Chapter 5

Hiro lined up his shot, balancing the dart carefully and trying to make the target stop wobbling in his vision. Pulling back, he let fly, and watched as the little projectile soared through the air in a perfect arch, landing squarely in the centre... of the open door of the dartboard cupboard. He sighed, and Shuuichi cheered him on.

"Yeah, Hiroshi!" the pink-haired man shouted, drawing curious looks from other patrons of the English pub-style bar. Yuki had suggested the location as being out of the way and not very crowded, with good beer on tap. "Bottoms up, buddy!"

Gamely Hiro picked up his mug and drained half the liquid in it in one long gulp, feeling more than a little unsteady on his feet as he set it down again. "Okay... your turn," he told the grinning Shuuichi.

He settled against the railing of the raised table area beside them, leaning back and trying to conceal how bad his sense of balance really was. "Whose idea was this again?" he asked vaguely, glancing around as if looking for the culprit.

"You and Shuuichi are both equally guilty, I think," Omi told him cheerfully from where he was perched at one of the tables. He sipped his own drink, grinning. Beside him Yuki was on at least his fourth beer, not counting the ones he'd already had at home - he was drunk enough that his eyes were tracking Shuuichi like a homing beacon, and there was a look of soft affection on his face that he would never have permitted if he were even a little bit sober.

"I told you it was a bad idea to take a drink every time you missed," Omi added with bright eyes. Of the four of them he was the least drunk - he was only on his second drink, and he was nursing that. "It's a downward spiral - it can only end one way."

"Yeah, with us being so drunk we can't even remember our own names, much less that someone is trying to kill us," Shuuichi growled, downing his forfeit. Hiro glanced over and saw one dart sticking out of the wall, with two on the ground below it - apparently they hadn't landed point first. "Quit bein' such a spoilsport and come down and PLAY with us, Omi!" he added petulantly.

"Oh, no!" Omi laughed, holding up his hands as if to stop the suggestion. "You two can make fools of yourselves all you like, I'm staying right here."

"If you beat me, I'll make you a copy of the Nittle Grasper video Ryuichi gave me," Shuuichi wheedled. Hiro saw Omi's eyes light up - the video was out of production and had been a limited edition to start with; it was almost impossible to find and Omi had been begging Shuuichi for a copy for months.

"For THAT I will make a fool of myself," Omi happily conceded, getting up and coming around the railing to the lower area and picking up a handful of darts. "You're already plastered, this shouldn't be hard!"

"Yeah, but I've got a higher alcohol tolerance than you, 'cause you NEVER drink," Shuuichi reminded him with a wicked grin.

"We'll see about that," Omi replied, settling the darts firmly in his right hand. Hiro smothered a chuckle behind his hand as he saw his lover blink, look down at the projectiles he held, and hastily switch two to his off hand and adjust his grip on the third. He'd been holding them the way he did when he used his poisoned darts against a target - all three poised to throw at once, and with a flicking motion to fire them instead of a toss. Old habits died hard, he supposed - his lover was going to have a tough time winning this game without giving himself away.

Omi was just rearing back to throw the first dart when the sound of automatic gunfire shattered the quiet atmosphere of the pub, sending people shrieking to the ground, trying to hide under tables. Omi dropped to the floor instantly, and Shuuichi and Hiro hastily followed his example, glancing up to see what was going on.

Six men with armed with Uzis came in through the ruined doorway, their dark suit jackets flapping in the breeze from the shattered window. They looked like stereotypical mobsters from a bad American gangster movie, right down to the fedoras and dark shades at night. They had been firing over the heads of the crowd, their intention to alarm rather than injure.

Behind them came two women in leather, carrying semi-automatic pistols like they'd been born with them in their hands. One was tall and willowy, platinum blond with ice-blue eyes, dressed in skin-tight leather pants and shirt dyed sapphire blue. White boots and gun belt accented the outfit, and the smirk on her lips echoed the cruelty in her eyes. The other was shorter and voluptuous, dark curly hair and flashing green eyes, with an identical outfit in red and black as though they were trying to look like perfect opposites.

The brunette looked around with a smirk firmly in place that reminded Hiro of the German telepath who had once kidnapped him. "All right, ladies and gentlemen," she purred, her voice smooth with a trace of an accent. Something from the southern U.S., he wasn't sure what. "All of you that AREN'T one of those four pretty boys in the back, feel free to leave. In fact, I highly suggest you do so."

To emphasise her point, the six gunmen fired over the heads of the crowd again, and screaming people exited the pub en masse. Most went through the broken window; a few brave souls sidled by the gunmen to the door. Hiro felt frozen to the floor, his throat too dry to speak and his knees shaking. Beside him Omi had also gone still, his blue eyes tracking back and forth between all the gunmen, keeping track of exactly where they all were.

"You stay right where you are, honey," the blond drawled, aiming her pistol at Yuki, who had half-risen from his chair. One of the machine gun-toting men trotted up to the table area, and held his gun an inch from the writer's temple. With an ill-tempered growl, Yuki subsided. "Good boy," the woman said patronizingly. "If you know what's good for you, you'll keep behaving. The rest of you, stand up."

"Wh-what the hell do you WANT?" Shuuichi demanded as they scrambled to their feet, edging behind Omi as if to put the other boy between himself and the guns.

"You boys have given us the toughest time killing you," the brunette told him, hopping up to sit on the edge of a table and swinging her legs, for all the world like they were just a group of friends sitting in a bar together. "I've hunted ex-military that went down easier than you. Two bombs and a sniper attack, and the worst you get is a scratch on the shoulder," she added, saluting Hiro with her gun briefly. "And a bullet in the thigh of a friend, I hear, but that was just a lucky shot on my part. Couldn't see a damn thing through that couch."

"You were the sniper?" Hiro blurted out, shocked. She nodded, smirking. "Jeez, I figured you were..." he trailed off, realizing that insulting the people holding guns on him and his friends might not be the smartest thing in the world to do.

"A guy?" she finished for him helpfully, and laughed when he flushed. "Most guys do, honey. Don't feel bad about it. Now... you boys have sure managed to piss someone off. My partner and I don't come cheap, and he's going full out to get you dead. Right now, you have a choice - you can either co-operate, or we can do it the hard way," the woman said. "Our orders are just to kill the two band members, nothing was said about your pretty lovers. If we do it the easy way, we MIGHT just be persuaded to let them live."

"You won't let any of us leave alive," Omi bit out, his voice as hard and cold as it had been during the sniper attack. Hiro saw that his eyes had darkened, and there was a tenseness about his shoulders that suggested he was ready for a fight. "We've seen what you look like, you can't afford to let us talk to the police."

The blond looked at him curiously, like a scientist might examine a lab rat that had surprised them. "You're the same boy that got everyone under cover, aren't you?" she asked thoughtfully. "I bet you're the one that defused the mail bomb, too. Who ARE you?"

Omi pressed his lips together and stayed silent, and she shrugged. "No matter. You're right, of course. But my partner is right about one thing - we can do this the easy way, or the difficult way. That is to say, your deaths can be quick and easy, or..." she trailed off, smiling nastily, and Hiroshi hastily revised his opinion of her as 'the nice one'. The coldness in her eyes promised a great deal of pain and suffering, and told you that she would enjoy every second of it.

He fumbled for his lover's hand, knowing that their minutes were limited and they were out of options. He found Omi's hand clenched in a fist, and the boy shook Hiro's fingers away instantly with a brief warning look. Hiro fought not to show his surprise - Omi was planning something, that much was clear, and he wanted his hands free for it. Suddenly Hiro had a bit more hope for their survival.

The brunette sauntered forward, pulling a knife from a sheath on her belt. It was fully six inches long, and looked sharp enough to split a hair. "The police are on their way, so we don't have much time - but I'm sure we could enjoy ourselves a bit before we go." She touched the point of the knife to Shuuichi's cheek, sliding it down over his face and leaving a wire-thin trail of blood behind. Yuki growled and tried to stand up again, and was slammed back into the chair by the butt of the Uzi. Laughing at the whimper Shuuichi couldn't quite swallow, she slipped the knife under the straps of his tank tops on one arm and jerked upwards, slicing through them cleanly. It fell to hang from the other shoulder, exposing part of his chest and one flat brown nipple. Yuki snarled something rude, but stayed where he was.

There was a delicate, fragile look in Shuuichi's eyes, and Hiro knew the hell he must be going through. This had to be all too reminiscent of the rape and beating he'd suffered at the hands of that bastard Aizawa Taki, the lead singer of Ask. He prayed that Omi would do whatever it was he was planning to do soon, before Shuuichi broke.

Omi had tensed further beside him, his eyes steady on the gunmen. Another rip of fabric and a terrified little moan from Shuuichi told Hiro the tank top was gone, and he couldn't bear to watch his friend fall apart.

The gunmen's eyes darted towards Shuuichi as he moaned, for just an instant. That was what Omi had been waiting for - with a lightning-quick motion he flung his hand forward, releasing the darts he'd been holding. The little projectiles weren't poisoned like his usual weapons of choice, but he managed to catch one gunman in the eye and another in the throat.

He leapt forward, shouting, "Shuuichi! Hiro! RUN!" as he lashed out at the nearest man. His foot caught the man squarely in the groin - as he bent over double, clutching at his privates, Omi rolled over his back and landed a punch in a second man's nose. There was a crack of bone splitting and a horrible wet sucking noise, and the second man dropped like a rock to join his dead companions on the floor.

Hiro was already moving, grabbing Shuuichi's arm and hauling him along when it appeared the vocalist was in too much shock to run himself. He saw Yuki turn and sucker punch the man holding a gun on him as he turned to fire at Hiro and Shuuichi.

The two women were shouting at their men, their guns drawn but hesitating to fire because they would hit their own people. The last upright gunman loomed before them, but Omi had a grip on his gun and wasn't letting him get it around to aim at Hiroshi and Shuuichi.

The man ducked out of the shoulder strap, sending Omi tumbling to the ground off balance with the gun on his hands. He charged Hiro and Shuuichi, and Hiro made a split second decision. "Shuuichi, go!" he shouted, shoving his best friend at the door. He met the rushing man with his shoulder, firmly planting himself and knocking the wind out of the big man. Shuuichi was still running, and he was in the clear now, still hidden from the women's line of fire by Hiro and the gunman. "Find Ken and Youji, tell them what happened!" Hiro added, praying Shuuichi had heard him.

Hiro wound up for a punch, but froze when he felt a gun barrel pressed to the small of his back. "Move and I'll blow your spine to pieces," the blond growled. Omi had the gun in his hands, but hadn't quite managed to aim it at anyone. He froze when he heard the blond threaten his lover. "Good boy. Drop the gun, stand up slowly and come over here."

"You're going to kill us all anyway," Omi pointed out calmly, as though he weren't discussing his own death. His eyes were frozen and hard, the eyes of a killer.

"I can shoot him in the head and kill him fast, or I can shoot him in the stomach and kill him slow," she promised sweetly. "Your choice."

Omi set the gun gently on the floor, aimed towards the wall. He stood slowly, his hands in the air, his eyes watching Hiro's captor intently. In the distance Hiro could hear police sirens growing rapidly nearer, and he knew they would be killed soon, before the police could reach.

"We don't have time for this," the brunette snapped. "Gerald, Orrin, Vince - round them up and get them out to the van." The three men still standing nodded and herded the three of them together, shoving them towards the door with the barrels of their guns.

"Why aren't they just killing us?" Hiro whispered to Omi in confusion. The blond boy shook his head slightly, indicating that he didn't know.

"Shut up," the brunette woman ordered irritably. "We're not killing you yet because we owe you for the deaths of three of our men. Good, willing cannon fodder is hard to find these days, you know."

"We're going to hear you scream before you die," the blond promised, her eyes alight with an unholy glee. Hiro realized that she wasn't entirely sane.

"You promised..." Omi blurted out, and the blond pistol-whipped him across the face.

"Don't be naive," she told him in an almost friendly voice. He fell silent, but Hiro could see the despair mixed with determination in his eyes.

They were shoved into the back of the van, both gunmen climbing in after them to keep control of them. Omi looked like he was debating attacking one of them when the van started moving, but he lost his chance when one of them tied him securely with heavy rope while the other two held guns on them.

Hiroshi was terrified, and he wasn't reluctant to admit it. The look in Omi's eyes told him that the ex-assassin didn't think their chances were very good - he was looking more for ways to kill them before they could be tortured than for a way to escape, now. Hiro shivered, and wrapped his arms around himself for comfort. Yuki had the same resigned look in his eyes as Omi, and that didn't bode well for their future either. At least Shuuichi had escaped, and who knew? Maybe Kritiker could even rescue them, if the vocalist made it to Ken and Youji in time.

The ride to wherever it was seemed interminable to Hiro, as though time had slowed to a crawl. The adrenalin in his system was wearing off, and he felt exhausted and weighed down, like his limbs were filled with lead. Finally they were herded back out of the van into what looked like a warehouse, and shoved into three makeshift cages in a small storage room. Two of the gunmen took up poses on either side of the door, and they both kept a sharp eye on Omi.

"Now that we won't have any interruptions," the brunette purred as she and her partner entered the room, "we can play with you boys properly. Bring the little blond out," she ordered one of the men, and he moved to comply while his partner kept his gun trained on Omi. They weren't taking any chances - well, small wonder, when the boy had single-handedly killed three of their men with nothing more than three darts and his fists. Hiro gripped the iron bars of his cage and watched, mouth dry with apprehension as they tied Omi's arms and legs to a chair in the centre of the room.

'What are you going to do to him?" he demanded, rattling the side of the cage. The enclosures were clearly jury-rigged, but strong despite that, and he knew he wouldn't be able to break free. Yuki watched them all with wary eyes from his side of the room.

"I've got a few questions I want to ask him," the brunette said, moving to a table at one side and fiddling with something there. She turned to display a needle full of clear golden fluid. "Do you know what this is?"

"Sodium pentathol?" Omi exclaimed, sounding surprised. "That stuff is useless, everyone knows that," he added derisively. "It makes the victim intoxicated enough to babble, but it doesn't force you to tell the truth!"

"Close, but not quite," the blond said, smirking. "It's a derivative of that so-called 'Truth Serum', chemically related but quite different. This stuff actually WORKS."

Omi eyed the approaching needle with trepidation. "Not possible," he muttered, working the bonds at his wrists frantically. "Governments and police forces have been trying to formulate something like that for YEARS, and they haven't managed it!"

"We have our sources," the brunette proclaimed mysteriously, and stabbed the needle into his arm. Omi went rigid, choking. Slowly, his tense muscles started to relax, and his head nodded a bit as though he didn't have the strength to keep it upright.

"How do you feel?" the blond asked solicitously after a few moments.

"Fuzzy," Omi replied, then blinked slowly as though he hadn't expected himself to answer her. His eyes got a panicked look in them, and he started to struggle again.

"Good," the brunette murmured. "Let's start with something easy. How old are you?"

"N-n-nineteen," he choked out, sounding like the words were forced from his throat. The panic in his eyes turned into full-blown terror, and he whimpered softly.

Hiro could only clutch at the bars and stare at his helpless lover, wishing there was something he could do. Omi looked past the brunette, right into Hiro's eyes, his gaze sorrowful and pleading. 'I love you,' his eyes seemed to say, 'please forgive me'.

Hiro watched as Omi did something odd with his jaw, moving it in a way that it just didn't normally go. It looked like he was trying to bite down on something at the back of his mouth...

"Hold his jaw!" the blond abruptly snapped. Startled, the brunette grabbed his chin and pried his jaws apart, holding him that way. Omi made a frustrated noise and started to thrash around as much as he could, while the blond approached and peered into his mouth. "I thought so," she said grimly, turning to the table. She grabbed a pair of wicked-looking tweezers, so big they could really almost be called tongs. "Hold him still - he's got a poison tooth. He was trying to suicide!"

Hiro felt his blood run cold, and saw the despair in his lover's eyes as the tall woman pried something out of the back of his jaw on the right side. The brunette let go of him and he dropped his head again, spitting blood. It had never occurred to Hiroshi that Omi might have a suicide capsule of some sort, tucked away where he could get to it in an emergency - probably because despite his awareness of Omi's constant danger as a member of Weiss, it had never occurred to him that Omi might one day be tortured for information.

He glanced over and saw that Yuki had come to stand at his own bars, staring hard at the boy in the chair. Hiro couldn't blame him for being suspicious; 'I spend a lot of time on the Internet' just didn't explain why Omi would have been fitted with a poison tooth.

"Now, let's try this again," the brunette said coldly, the warmth vanished from her voice as though it had never been. She appeared to have been angered by Omi's attempt to escape her, as though it were a personal affront. "What's your name?"

"Ts-tsukiyono Omi," Omi slurred, his voice a bit garbled by the blood still in his mouth. He spat again, turning a spot on the floor bright red. Hiro winced at the sight.

"Is that so?" the woman responded. "What's your REAL name?"

Omi hesitated, resisting for a brief moment. "Ts-ts-tsukiyono Omi!" he finally got out, panting.

Her eyes narrowed. "I don't think so," she replied caustically. "Tell me your real name, boy!"

"Tsukiyono OMI!" Omi said, this time with no hesitation at all. The woman pulled back her hand as if to backhand him, but was stopped by her partner.

"Subtlety, my dear," the blond chided, as though this was a lesson her partner had failed to learn many times before. "If the victim can convince himself he's telling the truth, the drug can't force a different answer from him, you know that. You must learn to word your questions better." She turned to Omi. "What name were you born with?"

Omi choked, struggling not to answer. Hiro held his breath - he knew that 'Omi' wasn't his lover's real name, but he never had found out what it was. The one time he'd asked, Omi had replied that he WAS 'Omi' now, and didn't want to be known by any other name. The pain and sorrow in his eyes had convinced Hiro to drop it.

"Ts.... ts..." Omi stuttered helplessly, fighting the influence of the drug. "Ts... T-takatori Mamoru," he finally gasped, slumping in the chair. Hiro thought the name sounded vaguely familiar - hadn't the Prime Minister who'd been assassinated last year been named Takatori? Yuki straightened up as though he'd been smacked - obviously he recognized the name.

"Takatori!" the blond exclaimed, surprised. Apparently she recognized it too, Hiro thought a little sourly. "Well, well, that's a surprise. The little lost Takatori boy - I thought you were dead."

"I w-was kidnapped," Omi blurted, apparently compelled to answer even though it hadn't technically been a question. "M-my father refused to p-pay the ransom..."

"Oh, poor little thing," the brunette chirped, voice dripping with insincere sweetness. "Who do you work for, poor little thing?"

"No one," Omi replied, hanging his head.

"Oh, don't give me that. Who do you work for?"

"No one!" Omi repeated insistently. She backhanded him, too quickly for her partner to stop her this time.

"Who do you work for?"

"No one!" he cried, tears on his face.

"Well who the hell trained you to be so damned GOOD, then?" she snapped in frustration, and Omi fought the compulsion once more.

"N-n-no... Kritiker."

"Kritiker!" The blond jerked upright from where she'd been leaning against the wall. "What's your codename?"

"I don't have a..."

"What WAS your codename," she interrupted his reply, apparently catching on that he was using the fact that he was no longer IN Kritiker to evade the questions.

"Bombay," he replied brokenly. He didn't have any tricks left, and couldn't resist any more. They were going to get everything they wanted from him. Hiro clenched his fists around the bars, fuming.

"What group were you a part of?"

"Weiss," he answered, and Hiro saw Yuki look surprised again.

"I thought Weiss were dead?" the brunette asked curiously, and the blond shook her head thoughtfully.

"No... it's just that no one has seen hide or hair of them for about six months. Everyone in the business assumed Schwartz had finally gotten tired of playing with them. Are the rest of your teammates still alive?"

"I don't know," he answered listlessly. She snorted.

"You're going to be bloody literal about this, aren't you? When was the last time you knew for a fact that all of them were still alive?"

"L-last week."

"Are they still in Kritiker? Is Weiss still operational?"

"No. Weiss was disbanded."

"How long ago?"

"Almost six months."

"Who runs Kritiker?"

"Persia."

"Who is Persia?"

"I don't know."

She frowned at him. "Who is Persia?" she asked again.

"I don't know," he replied again.

"Oh, for bloody... who WAS Persia?"

"T-takatori Shuichi," Omi struggled a bit with that one, but the drug had too strong a hold on him now.

"Eh?" She looked surprised. "Takatori Shuichi has been dead more than a year. Who's been running Kritiker in the meantime?"

"Persia."

She glared at him, then light dawned. "Has there been more than one Persia?"

"Yes."

"And you don't know who the current one is," she concluded. He shook his head. "How did you get your orders, then?"

"Through Manx or Birman."

She sighed. "Do you know who THEY are?" He shook his head again. "Can you describe them?"

"Yes."

She waited for a moment, then rolled her eyes. "Well, DO it!"

There was a frantic banging at the door before Omi could get more than a word out, and the third guard burst through. "Ma'am! Intruders at the front gate, three of them!"

"Oh for God's sake," the blond exclaimed. "Can't you numbwits do anything right?" She gestured for one of the men at the door to follow her, telling the other, "Stay here and guard them." Her partner followed her out the door, leaving the three of them alone with just one guard.

Omi slumped over in his chair, looking miserable and exhausted. "Omi, are you okay?" Hiro called, worried.

"I'm dizzy," Omi replied, his voice a bit slurred. He made a face. "And I really don't like this drug."

"You're a member of Weiss?" Yuki asked him, his tone biting.

"Yes," Omi answered automatically, and his eyes widened. "Yuki... please, don't ask me any..."

"The same Weiss that assassinated Takatori Reiji last year?" he demanded coldly.

"Y-yes," Omi stuttered, frantic. "PLEASE, Yuki, I can't tell you... don't ask me to..."

"You killed your own father?"

Hiro blinked. "Father?" he repeated. It made sense, he decided - Omi had told him once that his father had been a powerful, corrupt politician.

"No," Omi choked, tears running down his face again. "Please..."

"Leave him ALONE, Yuki!" Hiro ordered, incensed. "God, hasn't he just been through enough?"

"Don't you understand?" Yuki growled back, gesturing at Omi. "Your boyfriend is an assassin! He killed his own father!"

"I didn't kill Reiji," Omi protested weakly. Yuki glared at him.

"But one of your teammates did," he guessed. Omi nodded. "And you were involved." Omi nodded again, crying harder. "And your brothers?"

"I killed Hirofumi," Omi admitted in a strained whisper. "Masafumi died in an explosion of his own creation - but we were there, fighting with Schreient."

'Schreient' was a name Hiroshi hadn't heard before, but he figured it was just another group like Schwartz. "Back OFF, Yuki!" he snarled, rattling the bars of his cage.

Yuki gave HIM a sharp look. "You knew about this, didn't you?"

Hiro sighed. "I knew he was in Weiss," he agreed. "If Weiss went after Takatori Reiji, it was because Reiji deserved to die, nothing more, nothing less."

"Like all those people who died because of the bombs Weiss planted back then?" Yuki demanded.

"NO!" Omi blurted out, straining forward against his bindings as if to emphasise his point. "We didn't set those! Schwartz did, to frame us and give Reiji an excuse to call out the Special Defence Force and put the city under martial law!" He choked again on his tears. "We would NEVER endanger innocents like that," he finished in a whisper.

Yuki looked surprised. "You're telling me you've never killed an innocent person?" he snorted.

The tears came harder, and Hiro winced. "I have," Omi replied, sobbing. "I've stood by and listened while innocents were tortured, killed, because saving them would mean losing the target. I've hurt and killed guards, bystanders - people who weren't involved or who were just doing their jobs. I..." he hung his head further, "I'm the one who set off the bomb that killed all those kids!"

The tears were flowing faster now, like one constant stream of water. "We didn't know they were in there. We were trying to RESCUE them! I thought they'd already been handed off to the buyers - I made the decision, I pressed the detonator. It's my fault!"

"Omi, it's not your fault," Hiro protested, glaring at Yuki and promising death if the writer dared to contradict him. "You didn't know they were there, you couldn't possibly have known. You stopped the bastards from taking any MORE kids! You've saved a dozen lives for every life you've taken, maybe more. It's not your fault!"

There was a kind of wary respect in Yuki's gaze now, and Hiro softened towards him a little. He couldn't really blame the writer for his reaction - after all, hadn't he thought exactly the same thing when he'd first found out about his lover's night-time activities? "You're saying that Weiss are vigilantes," Yuki said slowly, coming to the same conclusion Hiro had.

"Kritiker tracks those who are too powerful or wealthy to be caught by the police," Hiro replied grimly when it looked like Omi wasn't going to say anything. Apparently the damn drug was finally wearing off. "People who keep buying their way free, who think they can get away with anything. I've known about it for a while now, and I support Omi and the others a hundred percent in what they're doing."

Something heavy slammed against the door, and their guard swung around to aim his gun at it nervously. He fired a spray of bullets, stitching a line of holes along the door and wall at chest level. There was silence for a moment when he'd stopped, Hiro's ears ringing from the noise of the gun being fired in such an enclosed area.

When there was no sound from the other side after a long moment, the guard hesitantly unlocked the door and eased it open. Almost immediately he was ensnared about the throat and shoulders by a nearly invisible wire, choking to death. He dropped his gun to try to pry the wire from around his neck, his efforts futile. Youji appeared in the doorway, holding the wire in his gloved hands. He tightened it a little further, watching impassively as blood flowed down the length to his hands.

Finally he dropped the man, Ken shoving by him to get through the door. "Omi!" the brunette exclaimed, hurrying over to slash at his friend's bonds with his claw. He saw the blood on the floor and on Omi's shirt and swore. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Omi replied, looking up at his friend gratefully. "They got my poison tooth, that's all." Ken grimaced, and helped him stand. "I'm still a little woozy - they drugged me, some kind of weird truth serum that actually works!"

Ken looked at his teammate in the door. "Youji? Can you get Hiro and the other guy out?"

"Yuki," Omi corrected him as they staggered towards the door together. Youji got the keys to the cells from the dead guard, and Hiro ran over to take his lover's other arm as soon as he was free. "That's Yuki Eiri, Shuuichi's boyfriend."

"Right, sorry," Ken grinned over his shoulder at the tall blond man. "No offence. Let's get out of here."

They exited the room, and found Aya standing guard in the hallway, katana drawn and ready. He nodded at Omi. "Are we ready to go?" he asked.

"YES," Omi replied fervently. They made their way back through the corridors, passing the bodies of the two women as they went. Omi looked at the claw rake across one throat and the deep wound on the other's chest. "Oh, good," he said with a sigh of relief. "I don't think I'm up to killing anyone tonight."

Yuki shot him a wary look, presumably for the ease with which he made that statement, and Aya seemed to take note of the other man for the first time. "What do we do with him?" the redhead growled as they reached the outside, jerking his thumb at the writer.

"Yuki won't tell anyone about us, will you?" Omi answered, looking up at Yuki with pleading eyes. "Please, Yuki..."

"Not even Shuuichi," Hiro added for good measure. "I love him like a brother, but anything Shuuichi knows, the whole city knows five minutes later."

"I know that," Yuki snapped, rolling his eyes. "I won't tell anyone," he agreed. "I... can't say that I agree with what you do... but I don't disagree with it, either," he added wearily. Aya nodded, satisfied.

"Good. Then let's get out of here."

Hiro helped support Omi to the sleek sports car that awaited them - Aya's Porsche, he figured, remembering Omi mentioning something about that once. They squeezed in, Omi sprawled across Hiro's lap since there wasn't enough room. Hiro buried his face in his lover's neck, breathing deeply of the scent he loved and feeling Omi's pulse against his cheek.

"Kritiker caught the jerk that set you up," Ken told them, shifting to take some of Omi's weight as well. "The idiot used his own credit card to pay for the mail bomb delivery - these two must have just made it for him and given it to him. He was taken into custody just as we were leaving to track you guys, and his fingerprints matched the ones on the letters. Aizawa Taki."

"You've got to be kidding me!" Hiro blurted out. "Didn't he learn his lesson LAST time?" Yuki growled assent from beside him.

"Last time?" Omi asked sleepily from his shoulder. "Who is he?"

"The lead singer of Ask," Hiro replied grimly. "It happened during that period when you and I weren't speaking for a month - he paid three guys to rape and beat Shuuichi, to try to get him to drop out of Bad Luck."

"Oh my god!" Omi exclaimed, shocked. "What happened?"

"Yuki went and beat the crap out of him, and we haven't heard from him since," Hiro said. "We thought that was the end of it - I guess not."

"The little bastard," Yuki snarled. "When he gets out of prison, he'd better find a deep, dark hole and crawl into it, or I will go after him again, and I will kill him this time."

"We didn't hear that," Youji drawled from up front. "No death threats in front of the vigilantes, please. We might be the ones tracking you down."

Omi giggled, and Hiro smothered a chuckle as well. They were safe, the nightmare was over, and they were still together. What more could a man ask of the universe?

|Chapter 1| |Chapter 2| |Chapter 3| |Chapter 4| |Chapter 5| |Epilogue|

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