Witch Hunter Robin Fan Fiction ❯ Silk Gloves ❯ I Tried ( Chapter 11 )

I don't own WHR. And I didn't want to do it.

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Early in the morning, a week later, Karasuma frowned at her computer screen. It was not the work that was making her frown, but the name she had just typed into the program. It was the same woman that they had awakened two days before. She glanced at Sakaki, who was typing up a similar report on another familiar name; this time a man they had awakened five days ago. She looked at the work she had completed the night before; seeing the file on a man that had also been awakened five days ago, and then hunted two days later. She sighed. One dead by her hand, one by Sakaki's, and one that had been saved.

She bit her lip. Sakaki was typing the report on the one that had `gotten away'. They had been able to save him, she and Sakaki circling around, looking for `clues' as Kenshio went and brought him under control again. Karasuma wasn't sure how the replacement had managed to hide the witch again, but they had not heard anything about him from Michael yet. No news was good news. The other two had not been so lucky. Both had clawed their own faces, the man had even tried to pluck his own eyes out. She had tried to touch him and bring his power under control, but the chaos of his craft had seeped into his mind, inflicting scars that could not be healed. Perhaps most disturbing was what little speech they had retained. “Witch, witch, witch, oh God, I'm a witch, I cannot be forgiven…” and so on. It had been frighteningly reminiscent of a SOLOMON hunter's last words to their prey. The man had returned to silence when she lowered her gun on him, looking him in the eye and pleading for him to come back. He had returned her gaze, and then quietly and forcefully told her to shoot him and end it.

And so she had.

On top of the three hunts they had conducted, Kenshio had informed them that Tanikano Juli had been killed by her husband, who had killed himself minutes later. Karasuma still wasn't sure how she felt about it, still somewhat in shock. She still had nightmares about the visions that the woman had given her, but there was no doubt that something had changed between she and Sakaki that night; faced with the fact that they feared for each other more than themselves. But something still bothered her about the death. That two people who had been married for three years could not reconcile something like a craft except in violence made her wonder. Perhaps, though, there had already been marital strife, and she was reading too much into things. Still, something bothered her.

She knew that the others felt it too. On awakenings after the news about Juli, Kenshio had twitched like a nervous horse, turning her head quickly in every direction as if she was seeing things out of the corners of her eyes. Single-Eye was less talkative, she and Sakaki stayed closer together- though they continued to agree on keeping their relationship under wraps. She smirked, typing the last lines of her work. Had it really been a week since she had really been alone with him? Her memory of it had not faded in the least. Hitting the print button, she got up and looked at the time. Eight-fifteen. She had gotten here at 7:30, half an hour early, and Sakaki had come in fifteen minutes later. Michael, never the morning person, had stumbled in at 8:00, managing to be on time. Kenshio was late. She frowned again, that wasn't like the woman at all.

“Hey, Michael,” she said, “did Kenshio call in?”

Michael looked up from his breakfast, and shook his head. Swallowing, he said, “No, but let me check something, her communicator might register.” He shoved the rest of the pastry in his mouth and rolled his chair over to the computer. As he faced the screen, he gasped quietly. Karasuma looked over at the teen from across the room, and fancied that she could see the color draining from his cheeks as he gazed.

Sakaki also noticed the sudden spike in tension, and turned from his computer, looking over the hacker's shoulder. “What is it?,” he asked, the screen apparently not enlightening him.

Michael licked his lips as Karasuma walked over in concern. “After the STN-J was attacked, I made up a program to keep tabs on the building's security.” His breath quickened, “Mostly as a practice; all I wanted was to be able to make sure there were no glitches. So I programmed it to tell me if it got turned off, like they did six months ago, or if it was being fed a loop…,” he trailed off, staring in what looked like terror at his computer screen.

“Michael?” Sakaki said quietly.

Michael swallowed, “We're being fed a loop,” he said softly, “as of about thirty seconds ago.”

Karasuma felt her heart skip a beat. For a moment, there was a buzzing in her ears, as the implications set in. She focused her eyes to focus, locking gazes with Sakaki, and finding the same epiphany in him. “Haruto…” she whispered, dread choking her.

Michael looked from Karasuma to Sakaki, suddenly feeling a drastic change in the dynamic between them. Where before they had simply been in the same room, now it seemed as if they were the only two in the room. It was like he wasn't there, and he felt as though he were intruding on something incredibly intimate between them, though they both looked terrified.

But before he had much of a chance to analyze anything, such as where that soul-searching gaze had come from, they had both moved. “Hey! Where're you two going?!” he said, half rising.

Karasuma looked back at him sadly, “Michael…” she said quietly, but then Sakaki said her name and placed a hand on her arm, glancing back at him with a mix of apology and regret in his eyes. Karasuma turned from the hacker, covering Sakaki's hand with her own and holding a whispered conversation with her partner.

He stopped. Something was wrong. Something was beyond wrong. It was as if they had…expected this. They had both disappeared into the meeting room now; he heard the rasp of drawing guns. They knew something, but what?

He didn't have time to contemplate further, because a moment later there was a crash, and the all too familiar sound of spidering glass. Knowing better then to stay standing, he hit the floor; praying that this time, it would be less painful.

~^~

“Miho,” he whispered as she hesitated, turning to look at Michael. She felt his hand on her arm, and covered it with her own, turning back to the plan that was formulating in her mind. She had to forget about Michael for a moment, and hope that they had not doomed the teen simply by knowing him.

“Haruto, your craft, can you keep water from falling on us?” she asked, leading them to the darkened meeting room. It was eerily quiet, absent of the hum of projectors that usually was to be heard while she was in here.

He gave her a strange look, and nodded, swallowing as she backed them to just inside the door, like school children playing hide and seek.

Karasuma drew her gun; face set and determined. “Then shoot the pipes when they all get into the room, we're bound to hit hot water. It'll be enough of a diversion so we can get out of here.” I hope. She added in her mind. But there was no need to voice it- she could tell he heard the thought as well.

Sakaki nodded, and she felt his breath on the back of her neck as he crouched down behind her. There could only be a few more seconds before all hell broke loose. It already felt like forever since Michael had told them about the loop, and she knew that waiting for them to set off the explosives to come in would feel like yet another lifetime. It occurred to her that she had no idea what to do after they got out of the building, but she didn't care. One thing at a time; and if they could just get out of the office itself, she was fairly sure they could go the rest of the way…

She felt the change in pressure before she really heard the blast. Suddenly, everything felt pressed, and then released with a shattering of glass and rattling of gun fire. She was glad that they had hidden in here, and prayed the Michael was not still in his chair. She doubted the SOLOMON agents were being very discerning. Feet tromped in, glass shards breaking further under the heavy boots. Karasuma took a breath, trying to wait as long as she could without waiting too long, and then glanced at Sakaki and nodded.

As one, they slid their arms around the corner, shooting the ceiling blindly. Karasuma winced as she heard the pipes pop and rattle, then break, unable to withstand the gunfire. There was the hiss of steam, and then everything seemed to get darker. Then she heard a yelp as hot water began to spray from multiple points in the ceiling, scalding the SOLOMON team.

She knew it wouldn't last long; and silently looked at Sakaki. He nodded and closed his eyes, holding a hand out like something out of an American Star Wars movie. The room was foggy and dark- one of them must have hit an electrical circuit. Water still poured from the ceiling, steaming, but there was a tunnel free of the scalding shower, like a curtain pulled aside just for them. She grabbed Sakaki's hand, leading him out as quickly as she dared.

Despite their professionalism, the officers of SOLOMON could not compete with the simple fact that there was extremely hot water soaking through their suits and burning their skin. Their goggles had fogged over, and no amount of wiping could keep more condensation from appearing on them. She heard one of the men curse as they slipped past him quietly. He seemed to feel their presence, and whirled around, as if expecting an attack. She was thankful that he was not stupid or brave enough to open fire - wary of hitting his fellows.

And then they were out, stepping over the again-ruined doorways, still trying to be quiet. They were nearly past the still-open elevator when a gruff voice called, “Outside! They've gotten out! Go!”

“Haruto,” Karasuma whispered, “hit the floor button on the elevator and send it down, but don't go with it.”

He did not question her, and slipped into the elevator. She ran ahead, acutely feeling the lack of his body behind her, and, breathless, she came around the corner to stop at the small metal door that led to the stairs. Closing her eyes for a moment, she tried to calm down and remember the sequence of numbers- it felt like years since she had learned them - and then reached out and punched them in.

Sakaki was behind her again, and the door opened. She slid through, pulling him in behind her, and then shut the door firmly, starting down the barren stairwell.

“Miho…how did you…” his voice trailed off when he heard shouting and gunshots. Apparently the soldiers had taken their bait, but it would only be a moment before they saw that there was no one in the elevator and split up to search. They would realize eventually where they had gone.

“Do you remember when they attacked the STN-J six months ago?” she asked, punching in the next set of numbers and opening the door.

There was a pause as they ran down the next set of stairs. “Yes,” he said finally, turning hard onto the next landing.

She opened the keypad, tapping the keys with fingers that shook. “As soon as Amon reappeared, I asked him how he had managed to get Robin out.”

“And he told you?” Sakaki asked as the door shut behind them, a hint of disbelief in his voice.

She smirked at her partner's skepticism. “Yes, at Harry's,” she said, pausing as they reached the next landing. Her fingers found the numbers as if they had known all along she would be doing this one day. Well, she'd suspected ever since Kenshio had pulled her into the coven- but it had always seemed like one of those things that one thought about, and never actually saw happening. As she pulled the door open, there was an explosion, and the stairwell rocked, bits of dust shaking loose from the ceiling.

Karasuma glanced at Sakaki, and he tried to smile at her. “They've got three more doors to go,” he said, attempting to sound encouraging.

“We've only got one,” she said as she reached the next door. She uttered a humorless `heh'. “And we've got the codes.”

He nodded, and the door opened. They started down the last set of stairs as voices echoed from high above.

When she finished the code to the last door, she could hardly believe that her memory had served correctly. But there it was; the ground level, with the well in the center. She supposed that it had once been a fountain, with water happily bubbling through a gracefully beautiful statue. Or maybe it had been a planter, holding a tree or bunch of flowers. Now, though, it was more useful than that, and she started towards it, even as Sakaki started towards the regular exit.

“Haruto,” she said, climbing onto the edge of the well, “here.”

He turned as she hit the button, and the bottom of the well sunk, grinding loud enough to raise echoes. She was glad that the team had not had the presence of mind to leave someone at the top to snipe them if they should come down.

Sakaki came to stand beside her on the well's edge, looking down as the floor dropped out to reveal a set of winding stairs. She glanced at him, and he suddenly dipped his head to kiss her, using one hand to support himself with the crossbeam; leaving the other to slide down to the small of her back. It was a brief kiss, but it bolstered her confidence enough to think that maybe, just maybe, they would live to see the sun set.

As the floor of the well settled, he leaned past her, placing his lips close to her ear and softly saying, “I love you. I didn't get a chance to tell you before.”

She swallowed and nodded, surprised at her own lack of surprise, both at his words and at her own feelings. “Yes,” she said, “I love you, too.”

It would have been the perfect time to kiss him again, to tell him how frightened she really was, to just bury herself in his arms, but there was an explosion, this time very close, and Sakaki slid his hand to her arm, helping her down. He turned, and she felt him send his craft at the normal exit, the door breaking and rattling off its hinges with his telekinesis. Then he jumped down beside her as she pressed the button that sent the floor back to its usual place. She slid into the dark staircase, and he followed, their shoes clanging on the metal structure.

The last slip of natural light deserted them, leaving them in a sickly greenish glow, as the SOLOMON team blew the last door in. Karasuma resisted a sigh; they were safe - she hoped. She had been worried, at first, because what if this was the same team that had broken in to the STN-J for the information on Orbo? They may have had the codes on hand if it had been, or if the teams had communicated. But it seemed that she and Sakaki had been saved by departmental strife, because she heard the gruff voice order everyone to spread out in the neighborhood, reminding them to watch out for the man-witch, as his powers could be dangerous.

Karasuma glanced at Sakaki, their suspicions confirmed. They had been labeled witches, the easiest way to gain permission to hunt and kill a SOLOMON hunter. Suddenly, she gasped quietly, drawing a worried look from her partner, sitting on the stairs next to her. “Kenshio,” she whispered, “and Single-Eye.”

The realization in his eyes was instantaneous, and he leaned down, undoing the laces on his shoes. She slipped her feet from her heels, realizing that it would be quieter in bare feet, especially on the hollow metal. They started down the stairs, winding slowly away from the few voices that remained in the foyer above.

~^~

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Karasuma stopped and pulled out her phone. For a moment, she just looked at it, wary.

“Do you think it's bugged?” Sakaki asked.

She shook her head, frowning, “Not off hand, no. Unless it's been bugged since I started working here; but I've never needed a replacement, so I can't imagine how they could have.”

He was silent, letting her make the decision, as he really didn't know what to think. He knew that as soon as they reached a good place outside, he was smashing his own phone and tossing it in the deepest body of water he could find. Miho would probably have to join him, but for now, she dialed the number and held the phone to her ear. In the quiet tunnel, Sakaki could just hear Kenshio's greeting.

“Speak.”

“Why weren't you at work?” Karasuma said bluntly. Sakaki admitted mentally that he wanted to know the same thing. It was awfully convenient that she had been gone on the day that SOLOMON decided to attack.

Kenshio paused, as if sensing that something was amiss, and replied, “My alarm clock didn't go off, but I'm on my way now. Why?”

Karasuma glanced at Sakaki, and sighed, “Don't come in,” she said, resigned, “They've caught on, get out of here.”

There was a brief silence on the line; Sakaki could almost hear the gears in the replacement's head turning as she took this information in. “And you both are fine?”

“Yes,” Karasuma said, glancing at Sakaki again, “We got out, and we're safe for now.”

“Alright, when you hang up, throw your phone away. Get as much money out of your accounts as you can, in cash, and then get off the island. Don't go home, leave your cars.”

“What about you? How can we keep in contact?”

“Don't worry about that,” Kenshio said briskly, “I'll be able to find you.” She paused, and a note of worry and care made its way into her voice, “Just focus on keeping yourselves alive until I do.”

Karasuma took a deep breath, and nodded, though for whose benefit, Sakaki wasn't sure. “Alright,” she said, “We will.”

“Lady Luck and the Eve be with you.” Kenshio said quietly after a pause, and the line went dead.

Karasuma hung up her own phone, looking at it oddly. “Lady Luck and the Eve?” she said softly, looking at Sakaki.

He shrugged, “I've never heard her use it,” he said. “It's probably a coven thing.”

Karasuma looked thoughtful; tapping the phone to her chin, “I think…” she started, and then shook her head, “Never mind.”

Sakaki shrugged, deciding that it wasn't worth it to push her. “So, do you know how far this passageway goes?”

She looked down the tunnel, a long, dark stretch of concrete, studded with green glowing lights that seemed to bode ill. “No, I didn't bother to ask.”

She was staring gloomily forward when he put a hand on her shoulder, smiling ironically. “Given the circumstances, and the one you were asking, I can't say that I blame you.”

She gave a small smile in return, reaching up to rub her eyes. “He isn't that bad,” she said, amused in spite of the situation.

Sakaki slid an arm around her waist, kissing her temple, “Sure he isn't. Just so long as you don't breathe wrong at him.”

Karasuma didn't bother to reply, suddenly too tired to concentrate on anything but putting one foot in front of the other. She had only been up for about two hours, but it felt like a day and then some. But they needed to move. Trying not to think about it, she kept walking.

~^~

Even before she had reached the small apartment that he kept, she knew what she would find.

Thus, it was no surprise that when she got there, his apartment was vacant, empty, and completely unchanged.

He simply wasn't there any more. Everything was perfectly in place, no paper smashed from heavy feet, no bullet hole.

Well, that was no surprise. SOLOMON agents were the best, and he had most likely been unprepared.

They would have come in the door; shot him with a low velocity bullet that did not punch through and leave a blood trail, taken his body, and left.

She stepped further into the tiny living space, inspecting the main room with dead eyes. It was somewhat messy, but what had she expected? He had lived as a hobo for most of his life - suddenly having a space to keep clean must have been difficult. She glanced to the door to his room, and narrowed her eyes. She saw tiny scratches at neck level, and, pushing the door open, she found his bedroom, unkempt as the rest of the flat. Tucked most of the way under the sheet was a sheet of paper, a small corner sticking out. She picked it up.

Well, Kasu, I tried.

One line, scrawled messily across the middle of the square piece of paper. She stared at it for a moment, then, keeping the note, she went back to the door. The scratches, when she looked closer, were actually small streaks of dried blood. Shot from the side, low velocity bullet, point blank to the temple.

Something dripped down her cheek, and she touched her face. Tears. She smiled sardonically.

“So did I,” she said to the still air in the apartment, and walked out the door, closing it behind her. No one would realize that the former resident was dead; they would chalk it up to another down and out ducking their rent. They would paint over the door, covering the scratches that were actually blood.

Kasu Kenshio folded up the last communication with her partner of four months and stuck it in her coat pocket, face dry as she walked down the steps to her car.

~^~

Michael Lee was tired. `What a day,' he thought as he pushed open the door to the small apartment that had been given to him at Raven's Flat. He stared around numbly. It had only been three hours since he'd left the place, and he was already quite willing to crawl back into bed and fall asleep.

Of course, considering the day he'd had, the nap would end in nightmares.

It had been a good thing that he'd rolled under his workstation, he decided, rubbing his arm, otherwise he would have been scalded all over, rather then just the line down his side. His work computer was mostly in ruins from the water, but everything had been backed up on the network and the laptop he had bought a month after the Factory.

His eyes caught the laptop now, looking at it for a moment and weighing his options. He had been questioned for a half an hour, SOLOMON special ops members trying to get something out of him to help them find Karasuma and Sakaki. He had told them that he had no idea where they would go. That was the truth. He felt like he'd missed something when the two hunters had reacted so strongly to his announcement about the loop. Now he felt like a chunk of code had been taken out of his life, a chunk of code that redefined his co-workers completely.

But despite the fact that he now knew that Karasuma and Sakaki had not been the people he thought they were, he did remember one thing clearly about the moments before the attack. Karasuma, sadly saying his name, and Sakaki's face both rang clearly in his mind. They may have had different goals, but they had not wanted him hurt, had not wanted to leave him.

Mind made up, he opened his laptop, pressing the power button and sitting down in his chair. There had been one thing that he had told the man questioning him that was a lie. He did know how they got out.

As he booted up his network connection for the building, he hoped that the special ops team hadn't had the same idea as him. If the loop that had been fed to the STN-J was remote, it probably would have stopped when the circuit was shot. The power would have been restored automatically everywhere that it could go; which meant that the security cameras had essentially been rebooted.

He nodded when he found it, unsurprised. Filename: CameraC-8:23AM-9:23AM. The cameras archived their information once an hour, and this was about the right time. He opened the file.

For a about three minutes, there was nothing. The well stood alone in the middle of the empty room as the picture panned. Then Karasuma appeared, Sakaki going around her as she stepped onto the low wall. Sakaki stopped, it looked as if Karasuma had said something, and came back to join her on the wall. They paused for a moment, both looking down as the floor dropped from beneath them.

Then, as he watched, Sakaki leaned over and kissed Karasuma straight on the lips. Michael blinked. Partners indeed, he thought, dazed. Sakaki whispered something to her, to which she nodded, and they both disappeared down the well.

Michael paused the tape, sitting back. So. He hadn't been imagining things when he'd felt like the third wheel earlier. Suddenly, he smiled. He could never tell anyone, of course, but now he was glad that he had forgone sleep. Here was a bright point in all of the darkness ahead. The office was trashed, his arm burned, and at some point in the near future, there was going to be a flat full of new hunters to get used to.

But they were alive, and they were together.

A touch of a smile still on his face, Michael created his own loop and rewrote the file, changing the times and erasing the evidence of his hack. Turn about was fair play, after all, especially when it involved two of the few people that he would consider calling friends. When he was done, he shut the computer down and shuffled off to bed, no longer worried about nightmares.

~^~

*is still getting over Single-Eye's death*

Nope. No beta to credit.