[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 53 ~Ryo's Surprise~

[prettyorianna]

Title: The Things We Can't Control
Author:
prettyorianna
Pairing: Akame.  Others to be added later.
Rating: NC-17.
Genre: crime drama au
Beta by: my cat Gemma.  okay, seriously, nobody
Disclaimer: I don't own KAT-TUN, any of its members, any other JE people.  I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks.  But don't steal my
plots, mmkay?  I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page.  But I value those too...

Summary:  Two criminals with vastly different styles meet by chance one day.  They immediately clash but is that all they'll ever be?  How much is fate and how much choice?  And how will their meeting change the world around them?

Author's Note:  There you go.  Not as much Akakameness this time, but I promise in a few chapters you're in for a treat.

BANNER BY DESHISORABA!!  THE MOST AWESOME BANNER EVER AND I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO DISAGREES!

Warning:  This gets graphic often occasionally, containing at the very least foul language, character death, nefarious crimes, rape, etc etc.

The Master Posts:
On my journal - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_ Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the je_kamenashi Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the kattun_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the jin_fics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post



Chapter 53 ~Ryo's Surprise~

“How’d things go at Detective Nishikido’s place, Tesshi?” Kame asked, closing the office door behind them to quiet the sounds coming from the kitchen.

“Oh, you know how it is…” Yuya said casually, but there was a soft smile on his lips.  “He gave me this for you.  Is it was you need?”  And he handed Kame an envelope that had to be at least half an inch wide.  There was obviously a whole lot more in there than a list of untouched gangs.

“And then some, I think…” Kame said as he snatched the letter opener up off the desk.

“So what is it, anyway?”

Kame pulled the stack of pages out of it.  The top page was a mostly blank with a scrawled note from the detective saying it was a copy of everything he had and that he was done with the matter.  “Well, you know I sent you to Ryo about Junno’s getting robbed?”

“Yeah, I still can’t believe someone did that.  He’s Maru’s cousin.  I’d be too afraid to mess with either of them.  That man’s scary sometimes.”

Kame laughed, “Yeah, I’m not sure Maru’s quite all there.  Those stupid rabbits…  Well, he looked into it a bit and it seems the rumors on the street are that we did it.”

“But we didn’t!” was Yuya’s immediate response.  “Nobody here would go against you like that.  You know that.”

“I know that, Tesshi,” and Kame smiled at him.  “You know I didn’t order it and I know you all wouldn’t go behind my back like that.  Besides,” and Kame laughed, “it sounds like they didn’t even do a really good job of it.  We’d do much better, I think!  Don’t you?”

“You bet!” Yuya was laughing with him.

“Well, Nishikido-san looked a little further since nobody believes we’d do it.  Apparently, we’re not the only gang having our off-limit resources targeted.  Almost all the gangs in the city have this problem, only nobody believes them.  And you just know the cops don’t care.  They’re happy the gangs are having problems.  Hell, Ryo didn’t even care.  He told me and this note on top says that he’s done with the whole mess.”

“So… then this stuff?”  He waved at the paperwork.

“It was supposed to be a list of gangs that haven’t yet been targeted…” but Kame was now flipping through pages, taking stock of what was actually there, “… but these look like the police reports for some of the robberies in the other territories and the one from Junno’s… and this… what is this… oh, wow… how did he get a hold of these?”

It was common knowledge on the street that the police had not-so-secret secret files on all the different gangs.  Stuff like a lists of snitches, risk assessment, areas to avoid, where the bribes were coming from, what the alliances were…

Detective Nishikido shouldn’t have these files.  Kame didn’t know how he’d gotten them; he really doubted he’d done it just for Kizuna.  He must have already had them.  Well, he did stick his nose in places it didn’t belong if the price was right.  All this information, it’d be useful to him for that.  But to steal a copy right out from under the noses of his superiors when they won’t even admit the stuff exists in the first place!  The man was even craftier than Kame ever suspected.  He found his respect for the man increasing.

And his gratitude as well.  It couldn’t have been an easy decision to turn a copy of it over to Kame.  This information was dangerous.  The wrong hands would see police informants murdered, undercover agents targeted, that sort of thing.

Though Kizuna’s file was not with the others.  Not that Kame blamed him on that count.

“Stunned silence is a bit worrisome from you, Kame.  What is it?  What has he given us?” Yuya finally asked.

Kame was still so floored he almost couldn’t speak.  Instead, he just murmured, “Look,” and handed one of the pages to him.

“How did he get this?”  The surprise was clearly evident in Yuya’s voice.

“I…” Kame started slowly, “…have to decide what to do with this.  No, scratch that.  We have to decide, all of us.  I gave Ryo my word I wouldn’t start a gang war and would only go after those responsible for Junno’s so most of this won’t be… but… no, I’d better lock this stuff in the drawer for now until we decide what we want to do with all that information.  We… we could save… so many…” Overcome with emotion, his voice sort of cracked on him and then just left.  Yuya handed the page back and Kame added it back to the stack.

Kame leafed through the pages again, pulling out everything he’d need immediately but he shoved the rest of it back into the folder and unlocked the desk drawer with the key around his neck.  He put the folder carefully in there and locked it back.  “I don’t understand why he’d give us those files, though.  Especially for free.”

“He respects you.”

Glancing up at Yuya in surprise, Kame asked, “You think so?”

“He said so.”

Well, wasn’t that something…

“Listen, thanks for going to get this stuff.  You have no idea what it means to me, Tesshi.”

Yuya laughed and it was a happy one, “You’re calling me Tesshi again.  You’re smiling more.  Keep that up, we’re even, ne?”

“Un.”

Yuya left, heading down the hall in the general direction of the kitchen and Kame sank down into the chair with an amazed, “Huh.”

They really could help so many people with that information.

But, much as he’d rather be doing that than what he had, he pushed it out of mind and picked up the list of gangs that hadn’t been targeted yet.

Papa K’s name was on there (he didn’t have a “gang” so much as a vast group of people working for him in many different criminal fields but it was close enough), but he knew it would be.  Nobody was stupid enough to tangle with him.  Well, nobody except Kizuna and they did it very, very carefully.  But, past that, three of the city’s sixteen gangs hadn’t yet been hit.

Pierrot, run by a man named Kirito, was probably the scariest gang in the city if you discounted Papa K’s enterprise.  They were violent and considered anything less than murder an unacceptable solution to pretty much every problem they ever faced.  Fortunately for Kizuna, their territory was also the furthest away so they rarely tangled.

Malice Mizer used to be run by a man named Gackt but the man had since left the business of the streets entirely.  One day out of the blue, the man had announced his sudden retirement and had vanished off the surface of the earth it seemed.  Every now and again, there were what Kame had taken to calling Phantom Gackt Sightings so he was pretty sure the man was still around somewhere in the city.  But Malice Mizer’s leadership had passed to a man who called himself Mana.

Then there was Janne Da Arc, which was actually one of the gangs that shared a border with Kizuna.  Just as Kizuna was almost entirely whores, Janne Da Arc as a group was almost entirely drug runners and dealers.  It was run by a man named Yasu.

That man Kame knew and a lot closer than he really liked to dwell on.

They weren’t friends, or even slightly friendly.  Actually, it was fair to say they hated each other.  Aside from what had gone down between just the two of them, the man unapologetically targeted children as customers.  He even convinced a fair number of them to work for his gang.

And Yasu was still rather mad about the few blocks of territory Kizuna had taken from them, back in the beginning days of the gang.  He also was a bit sore on the whole matter of Kame trying to kill him once.  But… they’d reached a kind of accord later.  Kizuna no longer expanded in their direction.  Territory lines were clearly defined where they touched.  And Kame kept his “little rescues” from causing him too much trouble with important gang members.

That’s what Yasu called them.  But he hadn’t forbidden them.  He’d figured out there was no way he’d get that promise from Kame so he hadn’t tried.  And it was true that Kame had gone to the man three times and paid him to liberate someone tangled with Janne Da Arc’s higher ranking members rather than doing an extraction.  Expensive, but safer and it kept Yasu more or less happy.

Hmm…

There was no helping it.  He’d have to go talk to the man.  Kame was pretty sure he wasn’t behind the gang troubles since it was city-wide and Janne Da Arc didn’t have the resources to operate at that level.  Still, it wasn’t like Kame could go alone.  They might have an understanding but, well, they wouldn’t NEED one if Kame was dead.

No, he’d better take a couple of his enforcers along and of course, Koki to drive.

Yoshiro was watching over the eastern-most stroll tonight so he couldn’t do it.  Maybe Yurina and…

The office phone ringing caused Kame to jump backwards in surprise so suddenly and vehemently he ended up tipping his chair over backwards, sending him sprawling to the flood, legs tangled.  But he recovered quickly, snatching up the phone.  “Moshi moshi.”

It was the shop owner from Lexus and Eighth.  “Kamenashi-san?  Look… um…” and Kame could tell the man was pretty nervous about calling.  “I… uh… well, do you think you can… send… someone?  There’s another dealer out here… and… well, you said…”

Really nervous.  Hmm…. what was the man’s name again?  Wana… something… Ah!

“Wanatabe-san, calm down.  It’s okay you called.  Even more than okay.  I’d rather you left this to us anyway.  I’ll send someone to you right now, so just stay in your shop.  We’ll handle it and believe me when I say we’re actively looking into this, sir.”  He kept his voice soft, confident, and soothing.  He’d had a lot of practice calming people down since Kizuna began.  He wasn’t anywhere near Akira’s skill level but he did well.

“I… can’t say how relieved I am.  I didn’t want to bother you but…”

“It’s not a bother.  You’ve done so much for us; we’re glad to do this for you.”

“Thank you.”  The man said his polite goodbyes and hung up.

The shop keepers always sounded nervous asking favors.  Well, he supposed he didn’t blame them.  Kizuna was a gang, after all.  If they realized just how much Kizuna counted on them for the food donations and discounts… they probably wouldn’t be so nervous asking for help.  They’d see he had to keep them happy.

But he had to admit, he’d hoped another dealer would show soon.  They’d snag him and then they’d be able to get some answers.  Kizuna had a few places they could take the man other than the church though the storage unit would probably be the best.

He didn’t want to pull anyone off the strolls.  Takeshi and his brother, maybe?  They were… talented… at getting answers and when they worked together it could get downright scary.  Oh, not torture!  Kizuna didn’t do that, unlike some of the gangs.  But a little violence never hurt, right?

He’d wanted to take Takeshi with him to see Yasu but maybe Jin could come with him instead.  Yes, Yurina and Jin would probably be okay.  Jin could handle a gun and Yurina… well, she could handle pretty much anything that maims or kills.  Hell, if she killed a man with a paper plate it would be done masterfully and wouldn’t surprise him in the slightest.  Though she generally preferred to not kill unless absolutely necessary.  Some members of Kizuna were a bit more bloodthirsty but not to the point he was worried.

Okay, first things first.

He tracked down Takeshi and sent the brothers on their way.  They’d make their own way (probably steal a car) so he wasn’t worried.  He left Problem Number One with them, confident it would be handled properly.

Then he tracked down Yurina.  She was happy to come with him.  Kame had no idea how long it was going to take to see Yasu, so he told her she should probably eat some dinner first and to meet him at the car in thirty minutes.

Koki was eating with the street kids so he was easy to find.  He agreed to drive.

Jin was the one that was hard to find, but Kame eventually tracked him down outside, near the back kitchen door.  He was crouched down, which was why Kame didn’t see him at first.  What was he up to?

“Such a sweet kitty!   I promised I’d sneak you a nibblet, now didn’t I?  Pretty girl…” Jin’s voice, so warm and caring.  “Who’s a pretty kitty-chan?”

Jin didn’t notice Kame watching him, apparently.  But Kame didn’t want to disturb him.  There was something so peaceful in the whole thing and Jin looked… happy.  Those caring eyes were back, this time directed at a little puff of fur that was barely recognizable as “cat” and most certainly wasn’t a “pretty” anything.  Poor thing looked like it had spent the last week living in a dumpster.  Hell, it probably had.  But Jin didn’t seem to care.  He just kept crooning at her, calling her pretty and petting her.

Such a kind heart, even if he was such a Bakanishi.

Kame hated intruding on the moment he was having, but there was no helping it.  He cleared his throat to let Jin know he was out there, to give him a chance to collect himself, not be so vulnerable.  It was just a measure of respect before approaching him to give Jin time to present the face he wanted to and not the unguarded side he’d shown the little cat.

The sound sent the cat fleeing down the alley but Jin stood back up, adjusting his shirt a bit.  “Uh… hi…”

Striding purposefully towards Jin, Kame asked, “Hey, I have something I need to go do and I could really use your help.  Do you wanna come?”

“What’s up?  What’s the job?”

“Eh, I have to go talk to another gang’s leader and I need might at my back.  You know how to handle a gun.  I figured, you and Yurina should be enough?”

“Sure thing, Kame.  Um… Koki locked my gun back up after we got back from out of town.  Said he didn’t want the kids getting their hands on it.”

“Oh, don’t worry.  I’m going to get the hardware and we’re meeting up at the car in about ten minutes.  Have you eaten yet?  I don’t know how long this will take.”

Jin nodded.  “Does this have to do with Junno’s robbery?”

“Yeah…”

“Okay, I’ll meet you at the car then.  Ten minutes.”

Kame smiled at Jin and said, “Thanks!” and then took off to fetch whatever they needed to take with them.

+++

As Kame walked away, Jin let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.  He though Kame saw him feeding the cat and was going to lecture him on wasting the food.   But… well, it was his food, the last bits of it.  It was coming out of his mouth, not someone else.  He just couldn’t let the kitty starve.  He knew what it was like to not eat for days and he couldn’t leave it be even if it wasn’t a person.

But, no, Kame wanted his help.

Kame was relying on him.  This is what Jin wanted.  Of course he agreed to do it.

And ten minutes later, Koki, Kame, Yurina, and Jin had all converged on the blue Taurus and were heading on their way.

During the drive, Kame started handing out the weaponry and explained a bit better about where they were going.  There were three gangs that hadn’t been hit yet and they were on their way to talk to one of the gangs’ leaders.  Kame knew the guy, apparently, though he didn’t sound too happy to be going to see the man.

“So, what, we just show up on his doorstep, pound on his door, and hope he sees us?” Jin asked.

Kame gave a small laugh and shook his head, “If you were in charge, that’s what you’d do?”

“No.  But… if he doesn’t know we’re coming…?”

“Baka…” but it wasn’t a mean voice, “he knows we’re coming.  I called him.”

“I’m not baka…” Jin pouted playfully.

Kame eyed him appraisingly.  “Hmm… I dunno, you look pretty baka to me.  Who was it that ran through the halls shouting about ‘the revolution’ yesterday?”

“Hey, that wasn’t just me!  You’re the one that said we should get the spoons and barricade the office with office supplies!”

“Oh my god, he did?” Yurina laughed.  “Kame said that?”

Kame was glaring at him but Jin didn’t care, “Yup!”

“Hilarious!  Seriously, Kame, it’s about time you’ve lightened up.  You’re always so dramatic!”

“Oh, not you too, Yuri-chan!” Kame whined.

But they all started laughing, so hard Koki nearly ran them off the road.  He muttered apologies and told them that under no circumstances were they to make him laugh again or he’d pull the car over and they could walk.  He wasn’t about to crash the Taurus, he said, so the three of them needed to stop acting like children.

Jin could tell he wasn’t serious, though.

Once they showed up at the house, though, they immediately sobered.  It was time to be serious.

Koki waited in the car while Kame, Yurina, and Jin walked to the door.  Five minutes later the three of them were standing in the living room, Jin to one side of Kame and Yurina the other, in a tight triangle formation.

“Well, well… Kizuna’s Kame-chan.  And you brought your dogs with you this time.  Not as foolish as you used to be, are you?”

“Now, Yasu, there’s no need to be rude.  I just need to talk in person and I thought it would be difficult to do if you killed me.”

Wow, this was a tense room.

Jin had never seen a meeting between two gang leaders before.  It was… eggshells.  Walking on eggshells.

“Oh, I think if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t do it in my house.”

“That’s why we’re meeting here.  I knew you wouldn’t want to have to scrub blood out of your new carpet - and it is a lovely carpet, much better than the one you used to have - and I figured if I came quickly enough, you wouldn’t have time to call in enough men to drag three of us off.”

“Clever boy…”

Kame shook his head.  “I’m not a boy anymore, Yasu.  You’re just getting older.”

“Ah, so that’s why you’re here then?  To insult me in my own home?”

“You know me better than that.  I could do that over the phone.”

Why was Kame antagonizing the man?  He was asking for trouble like that.  “Ne, Kame…?” he murmured unsurely.

“Quiet, Jin!” Kame snapped without looking.

“But…”

“I said be quiet!”

Jin shut up.  He didn’t say another word the whole time they were there.

++++++++++++++++++++

The story continues:
Chapter 54 ~The Message~

A/N:  Okay, I know that picking three bands I used to listen to a lot and making them gangs is pretty damn lazy.  But, well, deal LOL.  I just didn't want to have to think of names for gangs since I have to do that in a different story in the future.  So you get Pierrot, Malice Mizer, and Janne Da Arc, all three of which spent some time being a favorite of mine in the past.

Next present!chapter will be back to Kame's perspective and we'll get the whole encounter there at Yasu's.  Plus more info on what went down before, where Kame tried to kill him that I briefly mentioned above.

And wasn't Jin so adorable with the kitty?