[Fic]Through the unfathomable night -Part 2
Title: Through the unfathomable night.
Recipient's Name: maya_hayashi
Author: petitefee24
Rating: PG-13 (swearing and sexual references -nothing explicit, though)
Wordcount: 8,068
Pairing: Rikkai ensemble.
Warnings: AU, swearing, violence.
Author's Notes: *headdesk* The first time I write mystery in my life! It became monstrously long (the longest one I’ve ever written) but I hope you enjoy it! It was horrible unsettling doing this for someone in my f-list, I tried my best! Beta edited by lovely and amazing oriaon, who taroundarou slapped me every time I whined because I couldn’t finish it. Silly Amuse reference because it was for you, maya_hayashi <3~
Summary: When bored private detectives Marui Bunta, Kuwahara Jackal and Kirihara Akaya received an unexpected visit by a mysterious woman and accepted her case, they might have bitten more than they could chew…
Part 1
~0~
Yagyuu was sitting in one of the surveillance control rooms, watching the feedback from the cameras positioned around the exterior of the building. He saw Yukimura-sama and Sanada fuku-honbucho enter, just as Yanagi-san has said, and then a shadow appearing through north entry. Three more followed after. He loaded his gun; he was ready.
~0~
Akaya ran straight into Jackal and would have shouted if it weren’t for the pair of hands that suddenly covered his mouth rather forcefully. He heard Marui-sempai’s voice in his ear: “Be quiet.” Marui pulled out the map Miko had given them and Jackal shone a light on it. Already marked were the guards’ patrol routes; they would have to take note to avoid those. They traced a quick route through the floor plan that would cover pretty much every room in the building, while avoiding any undesirable contact with trained killers. Following this plan, they should be able to find Miko, and the jewel along with her.
Jackal took charge at the front, his reflexes and speed making him an able leader who kept them at a quick pace. The younger detective brought up the rear as the three made their way through the hall. Being the best hitman of the three, he would be covering his sempai-tachi.
They first entered a large office, full of small cubicles. Empty.
After that, followed a small conference room. Empty.
Next came the employees’ dining room. Empty.
Akaya could feel the cold sweat running down his spine, his breathing labored, but his grip on his pistol was firm and steady.
A second and larger conference room. Empty as we--
There was a shadow standing next the window.
“I would like to know what business you have here, gentlemen. It seems you already know me, but I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your acquaintance.” They saw a glint of the glasses lens, and knew they had found Yagyuu.
~0~
Yukimura was lying in his bed, resting after a long day of negotiations while Sanada sat at his desk looking over the gangs’ reports. The bluenette had a magnificent mansion and more servants than he could count (though Yanagi probably knew exactly how many there were, and all of their names, charges and known aliases) but sometimes, like tonight, Yukimura needed peace and quiet; this place was the perfect location. The building wasn’t directly linked to the syndicate, and that allowed it to be used for different purposes (some perfectly concealed with extreme secrecy) and contained a luxurious apartment at the top floor for his own personal enjoyment. Besides a few handpicked maids, the only others he allowed inside were Sanada and Yanagi.
“Genichirou…”
The mentioned man looked up from his work.
“We’ve worked enough for today.” Come to bed, now.
“Hmn.”
~0~
As Akaya freed the safety lock from his gun, which was aimed directly at Yagyuu’s head, he felt a rush of air passing just next to his right cheek. Frozen, he slowly turned his gaze behind him, back to see the bullet hole in the wall; he didn’t even see Yagyuu lift the gun.
“It’s only polite to answer a question when you are asked, Kirihara-kun.” Yagyuu pulled a remote out from his pocket and the lights in the room flickered on. Jackal gaped when he was able to see what had happened; Marui didn’t take his eyes off of Yagyuu.
“Where’s Miko?” Marui asked, his own gun pointing at the yakuza.
“’Miko’? Oh, Nakazawa-san is probably looking for the jewel right now. I will stop her once I take care of you, Marui-kun, Kuwahara-kun.”
“Fucker--!!” A second shot passed right next to Akaya’s left cheek this time; his curls swept off his forehead with the shockwave. The gun’s silencer made it sound surreal, almost laser-like. When the fuck did Yagyuu shoot!?
“You should be careful of your words, Kirihara-kun.” Yagyuu’s glasses glinted.
“I won’t let you touch her.” Marui growled, tightening his grip on the gun.
“How touching,” Yagyuu said, pushing his glasses up with his free hand. “The familiarity by which you say her name indicates that she has hired you, and you fell for whatever fairytale she has told you. You’re useless to me now. Then--”
“Watch out, Marui-sempai!!” Waiting to see whether Yagyuu had raised his gun had not even crossed Akaya’s mind, only the wild though to shoot, aiming for the other’s heart-- at the same time, someone grabbed the collar of his jacket and jerked him down. His shot missed completely.
“Don’t get yourself killed, kid,” Miko hissed, pointing at a new bullet hole where Akaya’s head had just been, seconds ago.
“Miko--!!”
“Nakasawa-san--!!”
“Yagyuu.” She growled; the man with glasses just smirked.
~0~
Sanada was on his feet in an instant. That had been a gunshot. Inside the building. Yukimura woke up and rubbed his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I heard a gunshot. Stay in here please.” He reached for his gun and katana, and was at the door in a second, already typing the password to open the door.
Yukimura frowned, displeased. This place was extremely well protected; five of the best kobun were selected to guard it at night. Something like this was just unthinkable. When he was about to protest about Sanada leaving, he heard the password being typed again from outside the door. The man had already gone.
The bluenette arched an eyebrow. Picking up the phone, he dialed the familiar number. “I want to see what you are seeing, Renji.”
~0~
They couldn’t see a thing. When the smoke dissipated, neither Miko nor Yagyuu were there anymore. Had she dropped a smoke bomb? They rushed towards the door, trying to catch up with them. Marui turned the corner to the right, and immediately dropped to his knees to avoid a bullet that had been aimed right at his head. It seemed that Akaya’s shot from before had alerted the very guards they had been trying to avoid. Jackal pulled Marrui to his feet and they made a break for the opposite direction.
Two shots rang out of Akaya’s gun; he smirked when he heard a shriek of pain. He was sure he had gotten at least one of them in one leg. He turned around quickly when he heard Marui-sempai’s gun firing-- another one was coming. Akaya saw the yakuza fall to the ground and his smirk only became wider; it was from Marui-sempai that he had learned perfect aim.
“Let’s go find them,” Marui said as they turned around to follow the route they had established before. Akaya shook his head; the sweat plastered his curls all over his forehead and obscured his eyes. He heard another yell of pain, closer to him this time; Jackal-sempai was gripping his left upper arm. Even though they were wearing black, Akaya could see the unmistakenable stain of blood.
“JACKAL!!”
Akaya shot the yakuza that had hurt his sempai dead. One shot to the head. He had just killed a person. And he started to laugh. He took the red goggles that hung from his neck and put them on. He could see clearly now.
Marui and Jackal exchanged glances, concerned about his mental sanity but there was no time for that now. They heard footsteps coming their way.
“Don’t worry sempai-tachi, I’ll protect you. Marui-sempai, go ahead with Jackal-sempai. Find Miko and get out of here, I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”
“Akaya, no!”
Akaya growled and glared at them. Marui winced and took a step back before recomposing himself. He let go of Jackal to grab Akaya roughly by his jacket’s collar. The footsteps sounded like they were just around the corner. “We’re not leaving you behind!” Marui took his own gun and forced it into Akaya’s free hand. Marui was placing his trust, their lives, into his kohai. He shoved Akaya off. “So suck it, brat.”
Akaya stared, awestricken, for two long seconds before nodding, throwing Jackal’s arm over his shoulder to support his weight and help keep him going.
~0~
Yukimura was not happy. He flashed through the camera feedbacks that Yanagi had playing on his LED screen. “You owe me two men now, Renji.”
He watched as Sanada found the kobun that had been shot by the youngest of the intruders; it seemed that he was still alive. Yukimura saw his second-in-command place the wounded in a sitting position before rushing of again, to find the culprit and eliminate him.
~0~
Miko was gasping for breath, but had finally reached the top of the building. She had heard from the Strategist that there were only two rooms on the upper floor. She ignored completely the main room where the big man was and instead ran to open the second door. Losing Yagyuu on the way up had been a pain in the ass, but she had managed it. Of course, that went without saying; she was good at what she did. Miko entered the room. At the very center sat the Blue Garnet. She made a face; it wasn’t pretty at all, but what it meant was what mattered.
She came near the box and opened it, placing the rock in her bag and heading for the door. Escaping was going to be the difficult part; hopefully, the detectives were going to be useful as a distraction (that’s why she hired them for, after all). The moment she reached the doorway, Miko doubled over with pain-- a kick in the stomach. Maybe she hadn’t lost Yagyuu after all.
“F-fuck.”
“Such a nasty mouth for a lady, Nakazawa-san.” Another kick sent her onto her back and back into the room. Yagyuu grabbed her by the neck, forced her to her feet, and smashed her into the wall.
“Yagyuu.”
“I caught the little rat, Sanada-sa--.” Yagyuu froze, his eyes wide, when he felt the rush of wind pass him, and Miko suddenly screaming in pain. He loosened his hold on the woman’s neck and she fell to the ground. Sanada had stabbed her past him.
“It isn’t lethal, scum. I can show you the 36 places where you can get stabbed without dying.” Sanada stabbed her again in example; she howled in pain. “You better start talking. Who do you work for? How did you get this far?”
“Fuck you!” She spat at him.
“Yagyuu, hold her still.”
Yagyuu sank to his knees slowly, taking hold of her by the shoulders.
“Who do you work for?” Sanada’s voice was frightening; his katana glinted in the moonlight.
“Oi! Big guy, I think we’re lost, isn’t this were your boss is?” Marui rushed in, grabbing one of the pistols from Akaya’s hands and shooting down Yukimura room’s access control panel.
Sanada’s stare became lethal and in a flash, had almost slashed Marui in half; almost, because just before he actually managed to do it, he fell to the ground, unconscious. Miko was holding a gun with both hands; Yagyuu was unconscious next to her, too.
Everyone seemed too shocked to even move. It was Akaya who snapped out of the trance first and ran to Miko to help her up. “We need to get out of here and fast.”
~0~
Marui closed the office door and slumped to the floor, exhausted. Jackal sat in one of chairs, gritting his teeth in pain. Akaya carried Miko to Marui-sempai’s chair; he was actually surprised that the woman didn’t complain or cry the entire way back to the office; she would hiss, clench her teeth, or curse, but nothing like screaming. And damn it looked really painfully.
Akaya searched the room for the office’s first aid kit. He didn’t even dare suggesting a hospital; the hospital was not even an option. All he wanted to do now was to crawl under a rock and not go out for a while. The young detective put the small aid kit between the two desks. “Marui-sempai…”
“Coming, kid.”
Marui helped Jackal take off his shirt and jacket so he could look over the wound. He felt a sting of guilt at the sight. At least it was just a superficial wound; he cleaned it and dressed the wound as best he could.
Akaya looked over Miko’s wounds. She had been stabbed in the right leg and again in her left side, under a…errmm… breast. He blushed a little. Miko noticed the young man’s predicament and smirked. “You won’t be able to take my clothes off in this state; cut them loose.” She reached for a pair of scissors and put them in the boy’s hand.
The young detective started cutting, a little embarrassed at first, but when he felt the cloth soaked with blood, his stare held only determination. Miko stretched over just enough to grab her bag and pull the Blue Garnet out. She sighed in relief at the jewel in her hand. Then she started laughing, until she couldn’t stand the pain of doing so. It wasn’t a very girlish laugh, though.
Akaya dropped the scissors and took a step back, stumbled against a chair and fell to the floor. He was gaping like the office’s goldfish.
“Oi, kid, what’s wrong?”
“M-Marui-sempai… she-- I mean--“
“Ya know, I’ve always ‘ated wigs. They’re annoying as hell…” Miko grabbed the top of hair and pulled. Under the brown wavy wig, there was bright white hair, spiked and unkempt. With all the fighting and running her makeup had run off, and her voice wasn’t feminine at all now.
Akaya reached for the gun in his ankle but Mi-- the man already had another gun pointed at him, a smirk on his face. “Don’t it even try it, kiddo.” He stumbled a little trying to stand up, grabbing the bag with his free hand. “Nice job, I’ll--” He hissed in pain, and had to support himself against the wall, “--hire you if I ever need…” He coughed. “…handsome detectives again.” He finished, in Miko’s voice.
Then he opened the door and was gone. When Akaya broke out the trance, he tried to give chase but it was like he had all but disappeared.
Marui stared at the white board; he could see it clearly now; the piece that had been missing. Miko, or whatever his real name was, had always worked with Yagyu; they were just like dogs chasing their own tails. Everything made sense and no sense at all at the same time.
~0~
Yanagi was on his knees, even if only was Yukimura and Sanada in front of him, tonight he was facing his wakagashira and fuku-honbucho.
“You went out of line this time, Yanagi”.
Said man was expecting no less anger so he kept himself quiet and calmed, maybe if he played his cards well he might still keep his fingers intact by sunrise. He waited politely for a question that never came. When Yukimura crossed his arms, Yanagi knew he was required to explain.
“When I passed my kobun’s request of allowing his partner to join us, wakagashira Yukimura; you selected his mission of approval. You wanted to prove Niou’s strength and skills to infiltrate and deceive, so I suggested making him steal something from us. There was something more, of course; you were concern about my kobun’s loyalty, so you decided making him choose between his partner and the family --you put him in charge of stopping Niou.” Yanagi didn’t opened his eyes and continue. “You forced them to contradict their desires; playing with people emotions will ever bring undesirable consequences because of miscalculated factors…”
“Don’t you dare to speak--” Yukimura shut Sanada up with a glare. The silence was thick and heavy.
“I have two men dead”
“The guards I chose to serve tonight were suspicious and proven to put their personal interests over the syndicate’s; they’ll not be missed”.
Yukimura glared at the man in front of him. He was a brilliant strategist but shouldn’t use his talent behind his back. Yanagi’s body position was stiff and seemed somehow forced; Yukimura let him wait for a while before nodding at him to continue.
“I could easily replace them with Niou, since he accomplished his mission, and maybe with Kirihara Akaya, the youngster you saw tonight. He has potent--” Yukimura raised his hand and Yanagi went silent immediately; he kept glaring at the kneeled man, making it sure the other understood how displeased he was with this turn out of events.
“What did you win from all this?”
Yanagi resisted the urge of smirking. “Look for yourself…” He pointed at a bedside table. Sanada grunted and went there. “In the first drawer, Genichirou” Sanada opened it and took a photo frame out; his expression was priceless. He really looked like he wanted to get Yanagi strangled. Yukimura frowned and took the frame from Sanada’s hands.
The photo was focused in a young man and woman kissing in an ice cream parlor; in the left side of the photo and almost completely out of focus, Yukimura was laughing while Sanada was feeding him strawberry ice cream.
“The only time you go out together and you happen to spend the afternoon in the same place the detectives you just met were investigating that man’s infidelity. You don’t want me to tell you how ridiculous low are the chances of that actually happening. Yet, that photo’s existence was an unnecessary risk. Unfortunately, they didn’t have much work to do; and the few cases they had were never challenging enough that required all of them to be in the field.” Yanagi shrugged. “I needed to get them out of that office so I could do damage control. Anyway, the chances of them actually knowing what kind of valuable information they had stored are below 0.65%, there is no need of further action.”
Yukimura chuckled and passed one finger over the photo, holding a smile back.
“You’re not getting paid for a month, Renji.”
Yanagi allowed himself smiled a little; he knew he was forgiven now.
“The Blue Garnet?”
“Niou sent it over back to me.” Yanagi put the jewel in front of him. “About Yagyuu…”
“He failed his mission.”
“I, as his Oyabun, should take responsibility of his actions…”
“Don’t push me, Renji.”
Yanagi bowed deeply. “I apologize…And about Niou?”
Yukimura stayed silent; he was definitely not pleased with Niou leaving his second in command and lover unconscious.
“I’ll think about it” Yukimura said and Sanada growled.
“I appreciate it.”
“You’re excused now-”
Yanagi bowed once more and stood up to leave “Just for the record, Niou had another gun with him; he chose the tranquilizer over the bullet… even after being stabbed.” He slowly opened the door to leave.
“Hope he gives you gray hairs.”
The Strategist turned around and bowed for a third time, “Thank you, Seiichi.”
~0~
A week after that experience, things seemed to go back to normal in the office. The goldfish was still in the bottom of the tank doing nothing and they were assigned a lost puppy case. There was a soft knock at the door.
“Come in” Nothing happened. “I say come in!” Marui yelled. “Akaya, open the door”.
“I opened it last time, let Jackal do it! Oi! Stop throwing paper balls at me, Marui-sempai! Ok, ok, I’ll go”. He opened the door but there was no one there, just a small package. Akaya shrugged and pick it up; it had a note.
“Thank you for your services, detectives. Miko.”
It was sealed with a red lipstick kiss. Akaya shivered.
“Sempai-tachi, I think we just got paid 2 million yen…”
~0~
Niou was lying in a large bed; he was looking pale but at least he was all bandaged up now and the injuries were healing nicely. They hurt like fuck, though. And that Sanada guy said there were 36 different points; he shivered at the thought. Yagyuu came to sit next to Niou and caressed his cheek; slowly lowering his hand until he placed it over the chest injury.
“Nah your fault, Ya~gyuu.” He reached to take Yagyuu’s hands into his own. He gently kissed each finger, stopping at the pinky finger; it was missing a phalange now. “ Puri~” I’m sorry.
“Not your fault. Well, not entirely…”
“You’ll be cleaning shoes for a month, too.”
“You’ll be cleaning shoes for at least six months.”
Niou laughed and then hissed when pain hit again. “Asshole”
Yagyuu nudged Niou so he could lie down next to him.
“Why do I even like you? Must be the nicotine killing my brain cells”
Yagyuu arched an eyebrow, “Why would I even like you?”
“You get off at me crossdressed.” Niou said snuggling closer to the other man. Yagyuu was always warm and smell like coffee, books, male perfume and pancakes.
Yagyuu’s glassed glinted and placed a kiss in Niou’s hair. “Indeed”