Takane no Hana - 29 - Conspiracy
Title: Takane no Hana - 29 - Conspiracy
Authors: esanabridges & akilei & mpemba_effect & lilblooskies
Note: You see that? MIAKI DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WITH KYUKI. >O
Miaki didn’t quite make a beeline for Ren.
Although she wasn’t sure how Ren had found out about Rikuto’s death, no doubt the government knew Ren knew and would be watching her.
And anyone who goes near her.
She’d stopped by Ryuu in the living room first, fetching him a slice of ice cream cake from the kitchen because the heat had made him x100 more lethargic than usual. She didn’t condone laziness, but they were on vacation and he had used that adorable pout that he knew she couldn’t say no to. She half smiled as she thought of how Yuzuki would have scolded her for letting Ryuu be lazy.
But he needs to be spoiled right now.
The others probably couldn’t see it. At the most maybe Mitsuru might have noticed Ryuu was worried about something, the subtle furrow of his brow and slight downturns of his mouth indicated that much. But there
was something in his eyes that she recognized from when they were younger.
*flashback*
Recently graduated trainees, they had been teamed with a veteran member to gain experience outside the training rooms. The mission given had been simple enough, hack the security system, infiltrate the prison, retrieve information from the target, and get out. The target that time was a captured government employee who held a chip containing names and photos as well as clips of the ring leaders of a global drug network. The U.N. had allowed the U.S. to take action as needed against any of the associated drug lords no matter which country they hid in as long as they presented sufficient evidence of their guilt. The top spies had already gathered the information needed, but the government had sent out a team to gather the chip anyway, just in case one of the countries tried to contest the evidence. The subject wasn’t even held in that
strong of a prison, but they hadn’t counted on one thing-
The target himself betraying them.
Ryuu had successfully gotten Miaki in, and she had knocked out the few guards she came across. But when she got to the targets room, she had mistakenly let down her guard.
He attacked her, holding her arms behind her and pinning her face first to the ground. Before finding her, he had been locked in a dark room for weeks, every now and then being given a shot of LSD, enough to get
him addicted. It had wrecked him completely.
Luckily Ryuu had been toying with the security cameras, enjoying his first hack of a real security system, when he came across the video streaming from the target’s room.
Miaki, down on the floor, wrists and ankles bound, mouth gagged, and a man kneeling over her, ripping off her clothes.
He’d nearly made the veteran go deaf from his screams to help Miaki, but the seasoned spy had reacted faster than him and had already made his way to the room, pulling the man off Miaki and shooting him with a tranquilizer dart, carefully putting away the chip before pulling Miaki into his arms and getting back to Ryuu’s hacker van.
*end flashback*
The government had written it off as a successful mission, hushing up any information about the rogue employee. The veteran with them had tried to bring the issue to light-
He was fired the next day.
Although there had been no physical damage, Miaki had taken weeks of therapy to recover from the shock. Ryuu had stood beside her the whole time, the protecting older brother, calm in appearance, but crimson red eyes smoldering with sadness and rage.
Just like now.
He knows about Rikuto too.
She frowned, how many others knew? Did the government know they knew? If so, were they going to try to hush things up?
She paused by Mitsuru in the study room,
“Mitsuru~”
“Yes Miaki?”
“Where’s Ren? I want her to help me with a choreo~”
“I haven’t been out of the room in awhile, but I’ll bet she’d upstairs in her room sulking because Yuzuki
couldn’t come.”
“Oh. Right. Bye then~”
“Wait- Miaki.”
“Hmm?”
“Ah…nevermind.”
Miaki pouted, “What is it? You’ve made me curious!”
Mitsuru chuckled and waved his hand, “Don’t worry about it, just go up to Ren.”
“Noooo,” she whined, “I can’t possibly choreo if I’m wondering what you were going to say!”
“I said don’t worry about it. By the way, what did happen between you and Kyuki that night?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh really? Even though you shared a bed?”
“Just because we shared a bed doesn’t mean we did it. God, I swear you men have a one track mind. Even
Ryuu asked if we had sex.”
“Who said anything about sex?”
“…goodbye Mitsuru.”
Finally she stood in front of Ren’s room.
Knock knock
“Ren?”
“Harrumph”
“…Ren, I’m coming in.”
The door opened with a click and Miaki walked in to find Ren buried with her head in a pillow. Miaki hovered around the girl for a moment before swooping in for the attack.
“Hugu~slam!” [A/N: yes, Miaki just gave Ren a body slam/hug. :P]
“GAH. GAT OFF AH CAHNT BWEATHE!!!”
Miaki watched amused as Ren’s arms flailed beneath her before shifting her weight off the girl’s back.
“Ren~”
“…hmph.”
“Are you still sulking because Yuzuki couldn’t come?”
Miaki smiled as Ren turned her head away with an hmph, even if she was the mother of A1, she still had her childish moments.
But she sobered as she remembered why she had come for Ren. She sighed and got up as if to leave,
“Fine if you’re not going to talk I’m leaving you.”
She stalked to the door, stealthily snapping a small chip onto the light switch beside it. Instantly the lights and all other electronics in the room turned off.
Ren looked up in alarm, “Miaki?”
“It’s one of Yuzuki’s latest projects, a chip that cuts off electricity to everything in the room for as long as it’s placed. If any cameras have been recording it’ll replay the camera’s tape of the last hour.”
Ren still looked confused, “But why did you do that?”
Miaki locked the door behind her and sat back down beside Ren,
“I want to talk about Rikuto’s death.”
There was a silence as Ren finished her story, fists clenching in anger at the memory.
Miaki nodded slowly, “That confirms it. I think I know what’s going on.”
At this Ren’s head shot up, “What?”
“You know when Yuzuki was giving us goodbye hugs?”
“Yes.”
“She gave me a message in code while she hugged me. The first part was to tell me about Rikuto’s death, the second part was ‘Shelley’.”
“Shelley?”
“As in Mary Shelley, you know, the woman who wrote Frankenstein?”
Ren grew silent as the gears began to click into place in her head, “Rikuto was working on a top secret research project for the government, and he let Yuzuki find out about it. So they killed him and got Yuzuki to replace him, meaning that the research isn’t done yet. But…a research on resurrection? Why?”
“I don’t know,” Miaki bit her lip, “and then there’s Kirai too. Did he really send you on that mission to save Rikuto? And how did they know they were going to kill him? To know info like that… who’s side is he on?”
Ren got up and paced the room, “That’s not all. I caught the assassin and turned him in, so the government knows I know what they did. But I haven’t been contacted about it.”
“Oh yeah… does Rikuto know?”
“…”
“Ren?”
“Yeah, I…I lost it the first night I came home. Ryuu knows everything.”
“Ah, I thought so. Damn. We don’t know what they’re planning at all. We have to tell Mitsuru, but if possible I want to keep the rookies out of this, and Kotone. If they government tries to “hush us up”, I don’t want them to get caught in it.”
“Yeah. By the way, how much time do we have left?”
“…two minutes. We’re good. I’m going to leave now and tell Mitsuru that we’re going to hold the fireworks tonight. We can use the noise to cover the meeting. Now get back in bed, I’m taking the chip off.”
The lights sprang back into life and Ren lay with her head buried back into the pillows, thoughts racing a mile a minute.
What are we getting ourselves into?
Miaki wandered back onto the beach after telling Mitsuru about the fireworks. He had only lifted an eyebrow and nodded yes before going back to his work.
Suddenly a movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention.
Mochi and Ringo, splashing in and out of the ocean, and just a few feet away from them-
“Dante~”
The wind ruffled a blond tip over the edge of the beach chair, its owner reclining silently on the smooth white plastic.
Miaki slowly crept up behind him, carefully hovering her hands above his eyes.
“Boo!”
Nothing. No reaction.
Miaki frowned and paced around the chair, sitting down on the little space beside him. She watched for a minute as his chest rose and fell steadily. He looked like an angel, the light bouncing off his hair in a halo
and golden wisps brushing across his lightly bronzed skin. So peaceful, so perfect,
Except Dante never naps. Ever.
She waved her hands over his face, “I know you’re not asleep!”
But the angel was immovable.
Sighing, she leaned down and rested her head on his chest, reaching across him to lace her fingers with his.
“You’ve been ignoring me lately.”
“…”
“Nothing happened between me and Kyuki. I swear.”
“…”
“Please Dante, I-
A soft thumb brushing away a tear startled her from finishing her sentence.
“Shh, don’t cry. I know.”
She hadn’t even notice she’d started crying, but now that she had, the tears came pouring out unbidden.
“I t-thought (hic) y-you hated m-m-me (hic) f-for sure.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I was just being jealous.”
He shifted to hold her more properly in his arms; drawing up her head beneath his chin and sighing into her hair.
“I was just about to go crazy from ignoring you toooOW!”
Miaki giggled as Mochi and Ringo hopped up onto Dante’s stomach, successfully knocking the wind out of him and then worming their way into the small space between their bodies.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Authors: esanabridges & akilei & mpemba_effect & lilblooskies
Note: You see that? MIAKI DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WITH KYUKI. >O
Miaki didn’t quite make a beeline for Ren.
Although she wasn’t sure how Ren had found out about Rikuto’s death, no doubt the government knew Ren knew and would be watching her.
And anyone who goes near her.
She’d stopped by Ryuu in the living room first, fetching him a slice of ice cream cake from the kitchen because the heat had made him x100 more lethargic than usual. She didn’t condone laziness, but they were on vacation and he had used that adorable pout that he knew she couldn’t say no to. She half smiled as she thought of how Yuzuki would have scolded her for letting Ryuu be lazy.
But he needs to be spoiled right now.
The others probably couldn’t see it. At the most maybe Mitsuru might have noticed Ryuu was worried about something, the subtle furrow of his brow and slight downturns of his mouth indicated that much. But there
was something in his eyes that she recognized from when they were younger.
*flashback*
Recently graduated trainees, they had been teamed with a veteran member to gain experience outside the training rooms. The mission given had been simple enough, hack the security system, infiltrate the prison, retrieve information from the target, and get out. The target that time was a captured government employee who held a chip containing names and photos as well as clips of the ring leaders of a global drug network. The U.N. had allowed the U.S. to take action as needed against any of the associated drug lords no matter which country they hid in as long as they presented sufficient evidence of their guilt. The top spies had already gathered the information needed, but the government had sent out a team to gather the chip anyway, just in case one of the countries tried to contest the evidence. The subject wasn’t even held in that
strong of a prison, but they hadn’t counted on one thing-
The target himself betraying them.
Ryuu had successfully gotten Miaki in, and she had knocked out the few guards she came across. But when she got to the targets room, she had mistakenly let down her guard.
He attacked her, holding her arms behind her and pinning her face first to the ground. Before finding her, he had been locked in a dark room for weeks, every now and then being given a shot of LSD, enough to get
him addicted. It had wrecked him completely.
Luckily Ryuu had been toying with the security cameras, enjoying his first hack of a real security system, when he came across the video streaming from the target’s room.
Miaki, down on the floor, wrists and ankles bound, mouth gagged, and a man kneeling over her, ripping off her clothes.
He’d nearly made the veteran go deaf from his screams to help Miaki, but the seasoned spy had reacted faster than him and had already made his way to the room, pulling the man off Miaki and shooting him with a tranquilizer dart, carefully putting away the chip before pulling Miaki into his arms and getting back to Ryuu’s hacker van.
*end flashback*
The government had written it off as a successful mission, hushing up any information about the rogue employee. The veteran with them had tried to bring the issue to light-
He was fired the next day.
Although there had been no physical damage, Miaki had taken weeks of therapy to recover from the shock. Ryuu had stood beside her the whole time, the protecting older brother, calm in appearance, but crimson red eyes smoldering with sadness and rage.
Just like now.
He knows about Rikuto too.
She frowned, how many others knew? Did the government know they knew? If so, were they going to try to hush things up?
She paused by Mitsuru in the study room,
“Mitsuru~”
“Yes Miaki?”
“Where’s Ren? I want her to help me with a choreo~”
“I haven’t been out of the room in awhile, but I’ll bet she’d upstairs in her room sulking because Yuzuki
couldn’t come.”
“Oh. Right. Bye then~”
“Wait- Miaki.”
“Hmm?”
“Ah…nevermind.”
Miaki pouted, “What is it? You’ve made me curious!”
Mitsuru chuckled and waved his hand, “Don’t worry about it, just go up to Ren.”
“Noooo,” she whined, “I can’t possibly choreo if I’m wondering what you were going to say!”
“I said don’t worry about it. By the way, what did happen between you and Kyuki that night?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh really? Even though you shared a bed?”
“Just because we shared a bed doesn’t mean we did it. God, I swear you men have a one track mind. Even
Ryuu asked if we had sex.”
“Who said anything about sex?”
“…goodbye Mitsuru.”
Finally she stood in front of Ren’s room.
Knock knock
“Ren?”
“Harrumph”
“…Ren, I’m coming in.”
The door opened with a click and Miaki walked in to find Ren buried with her head in a pillow. Miaki hovered around the girl for a moment before swooping in for the attack.
“Hugu~slam!” [A/N: yes, Miaki just gave Ren a body slam/hug. :P]
“GAH. GAT OFF AH CAHNT BWEATHE!!!”
Miaki watched amused as Ren’s arms flailed beneath her before shifting her weight off the girl’s back.
“Ren~”
“…hmph.”
“Are you still sulking because Yuzuki couldn’t come?”
Miaki smiled as Ren turned her head away with an hmph, even if she was the mother of A1, she still had her childish moments.
But she sobered as she remembered why she had come for Ren. She sighed and got up as if to leave,
“Fine if you’re not going to talk I’m leaving you.”
She stalked to the door, stealthily snapping a small chip onto the light switch beside it. Instantly the lights and all other electronics in the room turned off.
Ren looked up in alarm, “Miaki?”
“It’s one of Yuzuki’s latest projects, a chip that cuts off electricity to everything in the room for as long as it’s placed. If any cameras have been recording it’ll replay the camera’s tape of the last hour.”
Ren still looked confused, “But why did you do that?”
Miaki locked the door behind her and sat back down beside Ren,
“I want to talk about Rikuto’s death.”
There was a silence as Ren finished her story, fists clenching in anger at the memory.
Miaki nodded slowly, “That confirms it. I think I know what’s going on.”
At this Ren’s head shot up, “What?”
“You know when Yuzuki was giving us goodbye hugs?”
“Yes.”
“She gave me a message in code while she hugged me. The first part was to tell me about Rikuto’s death, the second part was ‘Shelley’.”
“Shelley?”
“As in Mary Shelley, you know, the woman who wrote Frankenstein?”
Ren grew silent as the gears began to click into place in her head, “Rikuto was working on a top secret research project for the government, and he let Yuzuki find out about it. So they killed him and got Yuzuki to replace him, meaning that the research isn’t done yet. But…a research on resurrection? Why?”
“I don’t know,” Miaki bit her lip, “and then there’s Kirai too. Did he really send you on that mission to save Rikuto? And how did they know they were going to kill him? To know info like that… who’s side is he on?”
Ren got up and paced the room, “That’s not all. I caught the assassin and turned him in, so the government knows I know what they did. But I haven’t been contacted about it.”
“Oh yeah… does Rikuto know?”
“…”
“Ren?”
“Yeah, I…I lost it the first night I came home. Ryuu knows everything.”
“Ah, I thought so. Damn. We don’t know what they’re planning at all. We have to tell Mitsuru, but if possible I want to keep the rookies out of this, and Kotone. If they government tries to “hush us up”, I don’t want them to get caught in it.”
“Yeah. By the way, how much time do we have left?”
“…two minutes. We’re good. I’m going to leave now and tell Mitsuru that we’re going to hold the fireworks tonight. We can use the noise to cover the meeting. Now get back in bed, I’m taking the chip off.”
The lights sprang back into life and Ren lay with her head buried back into the pillows, thoughts racing a mile a minute.
What are we getting ourselves into?
Miaki wandered back onto the beach after telling Mitsuru about the fireworks. He had only lifted an eyebrow and nodded yes before going back to his work.
Suddenly a movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention.
Mochi and Ringo, splashing in and out of the ocean, and just a few feet away from them-
“Dante~”
The wind ruffled a blond tip over the edge of the beach chair, its owner reclining silently on the smooth white plastic.
Miaki slowly crept up behind him, carefully hovering her hands above his eyes.
“Boo!”
Nothing. No reaction.
Miaki frowned and paced around the chair, sitting down on the little space beside him. She watched for a minute as his chest rose and fell steadily. He looked like an angel, the light bouncing off his hair in a halo
and golden wisps brushing across his lightly bronzed skin. So peaceful, so perfect,
Except Dante never naps. Ever.
She waved her hands over his face, “I know you’re not asleep!”
But the angel was immovable.
Sighing, she leaned down and rested her head on his chest, reaching across him to lace her fingers with his.
“You’ve been ignoring me lately.”
“…”
“Nothing happened between me and Kyuki. I swear.”
“…”
“Please Dante, I-
A soft thumb brushing away a tear startled her from finishing her sentence.
“Shh, don’t cry. I know.”
She hadn’t even notice she’d started crying, but now that she had, the tears came pouring out unbidden.
“I t-thought (hic) y-you hated m-m-me (hic) f-for sure.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I was just being jealous.”
He shifted to hold her more properly in his arms; drawing up her head beneath his chin and sighing into her hair.
“I was just about to go crazy from ignoring you toooOW!”
Miaki giggled as Mochi and Ringo hopped up onto Dante’s stomach, successfully knocking the wind out of him and then worming their way into the small space between their bodies.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”