Sailor Moon Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Vindicated ❯ Semi-Precious ( Chapter 3 )

Vindicated

 

Chapter Three

Semi-Precious

`And roped me in, so mesmerizing, hypnotizing. I am captivated' “Vindicated' by Dashboard Confessional

Weeks went by but still there were reports about this sensational jewel thief, the blurred and grainy pictures of this `cosplay criminal' graced the covers of just about every newspaper as well as follow up articles that seemed to only fuel hype reports, almost like sightings of the Yeti or the Loch Ness Monster.

And like any closet fanatic Ami collected every scrape of paper that bore even the slightest allusion to this now infamous criminal.

It wasn't just the astonishing feats of his heists and how he always manages to escape that fascinated her, but the fact that she had always held an interest in mystery and intrigue since she was a child. Sometimes she wondered if maybe she had entered the wrong profession and should have become a police officer or maybe a forensic detective instead of a junior high teacher.

Flipping through yet another newspaper trying to pick up any clues to any weakness that this `phantom thief'. Not exactly a practical use of her time but what else was there to do on an early Saturday evening?

She had already graded her student's homework and class work assignments for the week and she had her plans for the up coming week planed so she really had nothing else to do with her time…well unless some random and dashingly handsome young man just decided to call her house and ask her out on a date.

Ami gave an unladylike snort, `Ha, like THAT will every happen.' She thought as she roughly pushed the newspaper back then she glared at it for a moment, as if she was blaming the seemingly innocent stack of papers for her being a lonely old maid….well not `old' since she was in her early twenties…nor lonely since she still had her mother and some old college and high school friends for company….but despite those two corrections she still felt isolated.

`And who's fault is that?' the bitter side of her squeaked.

Ignoring the nagging inner voice Ami turned her head to the bookshelves just opposite of her couch. Crammed onto the shelves were dozens of books, all neatly organized by category and then alphabetically…most of them very knowledge related but a few were some good novels that she enjoyed to flip through from time to time.

With a small sigh she slowly stood up and walked to the shelve and picked up a old and dog-eared romance novel that she hadn't read in a long while and then headed to the bathroom to cure her suddenly cold and empty night with a hot bubble bath and the romantic lives of fictional characters.

`That's right Ami-chan; just live your life through other's experiences. You know what is even more pathetic? They are not real! Isn't that just hilarious!'

Ami winced and slammed the bathroom door shut but didn't bother to lock it since the lock kept getting jammed. Since it was just her living in the apartment she figured that it would do any harm to leave it unlocked, plus it would be rather embarrassing to end up starving to death in a locked bathroom.

Quickly disrobing Ami wrapped a short towel around her body and then turned on the hot water. It steamed out of the spout in a mini-waterfall fashion and then suddenly started to foam when she poured in a pastel blue liquid. After a few minutes she stuck her foot out and daintily tested the temperature and depth of the water with her foot, since it was impossible to judge visually with the mountain of bubbles. Finding everything to perfection Ami took off the towel and slowly eased herself into the steaming mound of bubbles then leaning back picked up her book and shoved her circular reading glasses further up her slender nose.

Just above her was a small skylight that showed a smoggy evening for Tokyo, even the dim stars and orange moon were blocked out.

However, light or lack there of didn't matter to one person. In fact he actually preferred these murky nights; such evenings seem to fit into his mischievous mood.

After a couple of weeks of laying low and letting reports and police think what they will now he was bored with being on his `best behavior' especially since his latest acquisition was only a few miles from his apartment building.

With lightning speed he glided across the marble floor of the museum, his moments so quick and silent that it didn't even faze the small army of security guards that were prowling the halls looking for…well him.

A feral grin crossed his lips since a self-satisfied chuckle was out of the question at such a critical moment, besides he knew that once he nabbed the Jewel of Poseidon he would have more than enough time to gloat…but business before pleasure…oh wait to him this was both.

Entering the large room where all the museum's jewels were kept Yoko couldn't help but roll his eyes. For Kami sake, he was ransacking all of these jewelry stores and museums of their most treasured gems so you would think that they would beef up their technical arsenal just a tad bit. And yet here he was facing yet another laser grid, a camera and motion sensor above the encased jewel and of course visual and audio recorders supposedly `hidden' on each of the four corners of the room.

To a human burglar this would be damn near imposable to penetrate, but for him this was child's play. It was insulting, if he was going to go through this much trouble to steal this necklace the least they could do was make it challenging for him.

Sighing in disgust Yoko just resigned himself to yet another uneventful heist…

Suddenly his triangular ears perked up and twitched a bit as they picked up the soft sound of the door opening.

His smile returned, `Well maybe this won't be such a dull venture after all,' he thought before slowly turning his head to see what sort of sniveling guard would be bold enough to not only find but face him as well.

…But as soon as he started at the figure standing in the doorway he suddenly found both of his wrists coiled together by a chain.

His amber eyes glanced down to see that the chains tying his wrists together were golden and had links shaped like delicate hearts instead of the usual oval shapes. He didn't even have to follow the chain to it's owner to know just who his captor was.

Instead of glancing up he roughly yanked the chain closer to him, “Very funny V-chan.” Yoko growled, not sounding the least bit amused.

The normally perky and talkative blonde was strangely silent; this did cause Yoko to look at her.

It was Sailor V alright, same ridiculously short sailor girl uniform…not that he minded the view of course, the long blonde hair tied back with a red ribbon, same red glasses that were suppose to conceal her identity, and the chain all added up to one person.

Something wasn't right though.

She certainly did look like Sailor V but her expression seemed to be fixed and grim…whereas V-chan could never keep a straight face for anything longer than three minutes.

His eyes narrowed as he looked into her baby blue eyes, they were dull and lack luster at best, almost as if she wasn't alive at all.

The eyes confirmed it, this was NOT Sailor V and since it wasn't his old London acquaintance he knew that he would feel no guilt whatsoever if he were to tear her to shreds.

Yanking hard on the chain Yoko set out in a sprint to bowl the woman over but just as he was within a foot of her the woman ran towards him as well this time circling him to wrap the chain tightly around his torso causing him to trip and skid across the marble floor.

Pulling himself off the floor Yoko jerked free of the chain only to find that the woman had abandoned him in favor of heading straight for the sapphire and aquamarine necklace.

Jumping to his feet Yoko sprinted behind her and then leaped up to land directly on top of her.

The woman didn't let out a cry or even a gasp as she toppled face first into the floor and sliding right into the first row of laser grids.

As soon as her skin broke across the red laser lines an ear piercingly shrill alarm echoed and all the camera's swirled to focus in on the two potential thieves ducking it out on the floor.

Yoko grinded his right fist against the blonde woman's right cheek bone and just barely missed being clocked by her opposing left fist…however both of them stopped when they heard the guards rushing to the door.

They first glanced at each other, then they turned their heads to the jewel, to the door, then to each other again…there was a split second pause before they bolted off the floor and landed on their feet running to the case.

At that moment the door swung open and the security guards came in shooting their rifles at the two oddly dressed thieves.

Yoko effortlessly weaved out of the pathway of each bullet that came without even looking behind him; the woman, however was hit several times…but this fact didn't slow her down any…it was like the bullets were just getting absorbed into her body without even making so much as an entrance wound.

Finally they reached the glass case but Yoko being the stronger of the two shoved her aside, broke into the glass and then extracted the necklace from it's casing.

Turning his head he grinned at the Sailor V imposter and gave a mocking bow to her, “I'd like to thank you Miss, I have no idea why you're imprisoning a good friend of mine but at least you have made this job challenging.”

With those words he pocketed the necklace and raced to the exit door of the room that housed the museum's jewelry.

While Yoko made his escape the woman slowly picked herself off the floor and spared just enough time to brush her skirt off even while half of the guards were pelting her with bullets. Her blue eyes started at the door that Yoko had just exited from and now the other half of the guards were leaving in order to follow him.

The mistress wouldn't be happy with her. She would most certainly kill her if she came back empty handed. Realizing that there was no other choice the woman closed her eyes and surrendered her body to it's suicidal last resort.

For a moment the guards were stun into silence, even seizing their hail storm of bullets, as the woman's rather attractive body began to take on grotesque mutations. Her arms grew longer, down to her knees and bulked up, followed by her legs that sprouted making her almost as tall an adolescent giraffe, her middle bulged outward until it ripped open the fabric of her tight bodice and spilled out to the floor. The sight and sounds of a body expanding it's bones and stretching it's skin was sickening to say the least but the guards took up their guns again and tried to shoot down the creature even as it clumsily lumbered towards them. The tragedy of this situation though was that not even a mountain of bullets could have stopped the enormous claws that sliced right through them as if they were nothing but tissue paper.

Meanwhile Yoko had easily ditched the guards that were chasing him and had just climbed up to the roof of the museum. Now that he was out in the open air he's sides started to shake and then positively ache from laughter. Not only had he gotten away with the necklace but he had also beaten a rival, inferior as she might have been, and had dodged bullets.

Grinning he pulled out the necklace and glanced in his reflection that the deep aquamarine showed him. Nothing could stop him. Nothing.

Not the police, not these so-called technically advanced security systems, not some two-bit `rival', not his goody-two-shoes acquaintance…nothing.

Fate sense of humor seemed to be alive and well though because just as he was about to leap out off the roof the roof itself trembled beneath him briefly like a mini-earthquake had stricken it's surface.

Glancing over his shoulder Yoko watched as the roof shook again this time harder and the shock lasted longer… not to mention that the roof was cracking up.

The third and final blow not only cause Yoko to momentarily lose his balance but also cracked the center of the roof open, leaving a gaping whole and a hideous monster standing in the middle of it.

Blood red eye narrowed as the lumbering beast glanced around it but then stopped as it's sight fell upon the now tiny kitsune demon. Lifting it's blood stained claws it took a clumsy swipe at him.

Yoko seeing the claws opted to leap on to the next roof top as opposed to becoming impaled on it's sharp digits.

Dimwitted as it was, the monster knew that if she didn't hurry that she would lose her prey…as well as her last chance to redeem herself in the eyes of her mistress. Following this train of thought she lifted herself up allowing the rest of the roof to collapse before pouncing onto the next building, imprinting her large feet into the crumbling cement roof as she raced to catch up to the kitsune.

Racing and leaping across buildings Yoko tried to glance backwards as little as possible while he tried to formulate a plan to either ditch or destroy the monster. He could just let it catch it up to him, luring it into one of his attacks but a problem laid in that plan….the beast was so large that if it stayed on one roof for too long it would…fall through…

Shaking his head Yoko had to mentally quiet his other half to keep him from berating him for not thinking of that sooner.

Skidding to a stop Yoko turned around and faced north just as the beast was beginning to catch up to him.

At first the beast was puzzled but then grinned to itself, it's jaw reveling at least four rows of perfectly sharp teeth. Seeing it's opportunity the beast trotted faster and made a final leap to victory, arching out it's claws to swipe him down.

Yoko easily dodged the outstretched claws in fact he hopped right onto the beast's head and raced down it's back before taking a flying leap to stand on the building that the monster had just sailed over.

Landing on all fours the beast snarled and prepared to charge at him but before she could even lift a foot the roof beneath her started to crackle. Looking down the beast saw the concert sagging and then suddenly break underneath her. Howling she dug her claws into the inside of the building to prevent the fall but her body was far too heavy for her to hold up her entire weight for long and even now the side of the building was crumbling around her.

Glaring up at the kitsune as she scrambled to gain ground the demon snarled, knowing that she was to far away to strike him with her arms she arched her back and lashed out her mace like tail at him. Yoko was caught off guard by this last ditch effort and just barely managed to be crushed by the tail, but the force did send him sailing backward into the air.

Having done all she could the beast slowly sank into the office building as the floors crashed in around her body and glass windows busted as her elongated limbs popped through them. At last she stopped on the ground floor, her enormous form leaving a large crater. Her body shrinking back into it's humanoid shape. Dull blue eyes stared up as ruble freefall to her, a single tear coursed down her face as she closed her eyes…dead a split second before the entire building collapsed around her form.

Across Tokyo a slender womanly figure sighed and took off her headphones and visor glasses. Picking up a clipboard she halfheartedly crossed out `Experiment 464' then crumbled the paper and tossed it into the wastepaper basket that was in desperate need of emptying since it was filled to the brim with similar balls of paper.

A soft beeping sound drew her to swirl her chair around and glance at the monitor, it was replaying the last visual records of Experiment 464, the kitsune demon was flying through the air, appearing to be unconscious.

A small, almost nonexistent smile crossed her lips, as she moved the mouse around and magnified the image.

Taking a closer look at the kitsune, she chuckled softly to herself.

“Of course. I should have suspected that the great kitsune thief would play apart in this as well. It is in fact his destiny as much as hers,” the woman whispered before she carelessly flicked the off switch of the monitor.

Still soaking her in bath and blissfully unaware of the chaos taking place Ami quietly turned the page of her romance novel…even though she had realized that the reason she hadn't read it in a long time was because of it's cheesy and unrealistic plot. A person must be very gullible…or very stupid to just take in a convicted felon into her house just because he was handsome…and that he claimed to be innocent of the crimes people were accusing him of.

Despite it's plot flaws though Ami was thoroughly enjoying herself and was oblivious to the fact that a person was falling through her bathroom skylight until she heard the shattering of the glass and then felt herself flatten against her own bath tub as a body covered her own.

Sapphire eyes wide open Ami pushed herself up wondering what the hell was going on…only to gasp in shock when she found a man…in her tub…on top of her…while she was completely naked…save for a few bubbles.

For a moment all time seemed to have been either stilled or slowed down to a snail crawl since Ami didn't feel her body move the slightest inch as her aerial intruder lifted his head, moaning in pain.

In an instant their eyes meet, hers wide, innocent, and a deep as the ocean, his arched in confusion…boarding on amusement, arrogant and crackling amber.

Time suddenly decided to return from it's brief coffee brake because as soon as a smirk crossed the lips of the stranger Ami screamed and picked up the nearest object to him with…her now soggy romance novel.

Wincing more from the suddenness of her `attack' rather than actual pain Yoko tried to grab her arm to make her stop but being blinded by bubbles and wet book pages he accidentally stuck his hand right out into the middle of her chest.

Again time stopped, it seems that it didn't get a donut to get with it's coffee, leaving Ami to stare open mouth at the white haired man, her book raised just above shoulder level while he stared at her equally confused for a moment before fully realizing where his hand was.

Giving a sheepish grin, trying hard to show her that he didn't mean any harm he pulled his hand back and lifted both hands up where she could see them.

This however didn't assure Ami in the least, in fact she was now convinced that not only was he a flying pervert…but he also a flying, shameless, and insane pervert.

Needless to say this doesn't bode well for Yoko.