Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Yami No Matsuei Fan Fiction ❯ Shinigami Zutto ❯ Trip to the Past ( Chapter 8 )

Less common words are translated. For words like hai and iie, well, if you’re anime fans you should know those already!!

Hisoka shivered against the wall, the cold from the floor seeping through his clothes. The manacles were chafing at his skin, but he was grateful that Muraki hadn’t actually done anything to him – yet.
Quatre was still unconscious on the table, and their tormentor had left almost an hour ago. At least the lights were on; the young Shinigami doubted that he could take it if he was left alone in the dark.
Just then, Quatre shifted, making Hisoka start in surprise, jangling his chains. The blond moaned, tried to raise and hand to his head, and grunted in resignation when he found that he was restrained to the table.
“Status?” he croaked hoarsely.
Hisoka didn’t know what he meant for a minute, but then he remembered the military background of his fellow prisoner.
“Daijoubu. He didn’t do anything to me. Are you ok?”
Quatre rolled his head to the side, cracked his eyes open and gave Hisoka a small smile. “I’ll live,” he whispered. “I’ve had worse.”
“What…” Hisoka licked suddenly dry lips. “What did he do to you?”
Quatre shook his head slightly. “Shirimasen. Something that hurt. Is there anything to drink?”
“Iie,” Hisoka said regretfully. Quatre nodded slightly.
“Gonna go sleep again now,” he muttered, closing his eyes again.
Hisoka felt an irrational stab of fear run through him, but managed to suppress it before it got to the stage where it would bother the blond Arabian’s empathic gift. Quatre looked terrible, but at least he was coherent and rational. Hisoka was willing to bet that he didn’t look too great himself now. His stomach growled and threatened to send hunger pains stabbing through him.
Where was Tsuzuki? Surely his partner was coming to get him?

*

Trowa waited impatiently in the hallway for the others to assemble. They needed to get going and find Quatre! Who knew what his angel was going through? The sobbing of his name had stopped, and he hoped that it was because Quatre had fallen asleep, rather than because Quatre was – no, he wasn’t even going to think that. Quatre would be fine. He had to be.
Finally everyone was there, checking surveillance equipment and going over the codes for backup, mission abort and the signal that they had found the missing pair with Merian, who was going to stay in JuMoCho and act as a coordinator and their link with the rest of the building.
Trowa hadn’t seen very many other operatives in the building during his stay, most of those he had were relaxing in the canteen or coffee lounge. The Sanq branch seemed like a very busy place for a country devoted to Pacifism.
“Ready, Barton?” Wufei asked, coming up beside him. “I know you fear for your husband, but you must put those feelings aside now. We need to find the base first of all.”
“I know, Chang.”
“I will partner you, Tsuzuki and Yuy are going together.”
“Ok. Ready?”
“Ready. Lets go.”
The two teams dashed out the main doors, took a running jump into the air and sped off in different directions, heading for the two abandoned Opera houses where they were sure that they would find Muraki and his two unfortunate captives.

*

Duo tip-toed down the dusty hall after his partner, feeling the ancient carpet disintegrate under his boots. Ew.
The… incident… earlier had confirmed one thing for the violet-eyed Shinigami; Heero still liked him. He hadn’t moved on – unless that had been a random event, something that Duo doubted. That sort of thing wasn’t in Heero’s nature. And he still loved the ex-pilot. So all that was stopping him was the last seventy years of his life and the painful memories.
He couldn’t just tell Heero now… he would probably hate him for the deception. Or rather, omission, seeing as he was Tsuzuki Asato now, to all intents and purposes. He was a damn good Shinigami, if a lazy one, and partnered Kurosaki Hisoka. Duo Maxwell was in the past.till loved the ex-pilot. So all that was stopping him was the last seventy years of his life
Heero held up a hand for silence, and signaled Tsuzuki to come up beside him using the gestures they had worked out while storming space stations back in the Eve war. He then seemed to realise what he had done, and turned back to whisper to Tsuzuki, only to find the other Shinigami beside him, grinning slightly.
Duo looked at Heero's confused face and fought the urge to giggle.
'How did you-?' the Japanese Shinigami mouthed.
'It doesn't matter,' Tsuzuki replied soundlessly. 'What did you see?'
Heero shook his head and then pointed to the passage in front of them. There were several tracks of footprints leading through the dust. Tsuzuki caught Heero's eye, nodded, and then set off along the corridor, carefully treading in the footprints of whoever it was who had walked there before.
Behind him, he sensed that Heero paused before following. They ghosted along the corridor, the only sounds the slight brush of cloth against cloth and the muffled thuds of their footsteps, neither loud enough to be heard by anyone further than five meters away.(1)
The footsteps led them down three flights of stairs - apparently the Opera House had cellars. The level they ended up on was very different from the previous two. For a start, it was clean. Someone had taken the time to paint the walls and lay carpet - luckily it was thick enough to continue to cover their footsteps. There was even an elegant end table with a potted fern on it.
Just then a tortured scream echoed through the corridor.
Tsuzuki twisted around and met Heero's deep blue eyes. Duo allowed himself to get lost in them for a scant moment, and then Tsuzuki nodded, and tapped at his earpiece. It was time to call base; it looked like they had found them.

*

Wufei looked up at the ruins of the abandoned Opera house he and Trowa had decided to search. It had once been magnificent, with a dome and minarets. There were cracked remains of gargoyles clinging to the eaves and marble columns lining the walk to the main entrance.
Wild rose, ivy and a clematis with purple flowers had run rampant over the building, adding to the destruction and air of forgotten magnificence.
Trowa was currently scaling the building with the aid of the creepers; the plants had effectively closed off the main doors, but there was a window on the third floor that had been smashed in at some point, leaving a wide enough gap for Trowa to slide his slim frame through. If he thought it was safe, Wufei would follow him up.
"Clear," Trowa called down, poking his head out of the window. "Need help?"
Wufei shook his head, not wanting to risk anyone hearing his call. He rubbed his hands together and reckoned the best route to scale the building. He decided that he could follow one of the main stems of ivy up to the second floor, traverse along the ledge that ran around the building till he was to the left of the window, and then follow a diagonal rose vine which passed just over the opening, using it to swing in. Route decided, he walked to the wall and began to climb.
He winced as he landed in a crouch on the floor of the room. He had forgotten that Roses had thorns, and his fingers had suffered for his negligence.
The two ex-pilots quickly searched the building, but found traces of nothing but animals and signs of homeless people habiting the building at different points. All the traces of humans were old though - they probably stopped around about when the roof fell in, Wufei guessed.
The Chinese Shinigami was worried about his partner. Trowa was tense and fully in 'Mercenary' mode. He was obviously worried about his husband and Wufei was apprehensive; he didn't want his partner to go off and do something reckless. Trowa had longer legs and could run much faster than he could.
Just then there was a message from Merian. The two men tensed and listened intently.
"They've found something suspicious in the other opera house. If you haven’t found anything, make your way there to back them up."
"Ryoukai," Trowa muttered.
"Shr, hen gan shie," Wufei told his wife.
"Bu yung shie." (*translation at end)

*

Hisoka choked back a moan of dismay when Muraki strode into their prison and started fiddling with the machines by Quatre's bed again. He completely ignored the shackled Shinigami. Hisoka wasn't sure whether to feel insulted, relieved or guilty that he couldn't take some of the pain for the blond who had tried to be his friend.
Muraki checked the restraints and then tapped a button. Quatre started awake with a strangled scream.
"Ittai!" he shook his head and glared up at Muraki. "Who are you? What do you want with me? I won't tell you anything!" he growled.
Hisoka blinked in surprise. What was going on?
"My dear young man, whatever makes you think that I want information?" Muraki drawled.
"You bastards always want something. Have you captured any of the others? Which faction are you with, anyways? I think I have a right to know who captured me. Oz? Romefellar? Alliance? White Fang? Who are you working for, you bastard!?"
Hisoka groaned. Quatre had obviously completely lost track of what was going on. Weren't those groups people who had been in that war eighty years ago? Whatever Muraki had done must have sent Quatre back in his memories.
"Well, young man, I am not with any of those groups. I am a scientist."
It was apparently the wrong thing to say. "Which one do you work for?" Quatre hissed. "J? G? O? H? S? I know you are not one of our mentors. It's J, isn't it? I won't let you condition me the way he conditioned 01! And I will never tell you where my Gundam is!"
Quatre was wild eyed and seemed not to have a complete handle on the conversation. He was skipping from topic to topic, sometimes insisting that he wouldn't tell Muraki anything and at others convinced that this 'J' was going to perform some kind of experiment on him. Hisoka listened to his argument with Muraki with a heavy heart. Muraki seemed very pleased, judging by his smirk at the comments that were obviously intended to incite Quatre further.
"01 and 02 will come for me, you know," Quatre threatened, straining in his restraints. "03 will break into your base and 05 will turn it into flames. You do not mess with one of the Gundam pilots!" as distressed as he was the blond did not notice the syringe full of clear liquid that Muraki injected into his arm. "01 will take his gun and shoot you, 02 will torture you slowly before he allows you to die. 05 will gripe about Justice and slowly slice you apart with his katana. 03 will....will...."
Quatre slumped to the table in a dead faint.
Muraki turned on the machines surrounding the bed, causing Quatre to scream in agony. "Let's see if I can get him back to the present, shall we?" he said, apparently to himself, for he didn't look at Hisoka. The young empath tugged at his manacles in vain, and did his best to block the waves of pain emanating from the blond.
Muraki turned to Hisoka with a feral smile. "Well, that was entertaining, was it not? I did not think that the Gundam pilots were like that, they were only 15 after all, and Quatre Raberba Winner was reputedly the most gentle of the five. I would hate to think what would happen if I were able to bring 02 back. Apparently he was on the streets for a time, he must have quite the vocabulary.”
"Damn right I do, motherfucker."

Japanese:
Shirimasen – I don’t know.
Ryouaki - accepted or acknowledged
Mandarin:
Shir, hen gan shie - yes, thank you very much
Bu yung shie - you're welcome
(1) - pet hate of mine is people walking silently in fics. It CANNOT be done, believe me, I've tried. Walking Heel to Toe, walking Toe to Heel, moving excruciatingly slowly, wearing skintight clothes (heh, yeah, as if I would...I'm a huge fan of baggyness and comfort) you ALWAYS make some noise. I can generally walk quietly enough so that cars passing or a rushing wind would cover my footsteps, and someone wouldn't hear if I was a short distance away, but it is impossible to walk completly silently. Especially when wearing baggy trousers. And Tsuzuki wears a full length trenchcoat for heavens sake. Those things flap in the wind. Uh, yeah. So there. ^^