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Sougo kept a careful eye on the two young men clinging to Banri. Nobody had been able to agree on how they felt about them--Nagi swore up and down that they must be Banri’s childhood friends, and Mitsuki and Riku were certain that at least one of them was Banri’s soulmate, the source of the white crescent moon on his hand, but Tamaki and Yamato thought that they were evil, here to try and hurt Banri more, and Iori worried that they wouldn’t realize or would take advantage of all the work Banri put in to keep them safe. They had even managed to send a message to Tsumugi, several cells down, who replied that she’d seen them come in, and they’d been talking about escaping, and claiming to be singers and fruit vendors, despite being accused of being spies.
Sougo, for his part, was reserving judgement. Sure, they had argued with the guards, which definitely had gotten Banri hurt worse no matter how much he’d tried to deny it, but they had argued to try and take Banri’s place in the torture sessions, and after they’d all gotten back, Banri had assured all seven of them that the two new ones were good men and trustworthy, and had then backed up his words by immediately heading over to them and hugging them for going on fifteen minutes straight now, hands fisted in the backs of their shirts and face buried in the one with the glove’s shoulder--the one who the Izumi brothers thought had soulbonded with him. Sougo wasn’t sure if he believed that--after all, just because he wore a glove on the hand that would have the soulbond if it existed and seemed to know Banri well didn’t mean that he and Banri had become soulmates in the years before their capture--it just meant that Banri had had an active social life prior to all of this, which they’d known already. But he definitely trusted them, if the way he was clinging to them both was any indication whatsoever, and so Sougo was feeling inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Tamaki leaned his chin on Sougo’s shoulder. “What do you think they’re doing over there, Sou-chan?”
“I think…” Sougo looked closer. “I think they’re comforting Banri, like he always does for us. He had to take two sessions today, that’s always really hard. And he doesn’t like to show us when he’s hurting, but I guess since they’re his friends he trusts them more.”
“So you agree that they’re his friends!” Nagi said happily.
“It’s kind of hard to deny,” Sougo said, nodding over to where Banri was still clinging to them. “I think the question here is whether or not they’re safe and trustworthy, not whether or not they were his friends.”
Riku paused, hand raising to touch the small, pastel pink angle by his right eye. “I suppose that even a soulmate can turn on you…” he said slowly.
“Wait,” Iori said, “if the taller one is Banri’s soulmate, and his glove is covering his soulmark, why hide it? We’d be more likely to trust him if we had proof they’d soulbonded.”
“Why hide it in the first place?” Mitsuki said. “It’s a soulbond. I don’t hide any of mine--unless they’re somewhere I have to wear clothes over, of course.”
“He tried not to wear a shirt for a week after we soulbonded,” Iori added. “It was super embarrassing.”
“I just wanted everyone to see how close I am with my cute younger brother!” Mitsuki laughed, reaching over to ruffle Iori’s hair.
“I am
not
cute,” Iori said.
“You are so cute.”
“Brocon,” hissed Riku.
“You’re the bigger brocon,” Iori hissed back.
“I am not!”
“You are so!”
“You’re both brocons, stop fighting over it,” Yamato said. “I know that guy, the one with the glove. I met him that one time I managed to escape for a couple months. His name’s Yuki, and he definitely had a dark blue crescent moon soulbond on that hand five years ago when he started spending time with my dad, and then one day he broke it, and he’s been covering it up ever since, so he’s definitely not Banri’s soulmate. His soulbond is as strong as the day it got made, didn’t you see? It even sticks around on his hand when the skin’s been cut off.”
“Wait,” said Mitsuki, “do you seriously only think he’s evil because he gets on with your dad?”
Yamato shrugged. “What other reason do I need?”
“Uh, actual ill intent? A grudge against Banri or us? Doing evil things?” suggested Mitsuki.
“Oh,” said Yamato. “Then no, he’s not evil by that definition.”
“What definition were you using, then?!”
“Gets along with my dad.”
Mitsuki stared at him. “I hate you, so much.”
“Rude.”
“So,” Iori said, “Yamato knows him personally, but just dislikes him on virtue of his getting along with Lord Chiba, and for no other reason?”
“What other reason would I have?” Yamato said. “Yuki is a kind, morally-upstanding man with a great sense of humor, and he’s loyal to a fault. I admire him a lot. There’s no way he came here to hurt us. But if you ever tell him I said that I’ll cut out your tongue and deny it to my dying day, because he’s evil.”
“And by evil you mean gets along with your dad,” said Mitsuki.
“Basically, yeah,” Yamato said.
“You suck.”
“Not at the moment, there are minors here.”
Mitsuki buried his face in his hands and groaned.
“Right!” Sougo said quickly. “So we know Yuki’s trustworthy. What about his friend?”
They all looked over at the two of them. Now, only Yuki was holding Banri, who appeared to have fallen asleep, and was stroking his hair and singing quietly. He had a very good voice, but it was at least slightly marred by the fact that his shorter friend was vomiting in the corner.
“...He doesn’t look too dangerous, at least,” Iori said.
“Plus, he and Yuki are soulmates! Didn’t you see the soulbond on their cheeks?” added Riku.
“They’ve been soulmates a long time, too,” Yamato said. “At least five years, because Yuki already had that soulbond when he started working with Dad.”
“So if Yuki is trustworthy, then his soulmate definitely is, too!” Riku said. “They couldn’t have stayed soulmates this long if they’re on opposite sides of the war, after all.”
“Says the guy whose twin brother and soulmate is literally Kujo’s chosen heir and one of the guys keeping us locked up in here,” said Iori, and added: “you brocon.”
“I’m not a--”
“Silence, brocons,” Yamato said. “The grown-ups are speaking right now.”
Iori spluttered, offended, but Riku shut up nicely, tucking his legs under him and looking to Yamato to continue speaking, clearly pleased at not being the only brocon in the cell.
“Alright,” Yamato said, “I think we have an opportunity here. Clearly, Yuki and his soulmate don’t know the rules here, if their little spat with the guards earlier was any indication, and even if Banri’s told them, they probably won’t like the rules here, since that argument was for Banri’s sake. That gives us an opportunity to help them break the rules in order to keep Banri safe, so that he doesn’t keep protecting us all the time. We just need to talk to them while Banri can’t hear us...and probably after Yuki’s soulmate has finished barfing, too.”
“What should we say?” asked Nagi. “I mean, we can’t just start breaking the rules willy-nilly! Banri made them for a reason, and it makes him feel better when we follow them.”
“Obviously we’re gonna escape!” Tamaki said. “That might be Ban-chan’s number one Do Not Do, but we can’t just sit here doing nothing forever!”
“Siscons and everyone under the age of nineteen need to be quiet, too,” said Yamato, “but yeah, that’s what I was getting at. There’s no point in breaking the rules unless it’ll lead to escape, after all.”
“Honestly,” Mitsuki said, “I kinda thought that the whole point of having the rules was so that we’d be in good enough shape to escape and get Banri and the princess out, too, if they physically couldn’t.”
“They definitely were at first,” Iori agreed.
Riku poked him. “Brocons and siscons aren’t allowed to speak,” he hissed.
“That’s not one of the rules, that’s just Yamato being an asshole!” Iori hissed back.
“I’ll talk to Banri and ask him to make it one of the rules,” Yamato said threateningly. “Quiet? Good. I think I might be able to convince Yuki to help us all escape as a favor, but the biggest issues are going to be keeping it quiet so that Banri doesn’t find out and having a place to go to. We can’t go to my dad--I think Kujo has something on him--and if we don’t have a connection with any of the other court rather than this one, we’ll be on the run for a while. I can take the blame for breaking the rules--I’m the oldest, after all, so I’ll be best able to take whatever punishment Banri dishes out--but we’ll all still need to be a united front for this, because Banri’s going to be pissed at all of us anyway. The rules are there to keep us all safe, after all, and we’re going to be breaking nearly every single one of them at once.”
“What do you mean, nearly ?” said Sougo. “We’re literally breaking them all except for Rule #2, with Yuki and his soulmate already tried to violate and will definitely succeed in at some point soon, so--”
“What’s Rule #2?” Yuki’s soulmate asked cheerfully, plopping down next to them and making them all jump.
“You don’t know the rules ?” Tamaki blurted. “What was Ban-chan saying to you over there?!”
“He was mostly scolding us for being reckless,” Yuki’s soulmate said. “Back five years ago, I wasn’t really close with either of them, so that was a new experience...but Yuki nearly cried from the nostalgia. I think we were both already all cried out, though...anyway, what are these rules, and which ones do you think will be easiest for us to break?”
Yamato leaned forward. “What’s your name?” he said.
“Oh, right! I’m Momo. What’s you guys’s names?”
“Momo. Listen. The rules are sacred here. If you break them even once, you’re definitely going to get chewed up and spit out and I can tell you now that we’ll all let it happen. Banri made the rules to keep the nine of us safe, years ago, and just because you’re new doesn’t mean you can break them. However--because you’re new, and Banri hasn’t taught you them yet, we can have a bit of a quid pro quo.”
“What are you talking about?” Momo asked.
Yamato leaned forward. “Rule #1 is Do Not Try To Escape. Rule #2 is Do Not Try To Sacrifice Yourself For Someone Else (Unless Your Name Is Ogami Banri). We don’t like Rule #2, but we have to follow it and all the other rules until we succeed in escaping, which is hard because Rule #1 prohibits escape attempts. But you guys don’t know the rules yet. So if you spearhead the escape attempts--and I’ll ally with you, I’m the oldest so I’m more capable of taking punishment than the younger ones, and it’ll be less upsetting for Banri when he finds out--and help us and Princess Tsumugi and Banri all escape, we can figure out a place to go and not break any of the rules, because we can’t do that, Banri told us not to and Rule #6, which we like a lot, is to do as Banri says, always, and then once we’ve escaped the rules can go out the window. What say you?”
“Why are there all these rules?” Momo whispered back.
“Because Banri worries about us, to a frankly dangerous extent,” Mitsuki explained. “He thought up the rules after they took King Takanashi away, and we didn’t want to follow them at first, because we didn’t want him getting hurt for us. Yamato had the idea that we all switched off on having the sessions, so that it wouldn’t be too much for any of us, and me and Sougo and Iori and Riku and the princess all backed him up, but Iori was twelve at the time and Riku and the princess thirteen, so Banri talked us out of letting him do sessions, and then we’d fight all day until the guard came to take one of us, and there would always be this massive argument, and whoever’s turn it really was would get the shit kicked out of him, and they’d take Banri anyway. So eventually we figured it’d just be easier to follow the rules. We became more of a united front, and Banri was a lot less stressed and worried. And...that’s really the only thing we could do to take care of him.”
“Not quite the only thing,” said Iori.
Mitsuki kicked him. “He’s Banri’s friend, not ours,” he said. “If we said the other stuff he’d totally tell on us.”
“Listen, protecting Ban has been one of my life goals since I was 17,” Momo told them. “You don’t need to hide the stuff you do to keep him safe from us.”
“Oh,” said Nagi, “are you his soulmate?”
“Um!” Momo said.
“We know it’s not Yuki,” said Yamato, “because he broke off his soulbond when I knew him, and Banri’s is completely intact.”
“Um,” said Momo again.
“It’s completely intact...right?” Yamato said threateningly.
“If it isn’t, we’ll totally kill you and Yuki both!” Nagi said. “This isn’t a joke! I’ve committed murder before!”
“...Yuki and I have a plan to escape tonight,” said Momo, which wasn’t the most artful change of the subject Sougo had ever seen, but it did its job well: absolutely nobody was thinking about Banri’s soulbond after that.
“What!” Sougo said.
“Really?! Will it work?” Riku asked.
“That was fast…” Yamato said.
Momo shrugged. “Yeah, well, initially we came here on behalf of Okarin...uh, Prince Rinto of Okazaki, in order to break out King Takanashi, but when we got caught by those narcy teens and found Ban, we changed our plans. And since he told us he loved you guys a lot, we decided we were definitely breaking you out too.”
“So you were already prepared for a breakout…” Iori mused. “Wait, so you think the King’s still alive?!”
“Yeah, definitely,” Momo said. “You know about all the kings’ soulbonds to their land, right?”
“As long as the land and the people living on it prosper, the king or queen will remain strong and healthy,” Iori said. “It’s similar to the soulbonds between two people--when they choose to become soulmates, they can almost feel the other’s physical state through the bond. I’ve even heard stories about people communicating through Morse code by tapping on their soulbonds. And the soulbond to the land can only travel through bonds to other people, though I’m not exactly sure of the theory behind it.”
“That’s way more than I was asking, but okay,” said Momo. “King Takanashi’s soulbond is still totally intact, so he’s definitely alive somewhere. We hadn’t even heard rumors about him being executed until talking to you guys.”
“So that was probably designed for us to believe it, then…” Iori mused. He turned away, as though he were lost in thought, but Sougo noticed him tapping out a message to Tsumugi on the pipe--probably informing her of these new developments.
“Yeah,” Momo said. “From Ban’s reaction when he told us about it, I’d guess it was to break you guys’s spirits...and maybe King Takanashi’s, too.”
“But why would they care that much about us ?” Riku said. “I mean, we’re not that important. They stuck us all in here together because they don’t have anywhere else to put us, after all.”
“To Yuki and me,” Momo said, “Ban’s one of the most important people in the world. But I guess I can see your point...but we can worry about that later. Right now, since you guys are open to the idea, I was hoping you could tell me about the guard rota--”
“Momo, you’d better not be trying to rope the boys into your and Yuki’s escape attempt,” Banri’s voice called.
Momo let out an “eep!” and turned. Sougo looked over to see Banri walking over to them, his soulmarked hand entwined in Yuki’s gloved one.
“Don’t worry, he wasn’t!” Riku called. “We’d never break the rules like that.”
“Good,” Banri said. “You know why you shouldn’t break the rules.”
“They’re there to keep us safe,” Sougo chorused with the rest of his friends. Momo and Yuki both looked extremely unsettled, for whatever reason, meeting each other’s eyes as Momo made a variety of facial expressions and Yuki shrugged.
“Exactly,” Banri said, pleased. “These guys are troublemakers, so try not to talk to them until they’ve stopped trying to break the rules, okay? You know how important they are.”
“The rules keep us alive,” the boys chorused.
“They do,” Banri said. “I know things are going to be different now with Yuki and Momo around, but don’t forget that, okay?”
“We won’t!” Nagi said with a winning smile.
“Yeah, don’t worry, Banri,” Mitsuki said. “We’d never break the rules.”
We’d just get other people to break them for us, Sougo thought, but didn’t say.
“Ban,” Yuki said, frowning, “did you start a cult?”
“No, of course not,” Banri said, affronted.
“You totally did, apparently they follow these things called the rules--”
“Rules are a normal part of everyday life, Momo, I know you don’t put much stock in them, but--”
“Number six of which is to always do whatever Banri says--”
“It’s to keep them safe-- ”
“And apparently that’s their favorite rule to follow! Seems kinda weird, huh, Yuki?”
“It does,” Yuki said.
Yamato flipped him off.
“It’s weird because you two are making it weird,” Banri said. “They’re kids, they need someone to take care of them.”
“Yamato’s twenty two,” Yuki pointed out. “That makes him an adult.”
“Semantics,” Banri said. “He was a kid when I met him.”
“He was a kid when I met him, too, and yet I can accept he’s grown up,” Yuki said.
“They’re kids, they need to be protected,” Banri said furiously.
“That’s Rule #23,” Mitsuki called. “Banri made it when Yamato turned 21.”
Yuki stared at Banri. “Ban,” he said, “are you okay? Like, mentally?”
“Of course I am,” Banri said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I can think of at least ten different reasons,” said Momo, “but let’s not talk about that right now. Ban! D’you think you can give us the guard rotations? Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?”
“No,” Banri said, sitting against the wall. Yuki sat with him, still holding his hand, and started making bedroom eyes at Momo, who didn’t seem to notice since he was making puppy dog eyes at Banri.
“Please?” said Momo. “For me? Your second favorite person in the whole entire world?”
“What did I say that?” Banri said.
“Okay, never, but--please? Please please?”
“No.”
“If you really loved me you’d give me the guard rotations…”
“Momo, it’s because I love you that I won’t give you the guard rotations,” Banri said. “Trying to escape isn’t safe, and there’s no way to successfully escape from here.”
Sougo doubted that Momo had heard the second half of the sentence, since as soon as Banri had told Momo he loved him, he’d gone bright red and started literally vibrating, a huge grin on his face.
“There are two rotations on a staggered schedule,” Iori said, nodding to the guards passing by. “They walk by every forty five minutes, speak to us thrice a day--once to bring someone to a session, once to bring food, and once to bring someone back from a session--and they switch shifts every two hours, and there’s always a shift switch fifteen minutes after they walk past us.”
“Iori!” Banri scolded. “Don’t tell them that--they’ll use it to try to escape!”
“I figured they’d try it anyway,” said the unrepentant Iori. “It’s not against the rules to share information. And it’s a good thing to know regardless of whether or not they use it to try and escape. If they actually make it out, more power to them.”
“It’s impossible to make it out,” said Banri.
“You don’t know that, Ban,” Yuki said. “Just because no one ever has before…”
“Asshole,” Yamato said. “I made it out. That’s how we met .”
“How did you get back here again, then?” asked Yuki.
Yamato shrugged. “I hated my dad, and I missed these guys, so I went to try and break them out, and got caught by Riku’s brother and his friends. Showed up in the middle of the massive fight everyone was having about the rules and joined in, tried to propose a compromise. The rules won out in the end, though.”
“Let’s unpack all that later,” Momo said. “So--we know escape is possible. We just need to make sure we don’t leave anyone behind when we get out, then!”
Banri shook his head. “No,” he said. “I can’t stop you from trying on your own, but none of us will go with you. It’s far too dangerous.”
“We won’t die, ” said Yuki, and then: “probably. Anyway, how do you know we won’t just pick you up and carry you out?”
“I’ll hold onto the bars and scream,” Banri said flatly.
“...I feel like calling your bluff on that would be incredibly dangerous,” said Momo. “Hey, has any food been brought by yet? I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t eaten real food in three days or because I was just vomiting, but I am ravenous .”
“You haven’t eaten real food in three days?!” Banri said, horrified.
Momo shrugged. “There was a lot going on. Anyway--we should probably have some food, right? Is there any here?”
“They always bring food during the sessions,” Nagi said, “but we saved some for you guys. Don’t worry--it’s split all evenly.”
“Momo, you can have my portion,” Banri said immediately. “You need to eat every day! What were you thinking?!”
“Oh--no, it’s fine!” Momo said quickly, waving his hands. “I’d never take your food, Ban--never, ever! I’ll just steal some of Yuki’s! Here--I’ll get us some! Where is it?”
“...I’ll show you,” Sougo said, thrown by the sudden change in subject. He led Momo over to the corner, where they had left the remainder of the food. “You won’t get so much regularly, just when you’ve been made to watch a session,” he said lowly. “We always make sure Banri gets the most food, because the sessions take a lot out of him. Just--don’t let him know. He’d just worry more.”
Momo nodded. “I mean, we just saw two guards walk by, which means in 15 minutes there’s a shift switch and they won’t be back here for forty five, so I’m thinking we knock Ban out--I’ve got a nice little sleeping drug that’ll have him out for a couple hours, and I mean I’m strong enough to carry both Yuki and Okarin at once, so I can definitely carry him out. He’ll wake up, we’ll be safe and gone, nobody’s worried about any broken rules or anything--which, by the way, we’re totally having a very long conversation about tomorrow. Or, I guess, whenever we’re all safe, reasonably well-rested, and reasonably well-fed.”
Sougo shrugged. “Sure, I guess. Though Rules #1 and #2 really seem to be the only messed up ones, in my opinion. Here’s Banri’s share--it’s exactly equal to yours and Yuki’s, so all you’ll have to do is not eat anything from it.”
“Awesome, thanks!” Momo cheered. He removed one of the buttons from his shirt, revealing it to be a tiny bottle filled with an amber liquid, and popped off the lid, pouring the contents liberally onto Banri’s plate before kicking the little bottle into the corner and carrying all three plates over, sitting one in front of Yuki and one in front of Banri. “Ban, won’t you please let me feed you? I really want to take care of you! Me and Yuki both have been really worried about you, you know…”
Banri rolled his eyes. “I’m perfectly capable of feeding myself, Momo. Why don’t you eat first? You said you hadn’t eaten in three days, you need it more than I do. Here, you can have some of mine, too.”
“Nope!” Momo said quickly, moving his plate out of Banri’s reach as Sougo sat down next to Yamato and whispered the plan in his ear. “Ban, you need food, too! It’s super important that you eat!”
Banri paused. “...You’ve drugged my food, haven’t you,” he said. Yamato moved over to whisper it to Mitsuki, who leaned over to Iori once he was done, as Sougo clamped a hand over Tamaki’s mouth and told him..
“What? Me? Never, ” said Momo, which was a bold-faced lie if Sougo had ever heard one. “I’d never do such a thing! Right, Yuki, darling?”
“Right,” Yuki said fiercely. “Momo is the best person I’ve ever met. He’d never drug anyone’s food. I don’t know why Okarin keeps accusing him of it--he only passes out during dinner after he’s pulled multiple all-nighters, after all.”
Banri sighed as Iori and Riku exchanged a few quiet whispers and Iori moved over to tap the plan onto the pipe they used to talk to Tsumugi as Riku leaned over to Nagi. “Momo, you were always such a sweet kid...Yuki’s been a terrible influence on you. Right. If I eat this...whatever plan you have, will you please leave the boys out of it?”
“I can’t believe you don’t believe in me anymore, Ban!” Momo wailed. “I swear I’m not plotting anything evil at all!”
“Swear to me, Momo,” Banri said lowly. “Swear it on your soulbond with Yuki. You won’t let any harm come to my boys from this.”
“I swear it,” Momo said, the playful glint in his eyes fading. “I swear, Ban, I won’t let anything happen to anyone you care about.”
“...I care about you, too, you know,” Banri said quietly. He looked down at the plate of food. “I suppose it has been a while since I had a good night’s sleep.” He picked up his fork, and Sougo noticed that his hand was trembling, just slightly. “I’ll see you on the other side. Boys--be good. Follow the rules.”
“We will,” said Nagi, the best liar of them all.
Banri nodded, looking relieved. “Thank you,” he said, and started on his meal. Momo quickly ate his, too, but Yuki squeezed Banri’s hand tighter and then started hugging him again as Banri’s eyes fluttered shut and he eventually curled against him and went limp.
“Awesome,” said Momo, climbing to his feet. “We have no time to waste! My darling and I made a whole plan to break out of here already, but it’s gonna be a little complicated with so many people, so we need to move perfectly.”
“If we run into those teenagers again, I’m hitting them with a pipe,” Yuki said darkly, trying and failing to pick up Banri.
“Darling, I can carry him--just let me pick the lock first,” Momo said quickly, pulling a pair of lockpicks out of his pocket and waving them into the air. “I knew these would come in handy!”
“Really?” Yuki said. “You complained about it so much I thought it wouldn’t be worth it at all…”
Momo stuck his tongue out at him. “I’d like to see you try starving yourself for three days and then swallowing a bunch of metal sticks,” he said, heading over to the stall door and starting to pick the lock. “Only joking! I’d never want you to do that, darling, it sucks majorly...right, you managed to keep the knives on you, right?”
“Right,” Yuki said. “Though I really wanted to use them when they were torturing Ban...I just wasn’t ever able to get a good throw in.”
“Great!” Momo said, as the lock opened with a click. “I’m going to give you and you kids mine, since my hands’ll be full carrying Ban, so you guys are going to have to do the fighting.”
“I dibs carrying Ban once we’re safe,” Yuki said, as Momo produced a frankly unsettling amount of knives from his person and started handing them out. There was enough for each of the seven boys to have their own, and Sougo and Tamaki each got two. Momo handed Yuki a blowdart as well with a kiss on the cheek, and then scooped the sleeping Banri up with ease.
“Of course, darling!” Momo said cheerfully. “He was yours first, after all--okay, let’s move. The princess is this way, right? Towards the exit.”
“Right,” said Yamato, a knife in each hand and a violent spark in his eye. Sougo had a feeling he was about to break Rule #17--Never Attack The Guards--but since they were technically all breaking Rule #1, he decided not to say anything. Yamato had already said he’d take all the blame for rule-breaking, after all--he probably wanted to do something to really earn the punishment, as well.
They set off, all in a group, Momo in the middle holding Banri. It was impressive, really--he was nearly a head shorter than him, yet he still carried him with ease.
“Right,” Momo whispered, “do any of you have a combat-focused power? If we see a guard, we want to knock them out immediately.”
“We can’t,” Tamaki whispered back, “it’s against the rules. Though I can make things blow up, if I touch them.”
“Screw the rules!” Momo said. “We need to do whatever it takes to escape!”
“We can’t break the rules,” said Yamato. “That’s a nonnegotiable. The only reason we’re here now is because we aren’t trying to escape--we’re successfully escaping.”
Momo looked like he wanted to argue, but Iori cut in before he could.
“What about Riku’s mind control?” he said. “He can use it to send the guards away nonlethally. Then we wouldn’t break any of the rules.”
“You kids really care about these rules, huh,” Yuki said. “Even when it would be better to break them.”
Sougo shook his head quickly, feeling a deep panic descend over him at the thought. “It’s never better to break the rules!” he said. “The rules are important. The rules keep us safe.”
“The rules are important,” the other six echoed. “The rules keep us safe.”
“That’s kinda creepy…” Momo said, holding Banri a little tighter. “But I think the mind control plan will still work. Speaking of mind control, was it involved in the making of these rules at all?”
“I hated the rules at first,” Riku said, “so definitely not. This is actually going to be the first time I use my power since before I was locked up here, so I’m a little worried.”
“Who were you first soulbonded to?” Momo asked. “That was probably a weird power to discover!”
“My twin brother, Tenn,” said Riku. “We have the same exact power, actually...he practiced more with it, though, so his control is better. And I haven’t used my power in five years.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine!” Momo said reassuringly. They rounded the corner to see Tsumugi standing at the door to her cell.
“Are you the--”
“Yeah, she is!” Tamaki said quickly, interrupting Yuki. “Don’t worry, we already told her everything. We have a secret way to communicate. And it isn’t against the rules.”
“The rules again…” sighed Yuki. “I’m really starting to hate those rules.”
“The rules are for our own good,” the boys chorused. Momo and Yuki looked disturbed, but Tsumugi just sighed and tapped the lock.
“Are you going to break me out or not?” she asked.
“Right! Sorry,” Momo said, moving Banri so that he was lying over Momo’s shoulders like a sack of grain and quickly picking the lock.
Then two guards appeared, and Sougo stiffened.
“What are you--”
“We’re supposed to be here,” Riku said, his eight soulmarks blazing like the sun. “You want to let us go wherever we please. You want to make sure there are plenty of exits open. In fact, you want to let everyone locked up in here out.”
“You’re right, I do,” said the guard, smiling, as an orange angle appeared to the left of each guard’s left eye. “You’re a very sweet kid.”
“Thank you!” Riku said, beaming, as Tsumugi entered their group with a quick grin.
“You’re good,” Momo said as the guards wandered off, and Riku blushed.
“Thanks...I was mainly going off of instinct, though,” he said.
“You have good instincts, then,” Yuki said. “Let’s keep moving before anyone is tipped off, though.”
They did so. They ran into guards once or twice more, but Riku repeated his words each time, soulmarks blazing bright, and soon enough even when they ran into someone, no alarm was raised: there was already the ghost of Riku’s soulmark on their face, and they smiled and saw them on their way.
But like all good things, this quickly came to an end, as Sougo realized when three young men stopped them at the gates.
“Riku,” said the tiniest one--a boy exactly Riku’s height, with pale pink hair and Riku’s soulmark--not a ghostly, mind-controlled approximation of it, but his honest-to-God actual soulmark--to the left of his eyes. “What are you doing?!”
“Successfully escaping, so we don’t break the rules,” Riku said. “You’ll let us go, right, Tenn-nii? Please? It’s awful in there…”
“Escaping…” Tenn echoed. “Wait, what do you mean, the rules?! Riku, you weren’t held captive there, were you?! You stupid idiot!”
“I don’t think there’s any way for him to escape if he wasn’t our prisoner first, Tenn,” said the one with the silvery white hair, two daggers made of what appeared to be sharp diamond materializing in his hands as he shifted into a fighting stance. He bore Tenn’s soulmark, though the mark of Riku’s mind control was on his other eye--but he didn’t seem too bothered by it.
“It’s not like I could control it,” Riku said stubbornly. “Anyway, we’re escaping now--and we aren’t breaking any of the rules.”
“The rules,” Tenn said, “the rules! I’m really fucking hoping they aren’t the rules I’m thinking of. How much contact have you had with Ogami Banri?”
“What?” Sougo said. Everyone exchanged glances, confused as to how it was relevant.
“Uh, well, seeing as we’ve been in the same cell for over five years and he’s been taking care of all of us and taught us the rules...a lot?” Riku said.
Tenn looked like he wanted to scream. “Right!” he said, voice tight. “Okay! Great! Good to know! These are the rules that are #1--Never Try To Escape, #2--Ogami Banri Must Try His Best To Be The One Tortured Rather Than Anyone Else, and so on?”
“Not quite,” Riku said, “but that’s weirdly similar to Rules #1 and #2.”
Tenn took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “I have a bargain for you--Riku,” he said. “I want to make a deal.”
“What sort?” Riku asked.
“Those rules didn’t come from Ogami. I used mind control to put them in place, and at a single word from me, all of you will walk willingly back into those cells and never consider leaving again,” Tenn said, and Sougo’s blood went cold.
“So it is mind control…” Momo said. “Sucks that such a cute kid would do something so cruel.”
“Riku’s cuter than me,” Tenn said, as if that was at all in any way relevant. “Besides, it was only supposed to affect Ogami. Father wants his soul crushed, and we couldn’t do that if he succeeded in contacting his soulmate and escaping. But--Riku. I will lift my mind control...from all of you...and we can battle it out the regular way, as long as you lift your mind control, from…” and here, Tenn sighed deeply and exasperatedly, “from the entire fucking goddamned castle. What do you say?”
Riku, on instinct, looked to Banri, who was still unconscious in Momo’s arms. Then he looked to Yamato, who nodded.
“Make sure he takes away his mind control first,” Sougo said quickly. “Then you can remove yours.”
“Got it,” Riku said. “Tenn-nii, I agree to your terms as long as--”
Tenn’s soulmarks flashed, and a weight Sougo hadn’t realized he carried was lifted from his shoulders. He noticed the others blinking, and shifting on their feet, as the deep and abiding need to follow the rules all but vanished from their minds.
“Done,” Tenn said. “Now, for you?”
Riku focused, squeezing his eyes shut as his soulmarks began to glow, and then the ghosts of them on the cheeks of Tenn’s friends and the few guards around faded.
“Huh,” said Tenn’s friend, “that was fucking weird, but mind control is still a dumb and useless power--unlike Ryuu’s pyrokinesis. Why couldn’t you have gotten pyrokinesis, Tenn?”
“Fuck off, Gaku,” Tenn said, drawing a diamond dagger and rushing them, but Yuki raised a hand as the pink heart on his cheek glowed and suddenly none of the three teenagers seemed to be able to move forward.
“You mind-controlled Ban…” Yuki said. “You tried to break Ban’s soul… How could you?!”
“I did it for my father,” Tenn said. “I owe everything to him.”
“How old were you?” Momo demanded.
“Thirteen. What does it matter?” asked Tenn.
“You were a kid. Yuki, he was just a kid,” said Momo. “Just this once, why don’t we let him off easy? We want to get away and take care of Ban, after all...we don’t have to fight here.”
Then the ground around them caught fire.
Everyone screamed, and the glow of Yuki’s soulbond faded as his concentration broke. The three boys lunged forward as one, Gaku summoning shards of diamond as fire roared around them.
“Yuki!” Momo screamed as the flames engulfed them, and his own heart-shaped soulmark glowed, healing the burns forming on Yuki and Banri almost before they could take effect. Tamaki rushed forward past Sougo, his skin reddening and blistering from the fire as he yelled in pain, then slammed his hands on the ground and blew the three boys backwards.
“Run!” shouted Yamato. “Move it, move it! Let’s go!”
Sougo grabbed Tamaki by the elbow and pulled him along as they ran. Riku’s brother and his two friends were hot on their heels, but Iori out in front reached out his hand and space itself warped as a portal large enough for a carriage to fit through appeared in the space in front of them, and they all stumbled through. It closed with a heady rush of smoke and quickly vanishing flame, and Sougo braced himself on his knees, one hand still holding Tamaki’s as he panted. His entire body stung from the flames, but that was fading; he looked up to see Mitsuki’s soulmarks glowing brightly as he healed them.
“Thanks, Mikki!” Tamaki said cheerfully.
“Iori, where did you take us?” Sougo added.
“Not far, I don’t think,” Iori said. “Mitsuki and I used to come camping here with our parents when we were little. It’s maybe a couple hours away from the city…? I’m not sure.”
“Yeah, three hours to the north in a carriage,” Mitsuki said. “It was a lot of fun, back then. But eah, we definitely have a head start now, which begs the question--where do we go from here?”
On the far side of the clearing, Yuki looked up from where he was kneeling on the ground, holding Banri once more. “Okarin’s castle,” he said. “He’s probably there still, and he’ll be upset when he finds out that we didn’t actually go to the beach, but he’ll be glad we got so many people to safety.”
“As long as he doesn’t do a session with you guys…” Mitsuki said worriedly.
“That’s not really a thing in our kingdom,” Momo said. “We don’t like torture or stuff like that. Okarin’s just going to lecture us for a while, and maybe confiscate one of Yuki’s instruments or something!”
Yuki shuddered. “That’s the worst when that happens.”
“I think hot pokers are the worst,” said Tamaki.
“What?” said Sougo. “Definitely not, the worst is when they take an inch off the bottom of your feet and then make you walk around and clean the room until it’s spotless, but you’re leaving bloody footprints behind so it doesn’t end.”
“Those sorts of things don’t happen in Okarin’s kingdom, we swear!” Momo said quickly. “Okarin’s the best, he really is. He’ll make sure you’re all super safe, forever!”
“That does sound nice,” Mitsuki said. “A bit too good to be true, though, right?”
“We’ll try our best to make sure it isn’t too good to be true,” Yuki promised. “Mitsuki, Iori--do you know if there’s a town nearby that we can order a coach from?”
“We’re in the north,” Momo added. “How close are we to the border?”
Mitsuki and Iori looked at each other.
“It’s been seven years since we’ve been here…” Mitsuki said slowly. “I don’t exactly...know.”
Momo looked over at Iori. “Can you make portals only to places you’ve been before, or could you make one if we described the place?”
Iori shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe if you described it so well I had a clear picture of it, like that one tree in his dad’s place Yamato described climbing a lot, or Riku’s old hospital room, but…”
“No, Shizuo’s lands would work!” Yuki said. “He’s nominally sided with Kujo, but I’m sure he’d turn a blind eye to us hiring a carriage to get home.”
“Ugh, of course he’s sided with Kujo ,” Yamato muttered.
“He was blackmailed into it,” Yuki said.
“Blackmailed, huh?” said Yamato. “I wonder what he had on him. Right, Ichi, you ready? We want to get going as fast as possible.”
Iori nodded. He held his hands in front of him, and focused, and a smaller portal appeared. “Go one at a time,” he said. “Put Banri through first. He can’t defend himself right now. Then go slowly through.”
“Yes, Mother,” Mitsuki said, rolling his eyes with a roguish grin. Yuki scooped up Banri, clearly struggling to hold him up, and Momo went to help him. They laid him through the portal before Yuki climbed through.
“I’ll go last and make sure that all you kids get to safety first,” Momo said. “Princess--you’re next up!”
Tsumugi nodded, and hurried over, climbing through and sitting next to Banri and Yuki on the other side. Each of the three members of Pythagoras followed, Mitsuki giving Iori an encouraging grin before popping through. Then it was Tamaki’s turn, and then Sougo followed him. He glanced around at Chiba Shizuo’s estate as Riku headed through and waited nervously on the edge of the portal until Momo and Iori hurried through, nearly simultaneously. Iori collapsed on the ground, panting, sweat beading on his forehead, and Riku and Mitsuki both started worrying over him, though he insisted he was only worn out from using so much of his power so fast.
“Should we steal a carriage or hire one?” asked Yamato. “Do any of us have money?”
“We can just ask Shizuo,” Yuki said. “He said to me once that I could ask him for anything and he’d give it to me.”
Yamato huffed and looked away. “I bet he just wanted to cheat on his wife with you, too.”
“That’s disgusting,” Yuki said baldly. “I think you think too lowly of him.”
“And I think you think too highly of him,” Yamato said, “but whatever. I guess we don’t have any other plan. Go for it.”
Chiba Shizuo nearly fainted when the eleven of them arrived on his doorstep. Sougo was impressed: he wasn’t familiar at all with the concept of a father who cared for your wellbeing, as Chiba Shizuo seemed so clearly to care about Yamato’s, but neither of them looked at or spoke to each other. Yuki did most of the talking, getting everyone a change of clothes and some food, and a nice, large carriage to bring them across the border.
And as Sougo watched Chiba Shizuo’s lands vanish into the horizon while he sat with Tamaki and everyone he cared about in the carriage, he felt hope for the future blooming inside of him.