'Seatbelts' for the Switching it up community
For: switching_it_up
Title: Seatbelts
Characters: Niou, Yagyuu, Yanagi, Yukimura.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Most people would probably say it was the end of something - his life as Masaharu, a rich brat who hacked too much in his too-often free time. It was the beginning of a lot of chaos, though, and as someone very partial to chaos Niou likes to say that it started with his first glimpse of Yagyuu.
Warnings: Violence.
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis and its characters do not belong to me.
A/N: I really hope you enjoy this.
“Shit!” Niou snapped. He dropped himself heavily into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door shut. He pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and shook it to find it empty. “Shit.”
“I told you to hold the shot,” Yagyuu said.
“There wasn’t time. I had him!”
“Clearly, you didn’t.”
Niou sighed, and stared out the window for a moment before he looked over at Yagyuu. He was staring straight at the road, hands precisely at ten and two on the steering wheel. Headlights from the cars around them reflected off his glasses. “Stop fidgeting.”
Niou curled his lip and dropped his hand from the window controls he had been using. He hated defeat - thought he wasn’t sure why it felt like Yagyuu’s victory over him, when Yagyuu was on his side. “I’ll get him tomorrow.”
“No,” Yagyuu said, “I’ll get him, and you’ll spend the day practicing shots.”
Niou hated the measured finality in Yagyuu’s voice, but he swallowed back his instinctive argument. He wouldn’t give Yagyuu the satisfaction. He leaned toward Yagyuu, instead. “You won’t even let me watch? I’m supposed to be learning from you, not playing around on the shooting range.”
Yagyuu abruptly stopped the car for a red light, knocking Niou off balance. “You’re practicing tomorrow, because next time you need to actually make the shot. We have a job that requires both of us, and there’s no room for mistakes. Not with Rikkai. Now do up your seatbelt.”
* * *
It all began when he came home too late to use the door, again. Most people would probably say it was the end of something - his life as Masaharu, a rich brat who hacked too much in his too-often free time. It was the beginning of a lot of chaos, though, and as someone very partial to chaos Niou likes to say that it started with his first glimpse of Yagyuu.
No matter what Yagyuu says, Niou knows he was surprised by the rain-drenched kid crawling through a third floor window in the middle of a robbery. He knows the expression on Yagyuu’s face was one of shock because he has never seen it again. Yet.
At the time Niou was a little bit drunk, and a little bit irritated at having lost his keys, which led to him climbing a drain pipe in the rain. He dropped through the window, landing mostly on his face on the floor of his father’s study. He lay there for a second before he realised he wasn’t alone in the room, and then looked up slowly. Through the strands of hair plastered to his face he saw a man with broad shoulders, glasses with thin metal frames, and a gun pointed directly at Niou.
It was the first time anyone had pulled a gun on Niou, and it was more terrifying than any movie had led him to believe. His breath caught in his throat and he froze, too scared to move. Instead, he started to talk. He felt it was something he was good at, and either way he found it a good way to get out of trouble. It was an instinct, but he tended to think it was a good one.
“That’s a fake. The painting - your gun is probably real. And you’re dripping rain water on the most expensive rug in the house.” He cautiously nodded his head toward the ugly brown carpet under the man’s feet, which were somehow free of the mud caked on Niou’s own shoes - lucky for him, if he wanted the carpet. “Also, the cops will be here in ten minutes, unless I enter the security code on the system. In the hall.” The man had clearly avoided tripping the alarm on his way in, so he must have known it existed. Hopefully that was enough for him to trust Niou.
The burglar still had his gun aimed at Niou’s head, and he was now staring at him with an indiscernible expression. The shock had fallen from his face as soon as Niou had opened his mouth. He easily tossed the worthless painting away, and sidestepped off of the expensive carpet. “Go, then.” He gestured slightly with the terrifying gun. Niou carefully pulled himself to his feet, keeping his eyes on the gun, and crossed to the door out of the room. The man didn’t quite lock gazes with him, as they were both busy watching for signs of sudden movement from the other, but Niou was reminded of circling wolves as he edged around the room.
The main console for the security system was in the connecting hallway. Niou made sure his shoes squelched as loudly as possible as he crossed the gleaming parquet, so that the gun-wielding stranger knew he was where he said he’d be. Not that he was doing what he said he’d do. Niou had disarmed the system before breaking in himself. The code he put into the keypad was to call the police to the house. If the alarm didn’t go off things could only end badly for Niou, and he wanted to up the ante.
It wasn’t that he wanted the burglar to get caught, although he knew most people would consider it self preservation. Niou knew he wasn’t going to get shot, since he hadn’t been yet, and he respected anyone who knocked down lazy rich people like his parents. Niou’s goal at the moment was the find the most exciting role he could play in the approaching action, with the fewest consequences. Playing against a capable criminal was a challenge he hadn’t even imagined before, but he could tell already that Yagyuu was far more interesting than he’d expect from a break-and-enter.
Niou packed a mental loot-bag for the man as he planned a meandering ‘escape’ route that would bring them to the garage just as the police arrived. It would give him enough time to shove the man into one of his father’s faster classic cars. If the burglar had arrived in something identifiable, well that bad planning wasn’t Niou’s fault. If the man had planned enough ahead then he’d get a well-deserved payoff. This plan also gave Niou a chance to try to track him down through sales on the black market.
A tap on the shoulder startled Niou, but he turned his jump of surprise into a sharp turn-around to meet the burglar’s gaze as evenly as he could. The other man raised an eyebrow at Niou, who flashed his toothiest grin. Tall, dark and silent wasn’t going to intimidate him that easily - although the gun ever present in the man’s hand left him less at ease than he’d like. Niou darted around the broad man, unwilling to remain cornered.
“The alarm is dealt with, time for a tour,” Niou announced, making a grand sweeping gesture.
“Dealt with, hmm?” the other man murmured, but he followed.
Niou led him through a door into a long hallway of paintings, pushing two smaller works into his arms before turning down another side hall. There he ignored the artwork, but selected a couple of candlesticks off the table and shoved them into the man’s pockets. The burglar made a noise of protest, but Niou darted around his full arms quickly and revealed the rear staircase - an addition not present in most blueprints of the house. On the ground floor Niou had the man pick up a couple of jewelled paper weights and an antique fan before stepping into the garage. Niou gestured to a rack of colour-coded keys next to the door.
“Now we can double your profit and get you a way home before the police arrive. You have ten minutes,” Niou informed him, with a glance at his watch. He looked back to the burglar, who appeared unsurprised, and was suddenly very glad the man’s arms were too full for the gun he’d held earlier. Either he had a very good poker face or he’d known Niou was toying with him and he’d had a reason to tolerate it. “I’d go with the green convertible,” Niou commented. “Good gas mileage.” He hoped he didn’t sound too desperate to fill the silence.
“You’ll be joining me,” the other man finally said.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m the one with the gun, and you’re far too pleased with yourself.”
They both paused to assess each other and then Niou turned to run back to the house. He was too slow. The man dropped everything in his arms to grab Niou, and had the gun to his head in an instant.
“No more of that. Get in the car, and remember a seat belt.”
Niou nodded meekly and followed the orders. He carefully bucked his seat belt, noticing that the man waited for the click of the buckle before turning on the car. Then Niou clenched his hands tightly into the armrests and stared determinedly straight ahead. If he was going somewhere with a gun-wielding criminal, he was going to know where.
* * *
They drove in silence for a long time. Niou kept his eyes on the road, and the burglar-turned-kidnapper didn’t comment on it. Niou wasn’t sure why the man didn’t seem to notice his plan - though it was possible he just didn’t mind it, which made it more difficult to maintain hope.
They eventually pulled up to a dark warehouse that looked like something out of an action movie. The man got out of the car, and then stood silently, waiting for Niou. He took the hint and followed a few steps behind, ready to run as soon as the opportunity presented itself. There was nowhere to go, though, and he stood with taut nerves as the man knocked on the huge steel warehouse doors.
As they waited, the sense of impending doom slowly slid away, leaving Niou feeling awkward and misplaced. He couldn’t help glancing around at their surroundings more curiously. The warehouse courtyard was empty of clutter, without any crates or garbage around. The painted corrugated steel walls were clean and unchipped. It didn’t look like an industrial work area at all - clearly whoever they were here to see didn’t feel the need to hide.
While the wait seemed unbearably long to Niou his companion didn’t move until the door swung open toward them. He stepped out of the way so quickly Niou almost jumped - although he caught himself once again - and almost as swiftly bowed to the man now standing in the door.
“Yagyuu,” The new man addressed him, and bowed as well. “Yukimura was beginning to worry about you.”
‘Yagyuu’ just made a faint noise of acknowledgement and tilted his head slightly to the side. The man in the door laughed, although Niou wasn’t sure what was meant to be funny. Then they all made their way inside.
The doorman left them in a room with a table where a very pretty man was eating a bowl of soup, sipping it daintily. Niou was fairly sure that was out of character for what appeared to be a crime boss, but there was a large gun on the table next to him. He kept silence with Yagyuu. The pretty man didn’t say a word until he’d finished his soup, lifting the bowl to drink the last of the broth.
“Yagyuu, I see you found the interesting thing I sent you for.” He smiled gently at Niou.
Yagyuu also glanced at Niou, his eyes narrow behind his glasses. “It would have been easier if you told me what I was there for, Yukimura. However, I completed my mission, of course.”
“Hm, but what would have been the fun in that? I’m sure Niou understands the importance of a challenge. And anyway,” and then the man grinned sharply, as if nothing could make him happier than the cruelty he was about to impart, “now I know you approve of your new partner.”
“What!?” Niou yelped.
Yukimura turned to Niou and gave him another soft, kind smile. It was an expression Niou had practiced many times, but his attempts were nothing next to this. Even recognising the calculation behind the smile didn’t stop Niou from feeling calmed.
“Niou, I’m Yukimura, the leader of Rikkai.” He gestured to their surroundings. “I’m sure you’ve never heard of us, but I assure you we’re quite worth your consideration. I’m sure you have questions, and I’ll send Yagyuu to answer them after I explain things to him.”
Yukimura made a short gesture with his hand, graceful and dismissive. Before Niou could collect his thoughts he was ushered from the room by the doorman from earlier.
* * *
The doorman was apparently not a doorman, but a ‘special operative’ who introduced himself as Yanagi.
“What does a ‘special operative’ do, exactly?” Niou slumped across the desk in front of him, resting his chin in his palm.
“Whatever Yukimura requests. Like Yagyuu’s mission tonight. Or monitoring you. Usually it’s a bit more interesting than that, though.” Niou looked up in surprise and Yanagi smiled. “I have some things to deal with, excuse me.” As he turned to leave the room his phone started to ring, and he sighed.
That left Niou alone in a room with a chair, desk, and a glass of water. He quickly pulled out his phone, to find he had no reception at all. He wasn’t surprised, but it was irritating. He sighed heavily and stared at the door for a while, but Yagyuu didn’t appear. Evidently Yagyuu needed a lot of explanation for this.
It was quite a bit longer before there was a knock at the door. Before Niou had time to answer Yagyuu walked into the room. He looked around, seeming to take in the room, and then he walked back out into the hallway again.
Niou stared at the open door, unsure if this was another test. It seemed unlikely that he had a chance to escape even with an open door, so he waited in his seat to see what would be thrown at him next. Shortly, Yagyuu returned, this time carrying another chair. He set it down silently across the desk from Niou, and then sat down, back straight.
Yagyuu gave Niou a long, even look, his eyes clear. Niou had to fight to hold his gaze, feeling suddenly stripped bare. He was embarrassed to remember his earlier attempts at fooling Yagyuu. Any belief that this was a game, or that he was equipped to toy with criminals was completely destroyed by now.
“You’ve come this far, Niou, because Yukimura thinks you have potential. You led me around for your own amusement, but the skills you’ve accumulated up to now... well. He’s very interested in them.”
“He’s interested in a spoiled student who hacks in his spare time. Really?” Niou raised an eyebrow. “This can’t be as good of an organization as it seemed.”
“Rikkai is the best.” Yagyuu’s tone left no room for argument. “Rikkai requires absolute success and absolute loyalty of its members. That means no previous connections to criminals. It also means that as long as you do as Yukimura says - train with us, and work for us - you can have whatever you want.”
“What if I just want to go home?” “Tonight you discovered a criminal in your home, and led me around at your leisure. Did you just want to send me on my way with some of your property? There’s nothing for you in that. What are you actually looking for, Niou? Entertainment? Victory? Money? Sex?”
“Are you offering?” Niou smirked.
“We’re offering exactly what you most want,” Yagyuu said. “Whatever you think that is, it’s here. You’re standing on the edge of what you’ve wanted, if you’re willing to take the leap of faith required. Yukimura doesn’t think you’ll fail.” Yagyuu paused. “Which remains to be seen.”
“Why are you trying to convince me if you don’t think I can do this?” Niou asked. It seemed like a reasonable question to him, but Yagyuu’s mouth twitched with seeming irritation.
“I may not have faith in you, yet, but I have faith in Yukimura and Rikkai. If Yukimura is right, and what you need is a challenge, you won’t find a better one. But if you’re just going to risk my life I won’t forgive you or keep you around as a partner. Take this on fully, dive in head first, or you will fail.”
“That’s a lot to ask out of nowhere.”
“I may not have followed you as Yukimura has, but you obviously didn’t belong in your surroundings tonight. The question is whether you can fit here. You can’t know until you take the chance on joining this world.” Yagyuu set his mouth and crossed his arms over his chest. Clearly, the question period was over.
Niou inhaled deeply, and slowly let the air out, along with his anxiety. There wasn’t time to worry, just to decide. It was time to either take this opportunity, and make excitement, and danger, a real part of his life - or to abandon it as part of his rebellious youth.
“Alright then,” Niou said. Yagyuu continued to stare at him. “I mean, yes. I’ll do it, we can be partners.”
* * *
Niou was given a small, bare room in the Rikkai complex - an underground development of the warehouse that he’d been brought to. It housed the members of Rikkai, their equipment, training rooms, and a few of what Yukimura referred to as “essential amenities” - like a sauna. So far he had seen three floors extending below the warehouse, but he was sure there were a few more excluded from his tour. He’d been restricted to his room and a few surrounding it while he “proved his worth” to Rikkai.
The next day was the beginning of Niou’s training, which started with Yanagi “taking his data”. That turned out to mean Yanagi threw things at him and took occasional notes while Niou tried his best not to be severely injured.
“You joined Rikkai - Yagyuu must have been very convincing,” Yanagi said, as he hurtled a plate toward Niou’s head.
Niou yelped and leapt to the side. “Uh, yeah,” he muttered from the floor.
“Don’t ever stop moving, Niou. Did he use many of his awful metaphors?”
Niou heaved in a few breaths before rolling himself under a table. “The metaphors... I thought Yukimura made him say all that.”
“Oh, no. Yagyuu may not be willing to admit it, but he loves the dramatic. He’s the only criminal I know who reads crime novels.” Then Yanagi pulled out a gun and started spraying paint balls around the table Niou was cowering behind.
* * *
The training was draining, hours of repeating the same exercises and drilling the same skills. Yanagi told him it was to build reflexes, but it mostly felt like torture. He also didn’t see Yagyuu for the first two weeks, which seemed counter-intuitive if they were meant to become partners. After a fortnight Yanagi declared that Niou had good instincts, and was ready to add weapons training to his schedule. Niou was less than impressed to learn that he had to continue dodging projectiles from Yanagi much of the time, but he was looking forward to more obviously useful training.
At least, he was until he found out Yagyuu would be training him. In theory it was a good plan, to work on their partnership as Niou learned. However, Niou would have liked a teacher with a bit more faith in him.
They met for their first session at five in the morning,
“This is a stick,” Niou said.
“Yes, it is.”
“You want me to attack you with a stick?”
“I want you to try,” Yagyuu replied. “I certainly don’t expect you to succeed yet.”
Niou frowned, and considered the weapon in his hand. There was no way he was going to even make contact with someone of Yagyuu’s training and experience. He tossed the stick back to Yagyuu. “There’s no use in pointless battles. Teach me first,” he said.
Yagyuu raised an eyebrow, apparently impressed that Niou wasn’t childish enough to think himself above training. Niou was a bit insulted.
* * *
Later in his training, when they’d moved through knives to handguns, Niou overheard a conversation between Yagyuu and Yanagi. He knew it was dangerous to eavesdrop, especially on a conversation about him, but he needed to work on moving stealthily anyway.
“He’s learning very quickly. He may have potential after all.” That was Yagyuu’s voice, giving him a compliment.
“Of course he does. Yukimura chose him for Rikkai.” Yanagi sounded slightly amused.
“There was Akaya.”
“He’s learned since then, Yagyuu. That was... not handled as it should have been. But it wasn’t just Yukimura at fault, then.” Yanagi’s voice was strained. There was a pause in the conversation.
“Perhaps,” Yagyuu said, after a while. “But I’m still unsure why Niou is meant to be my partner.”
“Are you?” And that simply, Yanagi was amused again, tension gone. “Maybe it will make sense in time.”
Yagyuu sighed then. “We have the same strengths. Stealth, planning, intuition. But, I don’t see how that makes a good team, when our personalities are so different.”
“Well, you could ask Yukimura.” Yanagi paused, and Niou tried to imagine Yukimura’s reaction to that. “Or it may become clear in time.”
“I’ll wait and see how it works out, then,” Yagyuu replied. His voice was fainter, and Niou realised they’d moved on.
* * *
Training passed quickly but mostly without incident for Niou. He memorized facts, practiced motions, and became accustomed to the weights and reactions of various weapons. He grew steadily more impatient to be on missions, testing himself, but Yanagi told him time and again he couldn’t do anything without learning the basics.
“There are some skills you can only learn in practice, but you can’t learn from a mission you can’t survive.”
Niou rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, I don’t want to get anybody killed, least of all myself. But you can’t even say when I’ll be ready?”
“That’s up to Yagyuu. It’s his life on the line.” Yanagi glanced at his watch and then got up from his chair. “He’s planning to test you today, I think. Good luck.”
Yanagi slipped out the door. Niou paused for a minute to think, and then darted behind the door to wait. It would be just like Yagyuu to start a test without telling him, and Niou wanted to be prepared, even though he wasn’t likely to catch Yagyuu off-guard.
Niou waited behind the door for twenty minutes before deciding that this plan wasn’t working. He definitely needed to complete some kind of task for the test, and Yagyuu wasn’t going to come to him. The only way he could find out more would be to track Yagyuu down, so he crept carefully out of the room. There weren’t any immediate signs of danger, so he continued on a roundabout route to Yagyuu’s usual location, the complex’s small library.
Niou was surprised not to run into any difficulties on his way to find Yagyuu. There were no traps or cameras, and certainly no ambushes. He didn’t let his guard down, though, and made a hasty retreat when he peered into the library and saw Yagyuu. He was sitting facing away from the door, at one of the desks in the library, presumably reading.
A quick consideration of the facts left him concerned. Yagyuu was clearly alone, unarmed and unaware of Niou’s presence as of yet. He was still much faster than Niou, and any trap he had ready to spring would beat Niou’s reaction time easily. That meant that Niou had only one chance to make his attack work. However, Niou was sure that taking Yagyuu out from the doorway was too easy for the test, and he was usually stealthy enough to be silent to Yagyuu’s ears.
Niou made up his mind, and pulled out his unloaded gun. Then he slowly, silently crept into the room. It was only three easy steps to get behind Yagyuu. He took a breath slowly enough that it was silent even to himself, and then lowered his gun just to touch the back of Yagyuu’s head.
The reaction wasn’t instantaneous. Niou could, for a short moment, feel the solid contact beteen the gun barrel and Yagyuu’s scalp. He felt overwhelmingly victorious in that moment, holding power over Yagyuu and overcoming his expectations. But it was brief.
Yagyuu reached up to grab Niou’s hand before he could move or speak. He quickly smashed Niou’s wrist against the chair back. Niou just barely held onto the gun, but Yagyuu brought his wrist down again, sharply, and the gun clattered to the floor. Then Yagyuu twisted his wrist, pulling Niou’s body to flip him face first into the table.
Niou pushed himself back, away from the desk, trying to knock his head back into Yagyuu’s face. Yagyuu just pulled his arm tighter, and then dropped his whole weight onto Niou’s back, pinning him down.
Niou struggled a little, but he knew he had lost. Yagyuu had proven several times in Niou’s training that he knew how to use his weight advantage over Niou. Eventually he gave up, heaving a deep sigh and flopping forward. Yagyuu waited for a moment, and then slowly drew himself back.
“I guess I failed, then,” Niou muttered, still face-planting on the table.
“You need to stop trying to make the kill fun. When you do it right it will be exciting enough on its own.”
Niou rolled his eyes, since Yagyuu couldn’t see them. “I didn’t expect things to be so easy. Next time I’ll take the shot from the door.”
“Then next time you’ll set off an alarm and I’ll tell you to think things through and plan for traps,” Yagyuu said. “There’s no passing. This is about finding weaknesses.”
“That’s not much fun.” Niou rolled his eyes again. It sounded like something Yukimura had planned.
“Tomorrow is your real test mission,” Yagyuu informed him. “Don’t fail that.”
* * *
The test mission took place from the crest of an empty hill in the middle of a pasture. Yagyuu had Niou lay out a huge automatic rifle amongst the cows. At first Niou was excited to be on the job, finally making some progress in the process of becoming part of Rikkai. Unfortunately, Yagyuu had decided that Niou needed to work on his preparation skills. That meant they were set up for the kill two hours before the mark was expected.
Yagyuu insisted that Niou lay in his waiting position with his eye near the scope, although he had brought a chair and book for himself. It wasn’t a problem until the sun began to set, and a chill fell over him. He wiggled a bit on the ground, trying to work out the pins and needles in his fingers.
“Ten minutes until your scheduled time,” Yagyuu commented from where he was seated. “You should probably know, Yukimura told me I could kill you if you fail.”
Niou looked over his shoulder at Yagyuu, who was already back to reading his novel. He rolled his eyes and turned back to pull the gun scope toward himself. He examined the window where his mark was scheduled to appear.
The window was covered with thick drapes. “Damn,” Niou muttered. He checked his watch, which told him he had another seven minutes. He peered back through the scope and waited a few more minutes. It wouldn’t do to act too early.
The drapes hadn’t moved by the time he had five minutes left, or by the time he had three. The window was still covered at two minutes past his scheduled time to shoot.
“Yagyuu,” Niou called. “The window isn’t clear, there’s drapes. I can’t see anything to shoot at.”
“Give it time,” Yagyuu replied.
Niou waited a while longer, but time edged forward and his view stayed the same. When he was eight minutes late to take his shot he spoke up again. “I could spray the room with shots, and take out anyone inside. It should just be the mark, right?”
Behind him, Niou heard the sounds of Yagyuu putting away his book. “Hold your shot, Niou. You don’t want to take a blind shot.”
“I’m out of time, here.”
“The most important part of a long distance hit like this is patience,” Yagyuu told him.
Niou adjusted his finger on the trigger, but he couldn’t hold on to his anxiety over the time much longer. When he heard Yagyuu starting to approach from behind he pulled the trigger, firing his full magazine across the breadth of the window.
After Niou finished, out of ammo, he and Yagyuu waited in silence. The shots were loud and echoing on the hillside, but he knew that across the huge distance they wouldn’t hear anything in the room but shattering glass and bullet impacts. Ideally, there wouldn’t be a way for them to know where the shots had come from.
It took some time, but eventually a face appeared in the window, peering around the drapes. It darted back out of the way, but it was enough that it had appeared. Niou’s shots, somehow, had missed, and his mission was a failure.
He swallowed, throat suddenly dry. Yagyuu might not have seen it, without the help of a scope. It wouldn’t stay secret for long, though. “There was a face,” he murmured. “Someone is alive.”
Niou’s breath caught, as he waited for the inevitable shot to the head.
The silence dragged on. And then he heard footsteps, heading further away. “Back to the car, before someone finds us,” Yagyuu said.
Niou sat up, and turned to stare after him. “You’re not going to shoot me?”
“Training a new partner is too much work. Hurry up,” Yagyuu called. He disappeared behind a hill.
Niou swallowed once again, and then disassembled his gun with shaky hands. He dropped parts twice, but eventually put it all back into the case and hurried after Yagyuu to the car. It wasn’t until he shoved the case into the trunk of the car and slammed the lid down that he realised just how lucky he was to be alive, and how utterly he had failed.
“Shit!” Niou snapped. He dropped himself heavily into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door shut. He pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and shook it to find it empty. “Shit.”
* * *
When Yagyuu gave him the choice of joining Rikkai or not, he asked Niou to jump into the Rikkai world. Until now, however, he’d felt as though he existed in limbo. His training had seemed like a series of moments, his few achievements, and the rest of his time was spent monotonously working toward this.
Niou had tried to adjust to the idea of this being his new life, along with all the danger and intensity involved. He had been somewhat successful in accepting those thoughts, but he lost his footing whenever he realised that throwing himself into danger for this job relied upon trusting his partner. Until now, if joining Rikkai was the leap of faith Yagyuu described, then Yagyuu’s role was to push Niou off the cliff.
This had all been stewing in Niou’s mind for some time. Now, however, they were on equally tremulous ground, about to risk their lives on shared faith. Niou and Yagyuu were about to undertake their first mission for Rikkai working as a team. Yagyuu was stepping into danger trusting Niou, and Niou resolved to match that trust and bravery. If Yagyuu could rely on Niou despite his inexperience, then Niou could certainly hold up his end of the partnership.
Niou settled into the passenger seat of Yagyuu’s car, while Yagyuu fiddled with the GPS unit. A check of the back seat confirmed that their equipment was accounted for.
“Mind if I smoke?” Yagyuu asked, although Niou had smoked in front of him several times. Niou shrugged. Yagyuu produced a sleek cigarette case Niou hadn’t seen before, and selected one. Niou pulled out his lighter in a motion practiced enough that he was faster than Yagyuu, for once, and lit it for him. Yagyuu gave a short nod, and then gestured at Niou. “Seatbelt?”
Niou couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “We’re going to go attack half a dozen armed guards, and kill a man. Does my seatbelt really matter?”
“If you want to take risks, you can smoke. It’s slow enough a death that it won’t jeopardize the mission. When I’m driving you can wear a seatbelt.” Yagyuu’s tone left no room for argument. Yagyuu watched as Niou very deliberately buckled himself in, and then they set out.
The mission fell together almost seamlessly. Every planned action was executed precisely. The guards were easy to find and pick off using Yanagi’s information. Yagyuu made each kill cleanly, with Niou covering their backs and guiding them around the security system, on a path he’d memorized earlier. Niou wasn’t a fool, he knew their success was to the credit of Yagyuu’s experience. He still knew it was impressive that he hadn’t made any mistakes yet on his first job.
In short time all of the guards were taken down, and Niou and Yagyuu made their way into the room where their mark was waiting. The chubby middle aged man was sitting in bed, staring at the door and trembling as they came in.
They had worked near silently, but it seemed they hadn’t managed to make it here undetected, as he was holding a handgun. Yagyuu smoothly lifted his own weapon and shot the man’s hand, sending his gun flying. The man screamed and clutched his arm to his chest.
Yagyuu stepped forward and held the barrel of this gun against the man’s head. The man froze and raised his eyes from his own arm up to meet Yagyuu’s gaze.
“Tell me the safe combination,” Yagyuu said, his voice as cold as Niou had ever heard it.
“Desk drawer, top left, “ the man stammered.
Yagyuu glanced at Niou, who quickly checked in the drawer. There was a slip of paper right on top, apparently prepared for just this situation. He didn’t have to check back with Yagyuu to know his next move was opening the safe.
Surprisingly the combination was correct. He soon had the huge safe door open, revealing a large stack of money and a thin folder of papers. He pulled out the folder and flipped through the pages.
“It’s not here,” he told Yagyuu.
“What?” Yagyuu stared at Niou, who couldn’t do anything but shrug. Then he shot the cowering man in the thigh.
The man screamed again, louder and longer than before. Niou looked away, flipping through the documents once again. None of the papers matched the address of the building they were sent for, but he noticed a few blueprints with addresses in the same area.
“We need the blueprints to the Brentwood Building, so you need to tell us where it is,” Yagyuu said. He had his gun to the man’s head again.
The man was white-faced and trembling, clearly starting to go into shock. He had a hand pressed to his bleeding thigh, his injured arm still pressed to his chest. Niou doubted he would say much more.
“There are a few on here that could work,” Niou said. “It seems like our information was just a bit off.”
Yagyuu shook his head. “We’re not going to fail over bad information. He’ll just have to tell us where it is.”
Niou shook his head. “It’s not here, Yagyuu,” he said. Yagyuu ignored him.
In that moment Niou remembered Yagyuu showing him his weaknesses, the day before, and his words about not looking for ways to make this fun. He thought about Yagyuu’s observations to Yanagi about their similarities, claiming this was a bad partnership. He looked at Yagyuu, steadily holding his gun to the head of a slowly dying man, and considered what Yukimura had put Niou here for. He knew his partner wasn’t going to take the easy solution. It was in Niou’s hands.
Niou pulled out his gun and shot the injured man in the head. It wasn’t a perfect shot, off centre, but it did the job. The man fell back in his bed dead. Then Niou put his gun away and pulled out the papers he needed.
“Ready to go?” he asked Yagyuu.
Yagyuu was staring at him, a hint of the shock from their first meeting returning to his face. He glanced once more at the dead man, and then nodded shortly.
“Yeah, ready.”
Title: Seatbelts
Characters: Niou, Yagyuu, Yanagi, Yukimura.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Most people would probably say it was the end of something - his life as Masaharu, a rich brat who hacked too much in his too-often free time. It was the beginning of a lot of chaos, though, and as someone very partial to chaos Niou likes to say that it started with his first glimpse of Yagyuu.
Warnings: Violence.
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis and its characters do not belong to me.
A/N: I really hope you enjoy this.
“Shit!” Niou snapped. He dropped himself heavily into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door shut. He pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and shook it to find it empty. “Shit.”
“I told you to hold the shot,” Yagyuu said.
“There wasn’t time. I had him!”
“Clearly, you didn’t.”
Niou sighed, and stared out the window for a moment before he looked over at Yagyuu. He was staring straight at the road, hands precisely at ten and two on the steering wheel. Headlights from the cars around them reflected off his glasses. “Stop fidgeting.”
Niou curled his lip and dropped his hand from the window controls he had been using. He hated defeat - thought he wasn’t sure why it felt like Yagyuu’s victory over him, when Yagyuu was on his side. “I’ll get him tomorrow.”
“No,” Yagyuu said, “I’ll get him, and you’ll spend the day practicing shots.”
Niou hated the measured finality in Yagyuu’s voice, but he swallowed back his instinctive argument. He wouldn’t give Yagyuu the satisfaction. He leaned toward Yagyuu, instead. “You won’t even let me watch? I’m supposed to be learning from you, not playing around on the shooting range.”
Yagyuu abruptly stopped the car for a red light, knocking Niou off balance. “You’re practicing tomorrow, because next time you need to actually make the shot. We have a job that requires both of us, and there’s no room for mistakes. Not with Rikkai. Now do up your seatbelt.”
* * *
It all began when he came home too late to use the door, again. Most people would probably say it was the end of something - his life as Masaharu, a rich brat who hacked too much in his too-often free time. It was the beginning of a lot of chaos, though, and as someone very partial to chaos Niou likes to say that it started with his first glimpse of Yagyuu.
No matter what Yagyuu says, Niou knows he was surprised by the rain-drenched kid crawling through a third floor window in the middle of a robbery. He knows the expression on Yagyuu’s face was one of shock because he has never seen it again. Yet.
At the time Niou was a little bit drunk, and a little bit irritated at having lost his keys, which led to him climbing a drain pipe in the rain. He dropped through the window, landing mostly on his face on the floor of his father’s study. He lay there for a second before he realised he wasn’t alone in the room, and then looked up slowly. Through the strands of hair plastered to his face he saw a man with broad shoulders, glasses with thin metal frames, and a gun pointed directly at Niou.
It was the first time anyone had pulled a gun on Niou, and it was more terrifying than any movie had led him to believe. His breath caught in his throat and he froze, too scared to move. Instead, he started to talk. He felt it was something he was good at, and either way he found it a good way to get out of trouble. It was an instinct, but he tended to think it was a good one.
“That’s a fake. The painting - your gun is probably real. And you’re dripping rain water on the most expensive rug in the house.” He cautiously nodded his head toward the ugly brown carpet under the man’s feet, which were somehow free of the mud caked on Niou’s own shoes - lucky for him, if he wanted the carpet. “Also, the cops will be here in ten minutes, unless I enter the security code on the system. In the hall.” The man had clearly avoided tripping the alarm on his way in, so he must have known it existed. Hopefully that was enough for him to trust Niou.
The burglar still had his gun aimed at Niou’s head, and he was now staring at him with an indiscernible expression. The shock had fallen from his face as soon as Niou had opened his mouth. He easily tossed the worthless painting away, and sidestepped off of the expensive carpet. “Go, then.” He gestured slightly with the terrifying gun. Niou carefully pulled himself to his feet, keeping his eyes on the gun, and crossed to the door out of the room. The man didn’t quite lock gazes with him, as they were both busy watching for signs of sudden movement from the other, but Niou was reminded of circling wolves as he edged around the room.
The main console for the security system was in the connecting hallway. Niou made sure his shoes squelched as loudly as possible as he crossed the gleaming parquet, so that the gun-wielding stranger knew he was where he said he’d be. Not that he was doing what he said he’d do. Niou had disarmed the system before breaking in himself. The code he put into the keypad was to call the police to the house. If the alarm didn’t go off things could only end badly for Niou, and he wanted to up the ante.
It wasn’t that he wanted the burglar to get caught, although he knew most people would consider it self preservation. Niou knew he wasn’t going to get shot, since he hadn’t been yet, and he respected anyone who knocked down lazy rich people like his parents. Niou’s goal at the moment was the find the most exciting role he could play in the approaching action, with the fewest consequences. Playing against a capable criminal was a challenge he hadn’t even imagined before, but he could tell already that Yagyuu was far more interesting than he’d expect from a break-and-enter.
Niou packed a mental loot-bag for the man as he planned a meandering ‘escape’ route that would bring them to the garage just as the police arrived. It would give him enough time to shove the man into one of his father’s faster classic cars. If the burglar had arrived in something identifiable, well that bad planning wasn’t Niou’s fault. If the man had planned enough ahead then he’d get a well-deserved payoff. This plan also gave Niou a chance to try to track him down through sales on the black market.
A tap on the shoulder startled Niou, but he turned his jump of surprise into a sharp turn-around to meet the burglar’s gaze as evenly as he could. The other man raised an eyebrow at Niou, who flashed his toothiest grin. Tall, dark and silent wasn’t going to intimidate him that easily - although the gun ever present in the man’s hand left him less at ease than he’d like. Niou darted around the broad man, unwilling to remain cornered.
“The alarm is dealt with, time for a tour,” Niou announced, making a grand sweeping gesture.
“Dealt with, hmm?” the other man murmured, but he followed.
Niou led him through a door into a long hallway of paintings, pushing two smaller works into his arms before turning down another side hall. There he ignored the artwork, but selected a couple of candlesticks off the table and shoved them into the man’s pockets. The burglar made a noise of protest, but Niou darted around his full arms quickly and revealed the rear staircase - an addition not present in most blueprints of the house. On the ground floor Niou had the man pick up a couple of jewelled paper weights and an antique fan before stepping into the garage. Niou gestured to a rack of colour-coded keys next to the door.
“Now we can double your profit and get you a way home before the police arrive. You have ten minutes,” Niou informed him, with a glance at his watch. He looked back to the burglar, who appeared unsurprised, and was suddenly very glad the man’s arms were too full for the gun he’d held earlier. Either he had a very good poker face or he’d known Niou was toying with him and he’d had a reason to tolerate it. “I’d go with the green convertible,” Niou commented. “Good gas mileage.” He hoped he didn’t sound too desperate to fill the silence.
“You’ll be joining me,” the other man finally said.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m the one with the gun, and you’re far too pleased with yourself.”
They both paused to assess each other and then Niou turned to run back to the house. He was too slow. The man dropped everything in his arms to grab Niou, and had the gun to his head in an instant.
“No more of that. Get in the car, and remember a seat belt.”
Niou nodded meekly and followed the orders. He carefully bucked his seat belt, noticing that the man waited for the click of the buckle before turning on the car. Then Niou clenched his hands tightly into the armrests and stared determinedly straight ahead. If he was going somewhere with a gun-wielding criminal, he was going to know where.
* * *
They drove in silence for a long time. Niou kept his eyes on the road, and the burglar-turned-kidnapper didn’t comment on it. Niou wasn’t sure why the man didn’t seem to notice his plan - though it was possible he just didn’t mind it, which made it more difficult to maintain hope.
They eventually pulled up to a dark warehouse that looked like something out of an action movie. The man got out of the car, and then stood silently, waiting for Niou. He took the hint and followed a few steps behind, ready to run as soon as the opportunity presented itself. There was nowhere to go, though, and he stood with taut nerves as the man knocked on the huge steel warehouse doors.
As they waited, the sense of impending doom slowly slid away, leaving Niou feeling awkward and misplaced. He couldn’t help glancing around at their surroundings more curiously. The warehouse courtyard was empty of clutter, without any crates or garbage around. The painted corrugated steel walls were clean and unchipped. It didn’t look like an industrial work area at all - clearly whoever they were here to see didn’t feel the need to hide.
While the wait seemed unbearably long to Niou his companion didn’t move until the door swung open toward them. He stepped out of the way so quickly Niou almost jumped - although he caught himself once again - and almost as swiftly bowed to the man now standing in the door.
“Yagyuu,” The new man addressed him, and bowed as well. “Yukimura was beginning to worry about you.”
‘Yagyuu’ just made a faint noise of acknowledgement and tilted his head slightly to the side. The man in the door laughed, although Niou wasn’t sure what was meant to be funny. Then they all made their way inside.
The doorman left them in a room with a table where a very pretty man was eating a bowl of soup, sipping it daintily. Niou was fairly sure that was out of character for what appeared to be a crime boss, but there was a large gun on the table next to him. He kept silence with Yagyuu. The pretty man didn’t say a word until he’d finished his soup, lifting the bowl to drink the last of the broth.
“Yagyuu, I see you found the interesting thing I sent you for.” He smiled gently at Niou.
Yagyuu also glanced at Niou, his eyes narrow behind his glasses. “It would have been easier if you told me what I was there for, Yukimura. However, I completed my mission, of course.”
“Hm, but what would have been the fun in that? I’m sure Niou understands the importance of a challenge. And anyway,” and then the man grinned sharply, as if nothing could make him happier than the cruelty he was about to impart, “now I know you approve of your new partner.”
“What!?” Niou yelped.
Yukimura turned to Niou and gave him another soft, kind smile. It was an expression Niou had practiced many times, but his attempts were nothing next to this. Even recognising the calculation behind the smile didn’t stop Niou from feeling calmed.
“Niou, I’m Yukimura, the leader of Rikkai.” He gestured to their surroundings. “I’m sure you’ve never heard of us, but I assure you we’re quite worth your consideration. I’m sure you have questions, and I’ll send Yagyuu to answer them after I explain things to him.”
Yukimura made a short gesture with his hand, graceful and dismissive. Before Niou could collect his thoughts he was ushered from the room by the doorman from earlier.
* * *
The doorman was apparently not a doorman, but a ‘special operative’ who introduced himself as Yanagi.
“What does a ‘special operative’ do, exactly?” Niou slumped across the desk in front of him, resting his chin in his palm.
“Whatever Yukimura requests. Like Yagyuu’s mission tonight. Or monitoring you. Usually it’s a bit more interesting than that, though.” Niou looked up in surprise and Yanagi smiled. “I have some things to deal with, excuse me.” As he turned to leave the room his phone started to ring, and he sighed.
That left Niou alone in a room with a chair, desk, and a glass of water. He quickly pulled out his phone, to find he had no reception at all. He wasn’t surprised, but it was irritating. He sighed heavily and stared at the door for a while, but Yagyuu didn’t appear. Evidently Yagyuu needed a lot of explanation for this.
It was quite a bit longer before there was a knock at the door. Before Niou had time to answer Yagyuu walked into the room. He looked around, seeming to take in the room, and then he walked back out into the hallway again.
Niou stared at the open door, unsure if this was another test. It seemed unlikely that he had a chance to escape even with an open door, so he waited in his seat to see what would be thrown at him next. Shortly, Yagyuu returned, this time carrying another chair. He set it down silently across the desk from Niou, and then sat down, back straight.
Yagyuu gave Niou a long, even look, his eyes clear. Niou had to fight to hold his gaze, feeling suddenly stripped bare. He was embarrassed to remember his earlier attempts at fooling Yagyuu. Any belief that this was a game, or that he was equipped to toy with criminals was completely destroyed by now.
“You’ve come this far, Niou, because Yukimura thinks you have potential. You led me around for your own amusement, but the skills you’ve accumulated up to now... well. He’s very interested in them.”
“He’s interested in a spoiled student who hacks in his spare time. Really?” Niou raised an eyebrow. “This can’t be as good of an organization as it seemed.”
“Rikkai is the best.” Yagyuu’s tone left no room for argument. “Rikkai requires absolute success and absolute loyalty of its members. That means no previous connections to criminals. It also means that as long as you do as Yukimura says - train with us, and work for us - you can have whatever you want.”
“What if I just want to go home?” “Tonight you discovered a criminal in your home, and led me around at your leisure. Did you just want to send me on my way with some of your property? There’s nothing for you in that. What are you actually looking for, Niou? Entertainment? Victory? Money? Sex?”
“Are you offering?” Niou smirked.
“We’re offering exactly what you most want,” Yagyuu said. “Whatever you think that is, it’s here. You’re standing on the edge of what you’ve wanted, if you’re willing to take the leap of faith required. Yukimura doesn’t think you’ll fail.” Yagyuu paused. “Which remains to be seen.”
“Why are you trying to convince me if you don’t think I can do this?” Niou asked. It seemed like a reasonable question to him, but Yagyuu’s mouth twitched with seeming irritation.
“I may not have faith in you, yet, but I have faith in Yukimura and Rikkai. If Yukimura is right, and what you need is a challenge, you won’t find a better one. But if you’re just going to risk my life I won’t forgive you or keep you around as a partner. Take this on fully, dive in head first, or you will fail.”
“That’s a lot to ask out of nowhere.”
“I may not have followed you as Yukimura has, but you obviously didn’t belong in your surroundings tonight. The question is whether you can fit here. You can’t know until you take the chance on joining this world.” Yagyuu set his mouth and crossed his arms over his chest. Clearly, the question period was over.
Niou inhaled deeply, and slowly let the air out, along with his anxiety. There wasn’t time to worry, just to decide. It was time to either take this opportunity, and make excitement, and danger, a real part of his life - or to abandon it as part of his rebellious youth.
“Alright then,” Niou said. Yagyuu continued to stare at him. “I mean, yes. I’ll do it, we can be partners.”
* * *
Niou was given a small, bare room in the Rikkai complex - an underground development of the warehouse that he’d been brought to. It housed the members of Rikkai, their equipment, training rooms, and a few of what Yukimura referred to as “essential amenities” - like a sauna. So far he had seen three floors extending below the warehouse, but he was sure there were a few more excluded from his tour. He’d been restricted to his room and a few surrounding it while he “proved his worth” to Rikkai.
The next day was the beginning of Niou’s training, which started with Yanagi “taking his data”. That turned out to mean Yanagi threw things at him and took occasional notes while Niou tried his best not to be severely injured.
“You joined Rikkai - Yagyuu must have been very convincing,” Yanagi said, as he hurtled a plate toward Niou’s head.
Niou yelped and leapt to the side. “Uh, yeah,” he muttered from the floor.
“Don’t ever stop moving, Niou. Did he use many of his awful metaphors?”
Niou heaved in a few breaths before rolling himself under a table. “The metaphors... I thought Yukimura made him say all that.”
“Oh, no. Yagyuu may not be willing to admit it, but he loves the dramatic. He’s the only criminal I know who reads crime novels.” Then Yanagi pulled out a gun and started spraying paint balls around the table Niou was cowering behind.
* * *
The training was draining, hours of repeating the same exercises and drilling the same skills. Yanagi told him it was to build reflexes, but it mostly felt like torture. He also didn’t see Yagyuu for the first two weeks, which seemed counter-intuitive if they were meant to become partners. After a fortnight Yanagi declared that Niou had good instincts, and was ready to add weapons training to his schedule. Niou was less than impressed to learn that he had to continue dodging projectiles from Yanagi much of the time, but he was looking forward to more obviously useful training.
At least, he was until he found out Yagyuu would be training him. In theory it was a good plan, to work on their partnership as Niou learned. However, Niou would have liked a teacher with a bit more faith in him.
They met for their first session at five in the morning,
“This is a stick,” Niou said.
“Yes, it is.”
“You want me to attack you with a stick?”
“I want you to try,” Yagyuu replied. “I certainly don’t expect you to succeed yet.”
Niou frowned, and considered the weapon in his hand. There was no way he was going to even make contact with someone of Yagyuu’s training and experience. He tossed the stick back to Yagyuu. “There’s no use in pointless battles. Teach me first,” he said.
Yagyuu raised an eyebrow, apparently impressed that Niou wasn’t childish enough to think himself above training. Niou was a bit insulted.
* * *
Later in his training, when they’d moved through knives to handguns, Niou overheard a conversation between Yagyuu and Yanagi. He knew it was dangerous to eavesdrop, especially on a conversation about him, but he needed to work on moving stealthily anyway.
“He’s learning very quickly. He may have potential after all.” That was Yagyuu’s voice, giving him a compliment.
“Of course he does. Yukimura chose him for Rikkai.” Yanagi sounded slightly amused.
“There was Akaya.”
“He’s learned since then, Yagyuu. That was... not handled as it should have been. But it wasn’t just Yukimura at fault, then.” Yanagi’s voice was strained. There was a pause in the conversation.
“Perhaps,” Yagyuu said, after a while. “But I’m still unsure why Niou is meant to be my partner.”
“Are you?” And that simply, Yanagi was amused again, tension gone. “Maybe it will make sense in time.”
Yagyuu sighed then. “We have the same strengths. Stealth, planning, intuition. But, I don’t see how that makes a good team, when our personalities are so different.”
“Well, you could ask Yukimura.” Yanagi paused, and Niou tried to imagine Yukimura’s reaction to that. “Or it may become clear in time.”
“I’ll wait and see how it works out, then,” Yagyuu replied. His voice was fainter, and Niou realised they’d moved on.
* * *
Training passed quickly but mostly without incident for Niou. He memorized facts, practiced motions, and became accustomed to the weights and reactions of various weapons. He grew steadily more impatient to be on missions, testing himself, but Yanagi told him time and again he couldn’t do anything without learning the basics.
“There are some skills you can only learn in practice, but you can’t learn from a mission you can’t survive.”
Niou rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, I don’t want to get anybody killed, least of all myself. But you can’t even say when I’ll be ready?”
“That’s up to Yagyuu. It’s his life on the line.” Yanagi glanced at his watch and then got up from his chair. “He’s planning to test you today, I think. Good luck.”
Yanagi slipped out the door. Niou paused for a minute to think, and then darted behind the door to wait. It would be just like Yagyuu to start a test without telling him, and Niou wanted to be prepared, even though he wasn’t likely to catch Yagyuu off-guard.
Niou waited behind the door for twenty minutes before deciding that this plan wasn’t working. He definitely needed to complete some kind of task for the test, and Yagyuu wasn’t going to come to him. The only way he could find out more would be to track Yagyuu down, so he crept carefully out of the room. There weren’t any immediate signs of danger, so he continued on a roundabout route to Yagyuu’s usual location, the complex’s small library.
Niou was surprised not to run into any difficulties on his way to find Yagyuu. There were no traps or cameras, and certainly no ambushes. He didn’t let his guard down, though, and made a hasty retreat when he peered into the library and saw Yagyuu. He was sitting facing away from the door, at one of the desks in the library, presumably reading.
A quick consideration of the facts left him concerned. Yagyuu was clearly alone, unarmed and unaware of Niou’s presence as of yet. He was still much faster than Niou, and any trap he had ready to spring would beat Niou’s reaction time easily. That meant that Niou had only one chance to make his attack work. However, Niou was sure that taking Yagyuu out from the doorway was too easy for the test, and he was usually stealthy enough to be silent to Yagyuu’s ears.
Niou made up his mind, and pulled out his unloaded gun. Then he slowly, silently crept into the room. It was only three easy steps to get behind Yagyuu. He took a breath slowly enough that it was silent even to himself, and then lowered his gun just to touch the back of Yagyuu’s head.
The reaction wasn’t instantaneous. Niou could, for a short moment, feel the solid contact beteen the gun barrel and Yagyuu’s scalp. He felt overwhelmingly victorious in that moment, holding power over Yagyuu and overcoming his expectations. But it was brief.
Yagyuu reached up to grab Niou’s hand before he could move or speak. He quickly smashed Niou’s wrist against the chair back. Niou just barely held onto the gun, but Yagyuu brought his wrist down again, sharply, and the gun clattered to the floor. Then Yagyuu twisted his wrist, pulling Niou’s body to flip him face first into the table.
Niou pushed himself back, away from the desk, trying to knock his head back into Yagyuu’s face. Yagyuu just pulled his arm tighter, and then dropped his whole weight onto Niou’s back, pinning him down.
Niou struggled a little, but he knew he had lost. Yagyuu had proven several times in Niou’s training that he knew how to use his weight advantage over Niou. Eventually he gave up, heaving a deep sigh and flopping forward. Yagyuu waited for a moment, and then slowly drew himself back.
“I guess I failed, then,” Niou muttered, still face-planting on the table.
“You need to stop trying to make the kill fun. When you do it right it will be exciting enough on its own.”
Niou rolled his eyes, since Yagyuu couldn’t see them. “I didn’t expect things to be so easy. Next time I’ll take the shot from the door.”
“Then next time you’ll set off an alarm and I’ll tell you to think things through and plan for traps,” Yagyuu said. “There’s no passing. This is about finding weaknesses.”
“That’s not much fun.” Niou rolled his eyes again. It sounded like something Yukimura had planned.
“Tomorrow is your real test mission,” Yagyuu informed him. “Don’t fail that.”
* * *
The test mission took place from the crest of an empty hill in the middle of a pasture. Yagyuu had Niou lay out a huge automatic rifle amongst the cows. At first Niou was excited to be on the job, finally making some progress in the process of becoming part of Rikkai. Unfortunately, Yagyuu had decided that Niou needed to work on his preparation skills. That meant they were set up for the kill two hours before the mark was expected.
Yagyuu insisted that Niou lay in his waiting position with his eye near the scope, although he had brought a chair and book for himself. It wasn’t a problem until the sun began to set, and a chill fell over him. He wiggled a bit on the ground, trying to work out the pins and needles in his fingers.
“Ten minutes until your scheduled time,” Yagyuu commented from where he was seated. “You should probably know, Yukimura told me I could kill you if you fail.”
Niou looked over his shoulder at Yagyuu, who was already back to reading his novel. He rolled his eyes and turned back to pull the gun scope toward himself. He examined the window where his mark was scheduled to appear.
The window was covered with thick drapes. “Damn,” Niou muttered. He checked his watch, which told him he had another seven minutes. He peered back through the scope and waited a few more minutes. It wouldn’t do to act too early.
The drapes hadn’t moved by the time he had five minutes left, or by the time he had three. The window was still covered at two minutes past his scheduled time to shoot.
“Yagyuu,” Niou called. “The window isn’t clear, there’s drapes. I can’t see anything to shoot at.”
“Give it time,” Yagyuu replied.
Niou waited a while longer, but time edged forward and his view stayed the same. When he was eight minutes late to take his shot he spoke up again. “I could spray the room with shots, and take out anyone inside. It should just be the mark, right?”
Behind him, Niou heard the sounds of Yagyuu putting away his book. “Hold your shot, Niou. You don’t want to take a blind shot.”
“I’m out of time, here.”
“The most important part of a long distance hit like this is patience,” Yagyuu told him.
Niou adjusted his finger on the trigger, but he couldn’t hold on to his anxiety over the time much longer. When he heard Yagyuu starting to approach from behind he pulled the trigger, firing his full magazine across the breadth of the window.
After Niou finished, out of ammo, he and Yagyuu waited in silence. The shots were loud and echoing on the hillside, but he knew that across the huge distance they wouldn’t hear anything in the room but shattering glass and bullet impacts. Ideally, there wouldn’t be a way for them to know where the shots had come from.
It took some time, but eventually a face appeared in the window, peering around the drapes. It darted back out of the way, but it was enough that it had appeared. Niou’s shots, somehow, had missed, and his mission was a failure.
He swallowed, throat suddenly dry. Yagyuu might not have seen it, without the help of a scope. It wouldn’t stay secret for long, though. “There was a face,” he murmured. “Someone is alive.”
Niou’s breath caught, as he waited for the inevitable shot to the head.
The silence dragged on. And then he heard footsteps, heading further away. “Back to the car, before someone finds us,” Yagyuu said.
Niou sat up, and turned to stare after him. “You’re not going to shoot me?”
“Training a new partner is too much work. Hurry up,” Yagyuu called. He disappeared behind a hill.
Niou swallowed once again, and then disassembled his gun with shaky hands. He dropped parts twice, but eventually put it all back into the case and hurried after Yagyuu to the car. It wasn’t until he shoved the case into the trunk of the car and slammed the lid down that he realised just how lucky he was to be alive, and how utterly he had failed.
“Shit!” Niou snapped. He dropped himself heavily into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door shut. He pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and shook it to find it empty. “Shit.”
* * *
When Yagyuu gave him the choice of joining Rikkai or not, he asked Niou to jump into the Rikkai world. Until now, however, he’d felt as though he existed in limbo. His training had seemed like a series of moments, his few achievements, and the rest of his time was spent monotonously working toward this.
Niou had tried to adjust to the idea of this being his new life, along with all the danger and intensity involved. He had been somewhat successful in accepting those thoughts, but he lost his footing whenever he realised that throwing himself into danger for this job relied upon trusting his partner. Until now, if joining Rikkai was the leap of faith Yagyuu described, then Yagyuu’s role was to push Niou off the cliff.
This had all been stewing in Niou’s mind for some time. Now, however, they were on equally tremulous ground, about to risk their lives on shared faith. Niou and Yagyuu were about to undertake their first mission for Rikkai working as a team. Yagyuu was stepping into danger trusting Niou, and Niou resolved to match that trust and bravery. If Yagyuu could rely on Niou despite his inexperience, then Niou could certainly hold up his end of the partnership.
Niou settled into the passenger seat of Yagyuu’s car, while Yagyuu fiddled with the GPS unit. A check of the back seat confirmed that their equipment was accounted for.
“Mind if I smoke?” Yagyuu asked, although Niou had smoked in front of him several times. Niou shrugged. Yagyuu produced a sleek cigarette case Niou hadn’t seen before, and selected one. Niou pulled out his lighter in a motion practiced enough that he was faster than Yagyuu, for once, and lit it for him. Yagyuu gave a short nod, and then gestured at Niou. “Seatbelt?”
Niou couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “We’re going to go attack half a dozen armed guards, and kill a man. Does my seatbelt really matter?”
“If you want to take risks, you can smoke. It’s slow enough a death that it won’t jeopardize the mission. When I’m driving you can wear a seatbelt.” Yagyuu’s tone left no room for argument. Yagyuu watched as Niou very deliberately buckled himself in, and then they set out.
The mission fell together almost seamlessly. Every planned action was executed precisely. The guards were easy to find and pick off using Yanagi’s information. Yagyuu made each kill cleanly, with Niou covering their backs and guiding them around the security system, on a path he’d memorized earlier. Niou wasn’t a fool, he knew their success was to the credit of Yagyuu’s experience. He still knew it was impressive that he hadn’t made any mistakes yet on his first job.
In short time all of the guards were taken down, and Niou and Yagyuu made their way into the room where their mark was waiting. The chubby middle aged man was sitting in bed, staring at the door and trembling as they came in.
They had worked near silently, but it seemed they hadn’t managed to make it here undetected, as he was holding a handgun. Yagyuu smoothly lifted his own weapon and shot the man’s hand, sending his gun flying. The man screamed and clutched his arm to his chest.
Yagyuu stepped forward and held the barrel of this gun against the man’s head. The man froze and raised his eyes from his own arm up to meet Yagyuu’s gaze.
“Tell me the safe combination,” Yagyuu said, his voice as cold as Niou had ever heard it.
“Desk drawer, top left, “ the man stammered.
Yagyuu glanced at Niou, who quickly checked in the drawer. There was a slip of paper right on top, apparently prepared for just this situation. He didn’t have to check back with Yagyuu to know his next move was opening the safe.
Surprisingly the combination was correct. He soon had the huge safe door open, revealing a large stack of money and a thin folder of papers. He pulled out the folder and flipped through the pages.
“It’s not here,” he told Yagyuu.
“What?” Yagyuu stared at Niou, who couldn’t do anything but shrug. Then he shot the cowering man in the thigh.
The man screamed again, louder and longer than before. Niou looked away, flipping through the documents once again. None of the papers matched the address of the building they were sent for, but he noticed a few blueprints with addresses in the same area.
“We need the blueprints to the Brentwood Building, so you need to tell us where it is,” Yagyuu said. He had his gun to the man’s head again.
The man was white-faced and trembling, clearly starting to go into shock. He had a hand pressed to his bleeding thigh, his injured arm still pressed to his chest. Niou doubted he would say much more.
“There are a few on here that could work,” Niou said. “It seems like our information was just a bit off.”
Yagyuu shook his head. “We’re not going to fail over bad information. He’ll just have to tell us where it is.”
Niou shook his head. “It’s not here, Yagyuu,” he said. Yagyuu ignored him.
In that moment Niou remembered Yagyuu showing him his weaknesses, the day before, and his words about not looking for ways to make this fun. He thought about Yagyuu’s observations to Yanagi about their similarities, claiming this was a bad partnership. He looked at Yagyuu, steadily holding his gun to the head of a slowly dying man, and considered what Yukimura had put Niou here for. He knew his partner wasn’t going to take the easy solution. It was in Niou’s hands.
Niou pulled out his gun and shot the injured man in the head. It wasn’t a perfect shot, off centre, but it did the job. The man fell back in his bed dead. Then Niou put his gun away and pulled out the papers he needed.
“Ready to go?” he asked Yagyuu.
Yagyuu was staring at him, a hint of the shock from their first meeting returning to his face. He glanced once more at the dead man, and then nodded shortly.
“Yeah, ready.”