
As an afterthought, she bought a bottle of water as well.
Curled up on the bench where she’d left him was her little fugitive, though she
supposed in some regards she was technically a fugitive as well.  A stray
sunbeam softened the hard planes of his face, which was tight and guarded even
in sleep.  It made her heart ache.
He didn’t stir as she approached, but a stray dog resting under the bench
lifted its head and looked at her, its eyes wary but not dangerously so.  Naomi
smiled.  She’d been gone for maybe ten minutes.  A new record, perhaps.
“Kouji?” she said quietly, careful not to touch him or get too close.
Kouji flinched, curling up tighter on himself, and the dog whined.  “Kouji,
you’re safe, open your eyes,” Naomi said, keeping her voice steady.
A pair of eyes more feral than the dog’s opened up and looked at her, taking a
moment before focusing into something tamer.  “Miss Li,” Kouji said, “You came
back.”
It didn’t bring tears to her eyes anymore when he said things like that, but
the growing certainty that he would never stop saying things like that made her
shoulders droop.  “I always do,” she said, smiling despite herself.  She still
didn’t get any closer.
Stretching, Kouji sat up, startling as he noticed the dog lying beneath him. 
The dog wagged its tail.  Kouji was on the ground and on his knees so fast that
honestly the dog should have been scared, but as was disgustingly heart-
rottingly typical, it didn’t even seem to occur to the dog to be anything other
than happy.  If it hadn’t been for Naomi’s experiences with Satou and his gang,
she might think it was an ajin thing.
Technically, she supposed as she opened up the bottle of water, it still could
be an ajin thing.  For all she knew, Satou was great with animals.  Kouji
looked up at her helplessly.  “Miss Li…” he said, “I…”
“Here you go,” Naomi said fondly, holding out the bottle of water.
Kouji’s face lit up like a child’s, and he cupped his hands, holding them
toward her.  Carefully, Naomi poured a little bit of water into his hands, and
Kouji excitedly held his hands out to the dog, who drank greedily.  Most of the
water spilled onto the ground, but Naomi had bought a whole bottle.
After the water was all gone, Kouji sat back on the bench, blowing on his
hands.  Now, Naomi sat down beside him, offering a warm drink with a sly
smile.  “Want this?”
Kouji looked at it with wide eyes for a moment, as though this hadn’t become
something of a ritual, and took it reverently.  “Thank you, Miss Li.”
“Koujiii, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Naomi?” Naomi teased,
cautiously reaching a hand out toward the dog.  When the dog didn’t react
unfavorably, she gently started scratching it behind the ear.
Kouji averted his eyes and blew on his drink.  He held it gently, as though he
were afraid it might break.  Naomi was afraid he would drop it.  She sighed,
leaning back and feeling the weight of the gun shifting on her hip.  “We should
probably get moving soon,” she said softly, glancing around the empty park, “It
won’t be long before people start showing up here.”
The dog suddenly whined, flattening its ears and crouching.  Naomi cast her
eyes about quickly, but couldn’t see anything it might be responding to.  Kouji
sighed.  “It’s my ghost,” he said bitterly, “It’s been coming out on its own
lately…”
The dog crawled under the bench, shaking.  Kouji looked at it sadly.  “You’re
right, we should go.”
As usual, Naomi found herself at a loss for how to comfort him as they walked
wordlessly side-by-side.  Everything she thought of to say just turned into an
apology in her mouth, and as guilty as she felt, she wasn’t going to make him
deal with her own feelings on top of his own.  Her guilt was one burden she
could at least manage to spare him from.
“Miss Li, we’ve made a mistake coming here,” Kouji said suddenly, keeping his
voice low.
Naomi immediately tensed.  “Why?” she hissed.
“It was so dark when we got in that I didn’t recognize, but now…” he gestured
helplessly at the town around them, “this is my hometown.”
Naomi looked at him, her frightened expression reflected in the windows of the
restaurant behind him.  “Do you think anyone will recognize you?” she asked
tightly.
“Yes, I…” he trailed off, looking over his shoulder to consider his own
reflection.  “…no, I don’t think anyone will.”
After the initial shock died down, Naomi began to think that perhaps this was
honestly a good outcome.  Something she’d noticed Kouji doing wherever they
went was attempting to orient himself to time and place, which she supposed she
couldn’t blame him for.  Even if he’d been out of the lab for months by now, he
still had years and years of catching up to do.  Even the littlest things such
as the change in font on a newspaper might throw him off.
It was still a surreal experience to have Kouji show her around his hometown. 
A copse of trees was the best bug-hunting spot, a patch of grass his family’s
preferred spot for summer picnics.  That was where his mother had bought
groceries, there was where his father had worked, and that’s where he’d had his
first kiss.  “And that’s where they’d set us up during festivals,” he said,
pointing to a pavilion in the center of town.
“‘Us?’”
“The musicians.  It was something my grandfather and his friends did, and any
of their family members they could coerce,” he added with a smile.
“That must have been fun,” Naomi said, “Do you think they still do that?”
Kouji’s face darkened, and Naomi immediately regretted saying anything.  “They
probably still do,” Kouji said, his voice wet, “but my grandfather no longer
plays with them.”
Naomi dropped her eyes to the ground and didn’t dare say a word.  The sounds of
people out and about rumbled around her.  Cars.  A finger hooked under her
chin, raising her eyes to meet Kouji’s gentle ones.  “You aren’t going to ask
about it?” he asked, his voice small and curious.
Naomi squinted her eyes shut and shook her head emphatically.  “I’m not going
to make you talk about something so painful,” she said.
Kouji frowned, and released her face, looking away.  “Whether I talk about it
or not isn’t going to make it stop being painful,” he said.
He kept walking, and Naomi followed.  In a quiet voice, Kouji said, “My family
all tried their hardest to protect me, in their own ways.  In the end, I was
captured anyway, and they were all executed for treason.”
Naomi numbly registered the tears rolling down her cheeks.  What was there to
say?  “I…they must have loved you, very much,” she said, trying to put more
conviction than she felt into her words.
“I wish they hadn’t,” Kouji said simply, “Then they’d still be alive.”
How was this man still intact?  Even at all?  Kouji gave her a sidelong glance,
and took her hand, tugging her with him down the street.  “It’s funny,” he
said, “When Satou first rescued me, I was so angry I couldn’t feel anything
else.  Then I wanted to die.  Satou did everything he could to stamp that
feeling out, but not even he could get rid of it.”
Naomi looked at him with wide eyes and squeezed his hand.  Kouji laughed.  “So
it’s funny,” he continued, “that somewhere along the way I’ve just lost track
of that feeling on my own.  I’m not sure what I’m living for yet, but I want to
find out, I think.”
And I would die for you to be able to find that out, Naomi thought, the thought
coalescing and gaining strength in her mind.  But she didn’t say it out loud.
“Oh man,” Kouji said, interrupting her train of thought, “Now this brings back
memories.”
Naomi blinked and looked up at a shopfront.  Colorful decals of animated
characters, some old and faded, some new, covered the windows and made it
nearly impossible to see in.  She squinted, just barely able to make out some
shelves of packaged foods and a TV playing the news.  “It’s just a convenience
store…”
“Mr. Yamamoto used to run this place,” Kouji said fondly, “well, him and his
wife.  Sometimes when I was younger, I’d drop by and man the counter for a few
hours in exchange for a meal.  I…I wonder what kind of person runs it now.”
Suddenly Kouji was walking in, and with a squeak Naomi ran after him.  Kouji
didn’t make it very far into the store before being distracted by the rack of
magazines, running his fingers over all of them as though he was fascinated by
the texture.  Naomi watched uncertainly as he picked one up, idly flipping
through it.  “I’d get this every week,” he said, “I only read Detective Conan,
so I’d cut it out and give the rest to one of the neighbor kids.”
“Cut it out?”
“Yeah, and paperclip it together.  I had stacks of it in the back of my
closet.”  He frowned.  “I wonder how it ended…”
Naomi fiddled with the hem of her jacket, then decided to back away and give
him some time.  She’d buy them lunch to eat on the train, while they were
here.  As she headed over to the wall where an array of bentos were assembled,
an old man came out from the back room, taking a seat behind the counter.  He
glanced at her for a moment, then pulled out a newspaper, acknowledging her no
further.
Naomi swallowed, looking down at the bentos.  She should just grab something
and get them out of here.  Without even looking at the contents, she grabbed
two and started walking up to the counter, just as Kouji cried, “Miss Li!!! 
It’s still running!”
Naomi blinked, and the old man looked up from his newspaper.  “What?”
“Look!  Detective Conan!  It hasn’t ended yet!  I—”
“Oh my God,” the old man said, his eyes wide, “Kouji?  Is that you?”
The floor felt like it fell out from under Naomi’s feet, but in a moment she’d
swallowed the feeling down and taken a stance, pulling out the gun and
shielding Kouji with her body.  “Stay behind me, Kouji,” she said, glaring
coldly at the old man.
The old man, for his part, looked nonplussed.  “That’s hardly necessary,” he
said with a sigh, holding his hands up beseechingly, “not for an old man like
me.  Even gentle little Kouji doesn’t have anything to worry about from a man
like me.”
“On your knees and put your hands in the air,” Naomi hissed.
A hand on her wrist, lowering the gun.  “Mr. Yamamoto?” Kouji asked softly,
tears shimmering in his eyes.
The old man quirked a smile.  “I’m still alive, kid.”
Naomi glanced back and forth between the two men suspiciously, not quite
willing to put the gun away.  Kouji was pale and looked ragged around the
edges.  His whole body was shaking like a chainsaw.  Naomi had to quell the
sudden urge to pet him like a dog.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, Kouji,” Mr. Yamamoto said, “after what
happened to your family, we knew they weren’t taking you anywhere good.”
Immediately something in Kouji’s body language smoothed, and he heaved a broken
sigh, curling in on himself and sinking to the floor.  For a moment, the three
of them stood there, Kouji quietly crying on the floor.  Mr. Yamamoto directed
his attention toward Naomi.  “And you are his bodyguard, I take it?” he asked,
his expression becoming much more stern.
“I keep him safe,” she said shortly.
He nodded approvingly.  “You hold that like you’ve used it before.”
“Once or twice.”
“Ever kill anyone?”
The question.  The gun in her hand.  The sound of Kouji sobbing on the floor
beside her.  Suddenly she was somewhere else, somewhere darker, wearing a mask
and gloves.  Firing the same gun at the same target through different armors at
various distances, noting when the wounds stopped being fatal.  It had been
standard procedure for them to gag Kouji during experiments, but evidently
someone had forgotten that day, and Naomi had heard him the whole time.  He
didn’t scream.  He just cried.
“Miss Li,” Kouji said, and she was back. “Put down the gun.”
Naomi’s hands were shaking.  She couldn’t move.  Her face contorted in a wide-
eyed grimace, she watched as Kouji slowly stood up and pressed the gun into his
chest.  She flinched.  With no fear or hurry in his demeanor, he gently pried
her fingers away from the gun until it fell to the floor.  “That’s unsafe,” she
said automatically, “what if it had discharged?”
“You’re crying,” Kouji said.
Naomi looked at the floor, and very carefully bit down on the inside of her
cheek until she tasted blood in her mouth.  A shaky breath.  “I’m fine,” she
said.
“Perhaps you two would like to sit down and have some tea,” Mr. Yamamoto said,
holding the employee-only door open and beckoning them in.
Tea was warm and something to do with her hands so she didn’t just sit there
like the useless waste of space she was, though some part of her that was
perhaps a little bit less emotionally damaged smiled as Kouji made a face at
the bitter taste.  He kept drinking for some reason though.
Mr. Yamamoto briefly excused himself from the room, leaving the two of them
alone.  The gun, reholstered, jabbed painfully into Naomi’s hip.  She leaned
into it, worrying the sore in her mouth between her teeth as she did so.  Kouji
was oddly relaxed, sitting in a relaxed, open position as he looked around the
room.  “Barely anything’s changed,” he said wonderingly, running his fingers
over the grain of the table.  He looked out the window.  “Guess that tree
finally came down.”
“A few winters ago,” Mr. Yamamoto said, coming back into the room with a box,
“and only because a telephone pole fell onto it.”
Kouji laughed.  “Your wife must not have liked that.”
“She planted a new one in the spring.  She said she’d hated the color of the
old one’s flowers anyway.”
“Ah, that sounds just like her.”  He hesitated.  “Where is she, by the way?”
“In Tokyo, visiting our son.  She’ll be very upset to have missed you…unless
you think you’ll stay until she gets back.”
“We can’t stay.” Naomi said rigidly, slamming her teacup down.
“Well, I hope you can at least take something with you,” Mr. Yamamoto said,
placing the box on the table in front of Kouji.
Kouji ran his hands over the box searchingly.  “What’s this?”
“I’ve had it for ten years,” said Mr. Yamamoto, “Unsure of what to do with it. 
Your grandfather gave it to me, for safekeeping, before…well, before.”
A strangled sound.  Naomi watched as Kouji reached into the box with wide eyes,
pulling out something wrapped in cloth.  “Is this…?”
Mr. Yamamoto nodded.  Kouji gulped and carefully unwrapped the object to reveal
a shamisen.  Naomi looked at it in confusion.  A family heirloom?
“Would you like to have it back?” Mr. Yamamoto asked.
Kouji bit his lip.  “I don’t think I even remember how to play it…” he
admitted.
Mr. Yamamoto took a seat and smiled.  “Try,” he said. “One of the old festival
songs.”
“It’s probably out of tune.”
“Then tune it.”
Kouji ran his fingers along the neck, his eyes uncertain.  “I’m amazed none of
the strings are broken,” he said, starting to pluck and twist the pegs at the
top.  After a few minutes, he seemed satisfied.
Sunlight glinted off the bachi as Kouji began to play, biting his lip as he
fumbled through the first part of a song Naomi distantly recognized.  But as
the moments went by, his motions grew more confident, until when he suddenly
stopped, breathing heavily, Naomi realized that she’d been holding her teacup
up without taking a sip for the past few minutes.
Kouji’s whole body collapsed in on itself as he gulped air down, sweat beading
on his forehead.  A loose smile unlike anything Naomi had ever seen on him
rested easily on his face.  “Hah…I guess you never completely forget,” he said,
closing his eyes.
Suddenly and without warning, a loud screech filled the room, and a pile of
boxes in one corner was knocked over, cookies and cup noodles spilling all over
the floor.  The table rattled and creaked as something very heavy landed on it,
and Kouji snatched the shamisen away just before it fell onto the floor.  “It’s
okay!” Kouji shouted, trying to stand between what must be his ghost and both
Naomi and Mr. Yamamoto at the same time, “I just need to…”  He swore under his
breath, shoving the shamisen into Naomi’s hands and covering his eyes, gritting
his teeth and crouching.
Slowly, the wild energy left the room, and the ghost seemed to be gone.  “Kouji
are you alright?” Naomi asked, running up to him with her hand extended.
“Dammit!” Kouji swore, punching the table and squinting his eyes shut.  “Every
time I start to feel just a little bit of peace, that thing shows up and starts
telling me I have to “find her”  “Find her, find her,” I don’t care just leave
me alone!!!!”
Naomi backed away uncertainly, before stepping forward determinedly.  “You’re
not going to hurt me, Kouji,” she said firmly, walking up to him and holding
out the shamisen.
Kouji’s eyes were feral again, but he took the shamisen from her with measured
gentleness, cradling it in his arms even as he looked like he might
spontaneously combust.
Suddenly remembering they weren’t alone, Naomi turned to look at Mr. Yamamoto,
who seemed to have recovered from his initial shock and was eyeing the mess on
the floor appraisingly.  “I take it that there’s a lot about ajins that isn’t
public knowledge,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
“You could say that, yeah,” Naomi said shakily.
“Is it over?”
“I think so.”
“Alright.  Well, come on you two, help me clean this up.”
After they’d finished helping Mr. Yamamoto, Kouji hesitantly told him that they
should probably get going.  Naomi attempted to buy the two bentos she’d picked
out earlier, but Mr. Yamamoto waved away her money.  “Just keep him safe,” he
said gravely, “I’m sure you know better than I that that boy has seen enough of
suffering.”
They were about to leave, when Kouji suddenly froze, looking at the television
(still playing the news), with wild eyes.
“This video was released by Satou the ajin yesterday morning, and has since
gone viral on many different video-sharing platforms.  While as with all of his
releases, we’re left with more questions than answers, the implications of this
video are nonetheless chilling.  Let’s watch.”
“Don’t you work with Satou?” Mr. Yamamoto asked curiously.
“Mr. Satou saved me,” Kouji said shortly, glancing at Naomi, “but I no longer
work with him.”
“Hello again, this is Satou the ajin.  How are you all?  I’ve missed you.  I’ve
made this video to announce the next target of our purification.”
Naomi felt her whole body go numb.  Had Satou changed his mind?  She jumped,
suddenly finding her hand in Kouji’s vice-like grip, which, despite being
painful, was extremely soothing.
As Satou continued, his voice became more serious.“This is someone whose crimes
against us stand above all the others.  The man directly responsible for the
capture and torture of Kei Nagai.”
“What’s he doing?” Kouji demanded, drowning out the television, “I’ve seen
him.  He was bored!  He didn’t care!  All that monster wants is a good fight.”
“might join me.  I could use his help.  In three days, we will purify the world
of Yu Tosaki.  I really hope you’ll join me, Kai.”
“Kai?” Naomi asked, confused before suddenly realizing. “Oh!  But…no, Satou
killed him already.”  An unsettling thought.  “Do you think he’s an ajin?!?”
“Kai…” Kouji mused, tracing his lips with his finger.  “…Kai…ooooh,” he said in
realization, shaking his head.  “I told him he was playing with fire. 
Different Kai,” he said to Naomi, “no one you know.”  He looked up at the
television as the video cut out and went back to the newscaster, setting his
jaw.  “We need to go,” he said to Mr. Yamamoto with a bow, “Thank you for
everything.”
Just before they reached the train station, Kouji stopped.  “I know you want us
to go to Kyushu,” he said quietly, “because it’s safer there, and you’re
right.  And I won’t stop you, I want you to go wherever you want.  But I can’t
go there.  I need to go back the way we came.”
Naomi glared up at him.  “What are you saying?” she demanded, “why would you go
back?!  Do you think you can stop Satou all by yourself?!?!”
Kouji shook his head.  “No, of course not.  But…there’s someone who needs my
help to, I think.  That’s what my ghost’s been trying to tell me.  I need to go
back, she’s waiting for me.”
Naomi pressed her fingers into her temples, sighing.  “Well I’m not letting you
go and do something so crazy all alone,” she said firmly, “I’ll follow you
until I’m sure you’re safe, or until I die.  You know that.”
Kouji smiled.  “Thank you, Miss Li.”
Beyond a vague direction Kouji wasn’t sure where exactly they needed to go, so
they ended up on a small train bound for Tokyo.  When there weren’t too many
people in the car with them, Kouji unwrapped the shamisen again and played
absently, looking more centered than Naomi had ever seen him.  After a while,
he fell asleep, resting his head in her lap.
They weren’t too many stops away from Tokyo when Kouji suddenly sat bolt
upright, dragging Naomi off the train just before the doors closed, leaving
them in a small town in Saitama.  Kouji looked around, puzzled.  “I’ve been
here before…” he said, eyeing the streets and buildings, “but I don’t remember
when.”
Naomi also had the strange thought that she should recognize this town, but
didn’t quite.  Still, Kouji led them confidently enough through the streets
until they’d reached a part of town where there were no people.  “What are you
looking for, exactly?” Naomi asked, eying the dark streets suspiciously.
“I’m not looking for anything,” Kouji said, “I just feel where I’m supposed to
go and walk toward it.”
Naomi kept one hand on her gun.
They’d been wandering aimlessly for a while when a cool voice suddenly said,
“Kouji Tanaka, I presume?”
Naomi whirled around, pointing her gun in the direction of the voice, only to
see that it was merely a young girl in her pajamas.  Her feet were bare.  Kouji
walked out in front of Naomi, regarding the girl carefully.  “Eriko Nagai,” he
said, “it’s been a while.”
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, “come with me.”
***** Chapter 21 *****
Chapter Summary
     hello darlings! Thank you so much for all the wonderful
     comments...they've got me through some bad days. I hope you like this
     chapter...I kinda put off writing it because of what comes next,
     which I am both really excited and completely terrified to write. But
     I think most if not all of you will like it, so look forward to it!
     In the meantime, enjoy my interpretation of everyone's favorite
     scientist OvO
“Ajins of Japan.  I am Eriko Nagai.  This is your call to arms.”
There was no one like Satou.  There never had been…ajins hadn’t existed
(openly?) long enough for that to be the case.  And there never would be
again.  Either Satou would, like any brat who got their way, destroy everything
and leave no opportunity for the challenger he nevertheless so desperately
wanted to ever come into existence, or, alternatively, humanity would manage to
triumph, which would require the assistance of the ajin community, which would
mean a formation of the ajin community, which would prevent someone like Satou
from ever existing again.
Peerless, and without parallel.  And yet, Ikuya had met many who were just like
Satou, if lacking the immortality.  Honestly, they bored him.
The streets of Tokyo spread out before him like the neural network of an LSD
addict; bright colors and streams of light and jitters and a tangled web of
contradictory emotions that he very carefully probed while keeping himself at
arm’s length.  There was someone he was looking for.  If he was lucky and paid
attention, he would be able to figure out where they would go next.
All around him, Ikuya caught snippets of conversations about Satou, which, he
thought with an eyeroll, was exactly what the narcistic bastard would want.  It
made it harder to filter through the noise for the information that he wanted,
but at the same time it made his unwitting informants much bolder and more
likely to let slip better information.  Tonight, the underworld would be
moving.
The mistake that everyone was making, Eriko Nagai included, was assuming that
Satou was only working directly through himself and his band of terrorists. 
Sure, those were the A-listers.  But Satou was a mess of contradictions, and
while he was eager for a fight and was practically dying for something that
could challenge him, he was absolutely not interested at all in resistance. 
This was made abundantly clear by the sharp rise in the number of missing-
person cases since Satou had first gone public.  Eriko Nagai had called for the
ajins of Japan to join her and fight against Satou, but Satou was making them
disappear.
No one was doing anything about it.  There was no ajin community to notice it
happening.  Law enforcement would have no way of knowing to connect the
disparate cases, much less a course of action to follow for rescuing ajins if
they did know the connection.  No one seemed to have noticed what was
happening.
Except for, perhaps, one person.
Before long, Ikuya found who he was looking for, and followed from a distance,
careful to avoid attracting the attention of the other people following his
target.  His target, for his part, was someone who had absolutely no business
being alone in the city this time of night.  If he was much older than eleven
or twelve, than Ikuya was a middle-aged Swedish woman.  He still had chubby
babyfat cheeks, for God’s sake, where the fuck were his parents?
More people were awakened ajins than they realized.  Children especially were
prone to getting into dangerous situations just while they were out playing,
and would shrug off a recovery from what an adult would recognize as a fatal
head injury from a fall without thinking twice about it.  There were signs
though; something in the eyes, something in the way the air tasted around
them.  Something that made Ikuya feel safe, but also very sad.
He could intervene now.  He could get a little bit closer and whisk the boy
away into a better-lit area where he wouldn’t be worth pursuing.  Spare him the
fear.  Ikuya worried his lip.  But they would come again for the boy, and
better for him to learn his lesson when there was at least a witness.  This
way, even if Ikuya was wrong, the boy still had a chance to escape.
The same street vendor had been at four of the past six corners.  The same cab
driver had been at three of them.  The boy was definitely being followed.  How
would they get him away from the main road?  Brute force?  Lure him with candy?
“Oh honey, are you lost?” a sweet voice asked.
“No, just late,” the boy replied.
The voice in question came from a girl in a high school uniform, who Ikuya had
a feeling was older than she looked.  “Well, all the more reason for me to walk
you home.  I’ve seen you around before, we’re neighbors!  Come with me, I know
a shortcut.  Your parents are probably worried.”
A loud truck driving by prevented Ikuya from hearing the rest of their
conversation, but after a moment he saw the boy take the girl’s hand and let
himself be lead off the main road and into an alley.  Frantically weighing
costs and benefits, Ikuya counted to twenty before rushing after them, peering
around the corner into the alley as he saw the boy cornered by the girl and two
men.  “Scream and we’ll kill ya,” one of the men said, spinning a knife
dangerously, “get in the van.”
The boy whimpered.  Ikuya’s hands were shaking.  He shoved them in his pockets.
As the men drew closer, the boy sank to the ground and curled up in a ball. 
Ikuya felt the gun under his jacket.  The boy was an ajin, but the adults were
not.  He glanced skyward.  If they touched the boy, Ikuya would shoot.
“Quit fucking around, Satoshi,” the other man growled, “just kill him and bag
him while he resets.”
Just as Ikuya tightened his grip on the gun, the sound of a faint pop made
everyone jump, and whirl around hunting for its source.  The girl noticed it
first, crying out and pointing to a nearby fire escape.  There, perched about
ten feet above them, was a boy.  Had he been there before?
As they gaped at him, the boy chewed what must have been gum, before blowing
another bubble.  It popped.  As he watched them with hooded eyes, the air
crackled in the alley.  This boy was an ajin too.  Ikuya couldn’t tell if he’d
been spotted yet.
“This is official business and doesn’t concern you,” the girl sneered, “you
wanna die?”
“I’d rather not,” the boy admitted, plucking the wad of gum out of his mouth
and dropping it on the girl’s head.
Immediately all hell broke loose.  Or so Ikuya presumed, from the noises.  He
couldn’t actually see anything.  The narrow alley was filled with a roiling
mass of IBM and would-be kidnappers.  Crunch.  One of the men screamed.  The
little boy was crying.  The other man yelled.  The girl didn’t make a sound.
Suddenly the alley went still, the three criminals panting and dripping sweat. 
One of the men was on his knees, clutching his leg.  The girl coughed, wiping
blood away from her mouth and pressing the other hand into her ribs.  The older
ajin stood nonchalantly in front of them, holding a baseball bat over his
shoulder.  His IBM reared up behind him, wings curled protectively around the
little boy.  Ikuya’s hands itched for his lab notebook, but alas.
The older ajin narrowed his eyes, glancing meaningfully back toward the main
road.  “Show’s over,” he said, popping a piece of gum into his mouth.  His IBM
loomed over them.
The three kidnappers ran, one of the men dragging his leg behind him.
The boy was shivering.  Without a pause, the older ajin crouched beside him,
murmuring soft words that Ikuya couldn’t hear.  The IBM vanished.  Ikuya itched
to get closer but something kept him from closing the distance.  Slowly, the
boy stopped crying, and pulled out his phone.  Ah, good idea, having him call
his parents.  Ikuya glanced back toward the street.  There were several shops
that would be safe places for the boy to wait.
Slim fingers whisper-light on his throat.  “Don’t move.”
Ikuya froze.  He’d never heard an ajin Voice speak so quietly.
He watched, unable to move, as the older ajin led the little boy into a shop. 
He’d had some experience with Voices before, so the paralysis wore off sooner
than the ajin probably expected it would.  Seeing no point in not being
comfortable, he walked into the alley and sat on the ground, lighting a
cigarette and waiting.  After a moment’s thought, he took out his gun and laid
it on the ground in front of him.
Before long, the ajin came back.  To his credit, he didn’t even seem surprised
that Ikuya had moved.  Hell, for all Ikuya knew, the kid wasn’t.  “Want a
smoke?” Ikuya asked, offering his box.  There weren’t many left.
“Nah,” the ajin said, pulling a piece of gum out and popping it in his mouth,
“I quit.”
Ikuya shrugged.  For a moment they said nothing.  The ajin chewed.  Ikuya blew
out a cloud of smoke.  “So,” the ajin said, “Do you work for Satou too?”
Ikuya tapped the ashes.  “I suppose I technically worked for the government at
one point, but presently I’m unemployed.  Call me a concerned citizen.”
“You shouldn’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.  You’ll just get
yourself killed.”
Ikuya nodded at the gun in front of him.  “Obviously I’m not afraid of you.”
“That’s not my problem,” the ajin said, swinging his baseball bat idly.
Ikuya grinned.  “Don’t try to act too tough with me.  Your reputation precedes
you, Angel of Tokyo.”
The ajin blew a bubble and popped it, rolling his eyes.  “Please call me
Kotobuki,” he groaned.
Ikuya laughed.  “Then you can call me Ogura,” he said, “I’m not your enemy,
Kotobuki.  I’m just a scientist, and not the kind you think, though it’s true
that I study ajins, no sense hiding that from you.”
Kotobuki’s eyes were hooded like a snake’s.  “Why are you here?” he demanded,
black particles swarming in the air around him.
Now this was odd.  Ikuya knew what an ajin’s bloodlust felt like quite well. 
The flavor differed slightly, of course, but it always had that same bite to
it.  But if bloodlust was spicy, then this was…sweet.  Ikuya had had his
suspicions from what he’d heard about the Angel, but to have it right in front
of him like this was something else altogether.
“How do you do it?” Ikuya asked as the ajin’s IBM materialized before him, “I
shouldn’t be able to see your IBM unless you want to kill.  But you don’t, and
you didn’t earlier, did you?”
Kotobuki narrowed his eyes, and for a split second Ikuya saw Kei Nagai in front
of him, watching him with narrow eyes while his IBM loomed before him.  They
probably had some superficial similarities, like a levelheaded intelligence and
a hesitance to form attachments.  And an unwillingess to risk their lives.  But
Kei Nagai had always felt at best like a mercenary in their ranks, even moreso
than the real mercenaries.  He had no dedication to whatever they called their
cause, and would jump ship the moment it became inconvenient to stay.
Maybe that Nakano kid would be able to get Nagai more invested in the fate of
the world, but to Ikuya at least he was a lost cause.  But something
fundamental about Kotobuki’s bearing was different, Ikuya observed, tasting IBM
on his tongue as Kotobuki’s IBM crooned static.  If Nagai was a mercenary, then
Kotobuki was a knight.
“You’re the scientist, you tell me.”
Ikuya took a drag from his cigarette.  Kotobuki blew another bubble.  Pop.  The
IBM was blocking the way out of the alley.  Good, Kotobuki probably wasn’t
going to bolt.
“I wasn’t born Ogura, you know,” Ikuya began, grinning when he noticed
Kotobuki’s eyes widen for a beat.  It was always nice to surprise someone.  “I
was born Yukimura.  Ogura is my wife’s family name.”
Kotobuki shrugged.  “Never heard of her.”
“That’s fair,” Ikuya acquiesced, “I don’t think your circles would overlap. 
But in my circle, Dr. Dipali Ogura is a renowned radiochemist.  Dipali’s not a
Japanese name, by the way,” he added, gesturing with his cigarette, “it’s
Indian.”
“And?”
“I had no real family to speak of,” Ikuya said, “Maybe you can relate.  Dipali
changed that.  She made me part of her family.  That’s why I took her name.”
He ground out the cigarette and got up, hesitantly walking toward Kotobuki’s
IBM.  After cautiously running his hands over its wings, he stretched one wing
out, comparing the structure to that of real birds.  “We were visiting her
family when it happened,” he said absently, his hands not pausing in their
work, “Everything happened so fast.  We were just walking on the sidewalk with
a few of her cousins when suddenly a car drove onto the sidewalk.  She’d run
ahead to say hello to an old friend.  If she hadn’t, maybe things would have
ended differently.”
“What does your dead wife have to do with me?” Kotobuki asked stiffly, fiddling
with his baseball bat.
“She’s not dead, and she has everything to do with you,” Ikuya said lightly,
running his fingers along the IBM’s feathers and marveling at their softness,
“such a pretty thing,” he crooned.  “Ajins are venerated in India, you know.
 They were wheeling her corpse away on a stretcher when she suddenly woke up. 
Instead of taking her to the morgue they took her to a temple, and wouldn’t let
me get anywhere near her.  Your IBM has remained solid for a very long time.  I
wonder if the reason it’s always visible also makes it more durable…”
“She got a better end than any ajin in Japan would have.”
“Perhaps, but it doesn’t have to be the end, now does it?” Ikuya asked, looking
at Kotobuki critically.  Kotobuki had a hard time meeting his eyes.  “The day I
got back to Japan, I started smoking and wrote a grant proposal for ajin
study.  It was the only way I knew how to fight.”
Kotobuki backed away, raising his bat defensively.  “Did Eriko Nagai send you?”
he asked dangerously, his knuckles white against the grip of the bat.
 “Nah, but we’re singing the same song.  You seen her recruitment video?  You
should join up, I’ll bet she could use someone like you.”
“I have promises to keep.  I have no intention of being a soldier.”
“You draw an awful lot of attention to yourself.  You sure you wouldn’t be
safer in a pack?”
Kotobuki raised an eyebrow.  “Same could be said for you.”
“I’m no threat to Satou, I’m just another soft and squishy human.  Probably. 
I’m not cut out for fighting on his turf.”
“And you think I am?  Is that why you came here?  What made you think you could
talk me into fighting?”
Ikuya scratched his head and looked up at the sky.  “Honestly, desperation more
than anything else.  I feel like the end is almost here.  Satou’s up to
something.  Why else would he broadcast to all the world that he’s kidnapped
one boring human?”
Kotobuki flinched.  Ikuya narrowed his eyes.  “I don’t suppose you know him, do
you?” he asked lightly.
Kotobuki didn’t say anything, but he did lower the bat.  Ikuya felt something
fond fill some dusty corner of his heart.  “I guess another part of it was
curiosity.  What kind of person would become a vigilante to save people that
are obviously being targeted by Satou?  Maybe they could be convinced to take a
more active role.”
Kotobuki turned away.  “Well, you were wrong.”
“I don’t think so.”
Kotobuki hunched his shoulders.  “And I’m sure you’re going to tell me why.”
Unthinkingly, Ikuya reached out and ruffled Kotobuki’s hair.  “Just a hunch,
but it’s because you quit smoking.”
Kotobuki swatted Ikuya’s hand away, the tips of his ears red.  “That’s none of
your business,” he snarled.
Ikuya held out his hands beseechingly.  “Easy, easy, okay I’ll leave it alone.
 But…” and here he was venturing purely into hunch territory, “So far you’ve
only been able to help people that Satou doesn’t have yet.  Alone, anyone that
Satou takes is beyond your reach.  But you don’t have to fight alone.”
Kotobuki looked at the sky and swore under his breath.  “I told him to be
careful,” he muttered, “the fuck am I supposed to do now?”
Bingo.  “Simple.  You go find Eriko Nagai, and then together you all can bust
that kid out of there.  Be big damn heroes.”
Kotobuki sighed, and spat out his wad of gum.  He slouched on the side of one
of the buildings lining the alley and looked up, though there were no stars to
see through the light pollution.  Maybe that was a metaphor.  Ikuya shoved his
hands in his pockets and leaned next to him, trying to discern constellations
through the haze.  “You’re running from something you can’t outrun,” he said,
“Better to stand and fight while you still have the strength to.”
Kotobuki said nothing.  Cars drove past in the street beside them.  People
walked by.  After a while, Ikuya dug into his pocket for another cigarette,
lighting it and blowing the smoke up to the sky.  Kotobuki started chewing
another piece of gum.  Neither of them said anything else.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!
