“What do you mean, she is gone?”
Mori sighed. “While yesterday’s mission was successful – we could put a stop to their stealing of our supplies and found out the traitor’s identity – their organization was not destroyed.”
He raised a knowing eyebrow at Akutagawa, who stood, frozen, brain reeling with the new information.
“So, it’s revenge?”
“Or they want to know where are supplies they stole from us.” Mori crossed his fingers in front of him. “Either way, they will probably kill her — if it’s not already done.”
“They won’t.” In his pocket, Akutagawa’s fingers clenched into fists. “If it’s information they want, they won’t kill her yet.”
“You are not usually this optimistic.”
Higuchi was capable. She couldn’t just die. She was his subordinate because she wasn't as likely to get herself killed stupidly as any other.
Mori talked more — something about what a shame it was — but Akutagawa didn’t exactly care. When he was dismissed, he bent down in a sharp bow, and left.
He walked back to the Black Lizards office fast, and pulled out the reports and plans they had made in prevision for their mission. He remembered the location — the warehouse they had raided last night, the abandoned building near the construction area which served as their headquarters.
He hesitated. He should do nothing. Higuchi’s own carelessness had gotten her captured and there was no reason to dispatch anyone to bring her back. If there was a need, the boss would order it, and he hadn’t.
Well, Akutagawa wasn’t known for following orders to the letter anyway.
The boss would consider her replaceable, and would not risk sending a team to bring her back, not when she was probably already dead and their mission successful.
Except that Higuchi couldn’t die. Her place was by his side.
“Are you going to go?”
He put down the papers and turned back toward Gin. “I—” He paused, thinking of the time Higuchi pulled him out of enemy hands, defying the boss’ orders. No matter how much trouble he brought her, she always seemed to follow him right through it. “I owe her a debt,” he justified. “The boss won’t mind.”
He was not blind to Mori’s leniency when it came to him — he had rarely been punished even for his most reckless endeavors; even when by all logic he should have been.
But that was mostly because his disregards of orders came with results. Today he wasn’t sure the boss would, even if he was successful, consider the result worth the trouble.
“Wait here,” she told him. “I’ll go get Hirotsu and Tachihara, we will go together.”
Higuchi’s head throbbed, and she breathed through her teeth, through the pain in her ribs.
She tried to slip her wrists out of the ropes binding her to the chair. She tasted blood on her tongue where she had accidentally bit herself when her captor had hit her face.
Wrinkling her nose, she cursed herself for not seeing that coming.
Akutagawa would be pretty disappointed in her, letting herself be captured like this.
Her captor sat lazily on the table, playing with her weapon. She had been eyeing it since she had woken up, trying to think of a way she could take it away from him and escape. So far, her train of thoughts had been broken too many times by the man trying to get information out of her for her to have an actual plan.
But she was a Port Mafia operative, and a leader of the Black Lizards. She could escape and go back to headquarters herself, whether they came for her or not.
“Where did you hide our supplies?”
“Yours?” She scoffed. “They belong to the Port Mafia. You stole them.”
”You stole them, we stole them in turn, it’s ours now.” He stood, moving towards her. “We have ways to make you talk. This time I won’t be as nice.”
“You think I don’t know that?” She gulped, hard, trying to keep her composure. “I can deal with it.”
She almost winced when he brought out the large, extremely sharp looking knife. “All right then. Is there a finger you like less than the others?”
Before he could make use of his blade, the door flew open. “Sir! We have a problem.” The newcomer wrung his hands together. “The Mafia is back.”
“What?” He glared down at her as if it was her fault. "How many?”
“That’s the thing, sir.” He grimaced. “Just one.”
There was a crash from further away, and someone screamed.
Akutagawa walked towards the building and the armed guards at the door immediately readied theirs weapons.
Rashomon reared its head, red eyes glowing,
Don’t kill, a little voice murmured at the back of his head, sounding way too much like the weretiger for his taste.
The guards screamed as Rashomon ripped through their arms, their guns fell and Akutagawa walked past them without sparing them a glance.
This was what this ridiculous, annoying promise led too, and only two months into it. He should have wiped that little gang as soon as he got the chance. But no, he hadn’t killed the lot of them and now they had taken Higuchi.
The glass door closed behind him, and he found himself alone in the half-constructed lobby. The building was, for a long time, supposed to be an office block, but it had never been finished, and everything had been left half done.
Higuchi had to be somewhere here. That idiot. Always needing him to get out of trouble.
Too busy watching his back she didn’t pay enough attention to hers.
He took the stairs, heading for the first floor. On the corner of his eye, he could see the camera follow him.
Soon after, he heard footsteps coming from each side of him, and more armed men came at him.
He didn’t have the time for this, and Rashomon extended, cutting through hands to disarm them.
Bullets flying around him, his ability eating them when they came too close.
He turned at a corner. Rashomon wrapped itself around one of his enemies, dragging them after him, and he ran into an empty room, closing the door behind them
“Where is she?” He bared his teeth. “Speak before I rip your throat out.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He drove Rashomon through his shoulder, and pulled back. Blood sprayed and he fell. Akutagawa left him groaning in pain on the ground.
Wiping the blood off his face, he went on.
All things considered, going alone may not have been his brightest idea.
He ducked in a corner, narrowly avoiding another wave of bullets, and a bright, burning pain spread from his side. He let himself fall to the ground, clutching at the wound, gasping for breath.
Blood seeped out of a large cut. The bullet hadn’t pierced through. It had somehow slipped through his defense. It was enough to hurt, but not enough to be lethal.
He was still good to go.
Pushing himself back on his feet, he ignored the pain. The enemy was getting more and more desperate. He had to be close.
He took the stairs again, this time to the second floor. Quickly, he moved out of the camera’s way, trying to be more discreet. He would usually not be this prudent, but he didn’t want to rush in and risk Higuchi’s life.
Hearing more footsteps, he flattened himself against the wall, hoping to be quiet enough not to attract more attention. With the ruckus he’d made, they would be looking for him all over the below floors.
“You said there was only one?”
“Yes.” That voice — the traitor, the one who had sold Port Mafia supplies to a rival organization. “Only one that our men could see — it’s probably Akutagawa, he’s the most likely be sent alone.” He scoffed. “Still, I can’t believe the Mafia would send him, or anyone, to rescue Akutagawa’s useless subordinate.”
He twitched. Don’t kill, the voice chanted in his head. No matter how much he deserves it. You promised.
“It doesn’t matter. If he tries to get to her, we will be here to stop him.”
Their voice grew quieter as they walk down the stairs, obviously intending to meet him before he could reach the right floor.
Akutagawa peaked out of his hiding place. There was no one left, so he opened the first door he found, leading to an empty office. He kept going, stumbling into more and more empty rooms, frustration growing which each step..
Higuchi had managed to free her right hand and was in the process of untying her left one when someone brutally kicked the door open.
She froze in her movement, starring, wide eyed, as who she believed to be her captor came back. It took her a few seconds to realize who the man standing in front of her was.
“Akutagawa?” She tried to say something more, but she couldn’t do anything but stammer out questions. “What— how—why—I’m—”
“I—” He found himself unable to align three coherent words.
Drying blood stained the corner of her mouth and the side of her head, sticking to her hair. The hand she was using to free her still bound wrist was red, rubbed raw by the rope.
“You came to get me,” she ended up saying.
“It’s my job,” he told her, and she snorted.
"No, it’s not. You’re not supposed to be the one protecting me. I'm —”
“You are my surbordinate,” he insisted as Rashomon made a quick work of the remaining rope, “and my responsibility. It’s my job.”
Higuchi was fast on her feet. She winced, pressing a hand on her ribs.
“Thank you,” she started. “I’m sorry about—”, but Akutagawa shook his head.
“Later. We need to go.”
They heard yelling — several people, footsteps, unclear orders being shouted — from below them.
“They have reinforcements.” She took back her gun, making sure it was still loaded. Then, ignoring her aching body, she followed him out of the door.
The corridor was still empty, but they didn’t linger.
Good thing, too, because it didn’t take long for them to run straight into the enemy.
Akutagawa grabbed her wrist, pulling her closer to him. She fired three times, hitting her mark every time, and Rashomon opened a path for them.
They ran down the stairs, her head swimming, until a sudden pain flared in her leg and she stumbled.
Barely slowing down, one of Rashomon’s tendrils wrapped around her, keeping her on her feet. “Stay up,” Akutagawa ordered, and his ability curled tightly around her waist, almost pulling her against him.
She took down another enemy coming from behind them and hissed in pain when Akutagawa suddenly skidded to a stop, forcing her behind him.
“Get out of my way,” he snarled, “I don’t have time for you.”
Higuchi looked over his shoulder and scowled, recognizing the man who was now trying to prevent them from going forward.
She remembered talking to him just the day before, she remembered him suddenly hitting her over the head and slamming.
“You don’t? What, are you scared of losing? Or are you going soft?”
Anger flared, and she clenched her hand on her gun. Akutagawa did not have time for him, but she sure as hell did.
She shot him.
He staggered, looking down at the blood pooling from under his shirts.
Nobody moved for a second, then Akutagawa walked up to him. “Tell me again,” he demanded, “how useless my subordinate supposedly is?” When he didn’t answer, struggling to breathe through the blood, Akutagawa smiled wryly. “Thought so.”
He turned back to her. “Let’s go,” he said. “We have to go back to headquarters.”
From then, they found the lobby again quickly and walked out. The cold air of the night hit Akutagawa’s face, prickling at his skin, and he allowed himself to breath.
Higuchi was okay.
“Senpai?” Higuchi’s voice caught his attention. “Why did you—” She looked away. “Why did you come or me? I didn’t think the boss would order—”
“He didn’t” He took in her bloodied face and her limp. What else could I have done? I—” I can’t handle the thought of you dying, or of having any one else by my side. “I need you,” he managed to say.
Close enough.
Her face turned a strange, pinkish color, and she looked down, stammering thanks. Then, she stilled. “You’re hurt!” She wrung her hands together. “You’re bleeding, I’m so sorry!”
Adrenaline had dulled in his side, but now that he was calmer, he was starting to feel it — his clothes sticking to the wound, soaked with blood. Each step made it spike.
“I’ll be fine. I can still drive.”
He pulled her closer, his arm around her waist to help her walk in spite of the wound in her leg.
They were almost at the car when they heard quiet footsteps, followed by the snap of a gun being charged. They froze, Higuchi reached for her weapon, and Rashomon came to life.
“I believe I told you to wait for us.”
Gin leaned against the car, her arms crossed, looking at Akutagawa sternly.
On the hood of the car, Tachihara groaned. “They didn’t even need us, what are we here for again?”
“Getaway car.”
Akutagawa’s relief was noticeable. “Gin,” he mumbled.
“So I count for nothing uh?” Tachihara jumped off the car and opened the back door. “All right, get in there, chiefs. We’re driving you back.”
They both collapsed on the back seats. Only then did Akutagawa’s fingers slid off her wrist. Silently, Rashomon extended around Higuchi, covering her protectively.
“Hirotsu is still at headquarters,” Tachihara went on as Gin took place behind the wheel. “Keeping the boss busy.”
“Aren’t you going to get into trouble for —” She gestured vaguely around herself with her free hand. “—this?”
“It didn’t worry you so much, last time.”
“But—” It had been different. It had been for Akutagawa.
“Higuchi.” Akutagawa stared at her in mild annoyance. “Stop worrying over nothing.”
She nodded, even if it made her feel like her head was filled with cotton. Rashomon felt warm around her, and she slumped on her seat, leaning against Akutagawa without thinking about it.
His hand came to rest on hers and she relaxed.
“Don’t fall asleep.”
“But I’m exhausted.” Her eyes slid shut, until something stung her on the arm. She yelped “Hey! What —”
“I said, don’t fall asleep,” Akutagawa repeated, as the red spark of Rashomon faded. “You have a head injury.”
“Are you going to do this every time?”
“If I have to.”
“Then I’m safe, right?” She smiled. “With you.”
“I—” He stuttered and looked way. Higuchi was sure he was blushing, but she was probably too out of it to really tell. “Yes,” he admitted, “you are.”