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/…./ - thoughts

//…..// - flashbacks

==……== - typing/email/words on a screen

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Persia turned slowly in his chair, steepling his fingers together as he gazed at his secretary behind gold rimmed glasses. Manx, for the first time in years, shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny. Wordlessly, he pushed the black, unlabelled tape across his desk towards her, as he had only days before. Her composure faltered as fearful green eyes watched his every movement.

"They’re not working hard enough."

Manx’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at the rebuke. "I disagree, Commissioner." She said firmly. "The infiltration is going well. Our reports estimate that they should have in information in a matter of days."

Persia shook his head. "It’s not good enough if the target is making more of their product." He picked up the tape and held it out to her. "No more tapes must be produced. I will not tolerate failure this time." A thick finger tapped the hard plastic. "This will be an incentive to have them work faster."

The redhead blanched. She made no effort to disguise her blatant horror at his suggestion.

"No, Commissioner... I can’t do that."

He placed the tape on the desk and folded his hands, watching her carefully.

"Kitada, there is no discussion here. You are my second, there’s no reason why this is beyond you."

"Commissioner... Shuuichi... Weiß was given this mission for a reason." Manx’s voice was low and tight. "For that reason, I cannot watch any more of that abhorration. And I will not force them to do so either. Bombay--"

Persia raised a hand to cut her off. "Kitada, I know that first tape was a shock, it was intended to be." He made his tone as neutral and benign as he could.

He was sorry he had to put her through this, however he felt guiltier that something like snuff films had made it to Japan. Sorry that innocent people were being killed for mass entertainment, and the magic of video would allow those victims to die over and over again until the tape wore out.

"More of these videos will be made if Weiß doesn’t complete their mission soon. I want them to know what is at stake if they do not hurry."

Manx’s hands clenched at her side. "You didn’t see the looks on their faces." She growled, using the tone of voice for the first time since he had met her. "They know all too well." With that, she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room, leaving the tape on his desk.

~*~

He knew he was sitting too close to the monitor. His eyes and back ached, and the national Kodo drummers had taken up position in his brain and were happily pounding away. Rechecking the files in Nakamura’s server had again come up empty, and Omi’s last email told Ken that there was a distinct possibility that the name they were looking for was simply not there.

Leaning back in the desk chair, Ken closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts. It had to be there somewhere. Relying on memory was risky because memory was far from reliable and the backup technique consisted on telling as many people as possible in case someone forgot. Not the best way to keep the name of secret benefactor secret, especially when illegalities were involved. Hell, it was not even an effective way of keeping a star festival wish a secret.

The mail icon at the lower right hand corner of his monitor popped up, informing him that he had two new messages. Bringing up his inbox, he read the short mail from Yohji.

== There’s a cat in the basement. It’s going to end up chewing up all the cables. Must’ve come in through an open window. Catch it when you get home, will you? ==

Ken rested his chin on his folded hands as he considered the information.

They had gotten a call from Manx early that morning; Omi had taken it right before they left for the office. Saoshin had gotten another tape out, and Persia was not pleased with their progress. Part of him wanted to tell Persia exactly where to shove the approval and show their boss exactly what their work entailed. Kawamura still did not trust them, which was not all that surprising, and watched him periodically. However, she left before he did in the evenings, so Ken was free from her prying eyes when it really mattered.

In order to appease the boss, Aya and Yohji had formulated a plan to take out Saoshin that night, with or without the name. Better to fulfill half of the mission than none of it. Perhaps, given enough time, Kritiker would be able to find the MITI contact. Yohji’s message alerted Ken and Omi to Aya’s presence in the studio and Ken knew that he did not have much time to find out where the information was.

The new time limit elevated the tension level in his muscles and his heart began to beat just a little faster as he opened the mail from Omi.

== It’s not here... What now? ==

Ken swore out loud; the profanity echoed through the darkened empty office, resonating like a temple bell. They were in trouble. He could not believe the file was nonexistent, it was impossible. If Nakamura did not keep it in the computer, where would it be? To keep it on a hard copy would be stupid; easily found and copied, no matter how easily the paper could be destroyed. The only other way could be a disk...

Ken’s gaze drifted to his floppy drive and chewed on his lower lip. He was unsure whether to smack himself for being so stupid not to think of it sooner, or to scoff at the possibility. No matter how portable a disk was, it was more dangerous to have because disks were easily damaged, lost, or erased.

Pushing back from his desk and grabbing a handful of paper clips and a hard drive repair kit, Ken walked down the hallway and left the hive of cubicles, heading for Nakamura’s office. As he passed the darkened skywalk, he saw the glittering lights of Tokyo cutting through the darkness, reflecting off of the humid summer haze that would hang over the city for the next few months.

As expected, the office was locked. Ken straightened a few of the paper clips and pulled out a small flat headed screwdriver most techs used to install network interface cards; he wondered if his predecessor had ever considered using it to break into the boss’ office.

Sliding the thin wire of metal into the keyhole, he moved it around slowly, looking for the lock trigger. The years of assassin training made locating it simple and Ken inserted the screwdriver and turned the lock, opening the door without so much as a creak. He picked up the remainder of the tools and slipped inside the empty office.

~*~

"Yo, Abyssinian, are you done yet?"

Aya turned a hostile frown in the direction of his wrist transceiver. Yohji had been bothering him for at least an hour, asking every so often if all the charges were set.

"Not yet. If you would leave me alone, I would be finished much faster."

"Yare, yare..." Yohji muttered distractedly. "No word from either of them yet."

Now Aya knew the older man was attempting to fill the silence. Unfortunately, bringing up the topic of the other two was the worst possible topic, aside from asking Aya about his sister. Growling under his breath, Aya taped another bundle of C-4 to a support pillar.

Omi had assured him that if every support blew, there was no need to put anything up in the rafters. What Omi had failed to mention was that the film studio had a hell of a lot of support pillars. But the Weiß tactician had planned for it and had given Aya enough explosives to take down the Big Egg. Wrapping the duct tape around the final bundle of C-4, Aya wiped his brow with the back of his gloved hand and took a moment to look around before collecting his trench coat and katana.

The studio was set up for a morning commercial shoot for some kind of video game based around an unnaturally cute Sanrio toy. However, all of the smiling froglike characters and bright yellow plastic could not eliminate the oppressive, heavy atmosphere that smelled of death, a cloying sweet stench that lingered on his own skin.

People such as he worked here, but what made them different, he could only hope, was that they took pleasure in their work where Aya detested his. He could only hope that that difference would keep him out of the same level of Hell that these people went to when they died.

"Yo, Abyssinian--"

"Mission accomplished, Balinese." Aya snapped. "I’m on my way out. Maintaining comm silence until then."

"Ha~ai, oh fearless leader."

Aya forced down an irritated sigh as he turned off the transceiver and picked up his coat. He slung it over his shoulder and took his katana in hand, moving toward the loading dock door. He had broken the lock to get in, and did not care so much about covering his tracks. When he was out of the building, he would wait for the acknowledgement that Ken and Omi were out of the building and then blow the place to Hell where it belonged.

A slither of movement caught his eye as he approached the door. Pushing his katana slightly out of its scabbard with his thumb, Aya prepared to draw his blade and continued walking. The figure darted in between him and the door, clothed completely in black and covered with a Bunraku puppeteer mask. Dropping his coat, Aya fell back into a defensive stance and pulled out his blade. It glinted in the miniscule overhead lighting.

Aya did not give his opponent the opportunity to attack and charged first, blade pulled back so that the blade ran behind him and parallel to the floor. He leapt forward the last meter or so, and the sword sang as it sliced through the air in a wide sweep, cutting the black clothed man in half.

Aya switched on the transceiver as he was rammed into from behind, throwing him off balance and knocking the katana from his hand. Swinging his right arm around for a hard back fist, he connected solidly with his second assailant’s hand.

The new opponent was much larger than the first, which led Aya to believe, in the few seconds he had before a meaty hand buried itself into his stomach, knocking the wind from him, that the first had been a decoy. The heel of his opponent’s palm connected with his temple, and Aya was hurled into unconsciousness.

~*~

== The cat’s almost out; it’s safe to come home now. You won’t have to worry about your allergies. ==

Omi sighed half in relief, half in dread at Yohji’s message. Ken had yet to return his mail, but he assumed it was because the brunette had no idea what to do either. Gathering his jacket, he got ready to leave.

As sorry as he was that they failed to obtain the MITI contact, the sense of defeat was overshadowed by his nearly overwhelming desire to see the building crumble, collapsing onto the Hollywood of horror that lay beneath it.

~*~

Nakamura’s office seemed larger when empty, lit only by the large bay window behind the desk that gave a breathtaking view of Tokyo Tower and all its lights.

Ken shut the door and locked it before crossing the white carpet to the pinewood desk. He ignored the laptop computer on the desktop after searching it for a 3.5-inch disk or a data storage CD, preferring to dig through the desk drawers.

At the bottom of the last drawer, under a huge pile of stock analyses and pending contracts, Ken found a black, unlabelled floppy in a worn plastic slipcover. He held his breath as he inserted the disk into the laptop and booted up the system. The OS password was again ‘Onokuni’ and Ken was able to access the disk. There was a single text document, labeled ‘stuff.’

Smirking at the choice of label, Ken opened the file. He read the unattributed name three times before allowing himself to grin in triumph. Fujiyuri Shigeru, Todai graduate and one of the most powerful members of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry was the dark beast sponsoring snuff films. All the newspapers speculated that Fujiyuri would be up for the head of the Jigen Party next election. It would only be a small step from there to the office of Prime Minister.

Ken popped the disk out of the drive and shut the laptop down. The LMP would just have to find another candidate. This one’s term was up.

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e.n.d.p.a.r.t.3.

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Notes [they keep getting longer, this is what happens when people encourage me ^_~]:

1. The "star festival" Kenken mentions is Tanabata, and it takes place on 7/7 [any holiday that has the same month and day numbers has its origin in China and Japan borrowed it. Yohji is born on Girl's Day which is on 3/3... boys day is 5/5... it also seems to go by odd numbers, neat...]. The point of Tanabata has to do with two constallations that only meet once a year, and Japanese tradition believes the stars are lovers separated by the Milky Way. People write wishes on colored paper and hang them on bamboo branches in their backyards or porches and then pray really hard for them to come true. [I am also using the idea that if you tell someone what your wish is, it won't come true, so that's where the relevance to secrets comes in.]

2. The "Big Egg" is another name for the Tokyo Dome, a stadium in Tokyo [duh] that hosts everything from baseball to soccer to concerts. I wonder if Kenken ever played in the Big Egg during his J-League time....

3. The froglike thing Saoshin is going to advertise is Keroppi, a scary and cute little bug-eyed frog from Sanrio, the makers of Hello Kitty. Aya doesn't know what it is because I figured that he wouldn't be the type to keep up with cutesy toy trends. As far as I know, there is no Keroppi video game... I made it up /^^;; [I chose Sanrio to pick on because I didn't know if they still advertised for Pocky on TV /^^;;]

4. Aya has the same type of transceiver that Ken and Omi have, but with an audio thing as opposed to a panic button. Ken and Omi don't need to speak directly with the others if there is a problem, but Yohji and Aya need to communicate.

5. Bunraku is Japanese puppet theatre. These puppeteers use these huge puppets to tell traditional stories. The puppeteers dress completely in black and wear masks that are made of a see-through material that cover their entire face. Though this outfit doesn't necessarily make them blend into the background, it gives the audience a signal that they are unimportant to the story and that they should be ignored.

6. Todai is the nickname of Tokyo University. Around ninety percent of Japanese politicians and bureaucrats graduate from three or four well-known universities and all of them are in Tokyo. In Japan, your job skills don't matter to employers, since most of the job training is done by the company you are hired by [it gives you a specialization and makes it harder to change jobs because of limited skills. it also builds company loyalty] only a diploma from a good school is important. College students don't tend to do much work, since all the work they do is related to getting into the university. University is considered to be a last hurrah for young people before entering the workplace and having to conform to societal rules.

7. Fujiyuri Shigeru and the Jigen Party (LMP) don't exist. I made up Fujiyuri, and Jigen was in the series. It's the same party that elected Takatori Reiji prime minister, so I thought it was fitting. Incidentally, Jigen's abbreviation, LMP, is only one letter off from the LDP [Liberal Democratic Party], which is the actual ruling party in Japan now. They're called Liberal, but they're actually very conservative. Go figure. I'm probably a dork, but I thought that was interesting.

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Not who I planned to hurt in this fic, but Aya's a good a victim as any. Kenken loves me for leaving him alone in this one, I guess I owe it to the peanut.

About Manx calling Persia "Shuuichi" in that first bit: I think she would, if she was attempting to appeal to his [snort] human side [snicker snicker], which she was. I mean, she called him "Commissioner" already, and she'd be nuts to call him "Persia-sama" because of whoever could be listening.

And Persia is probably ooc, but he has a nasty tendency to put the "greater good" above people who he should be concerned for [like certain relatives *coughcough*], and it's also my personal bias: I can't stand Persia. [and what the hell is up with his *tie*?!?!?! it looks like it has cow spots on it!!!!! ugliest damn tie I've ever seen... and let's not get started on the cream/yellow suit he stole from Crawford...] Ah well, time to wrap it up, this is long enough already...

Have a nice night/day minasan! Hope you like this one!!!

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