Information Exchange

Since she was in the presence of Xiǎomíng, Midoriko omitted the more embarrassing parts of her story—like not rejecting Akira’s advances sooner because she was unsure of her own feelings for Ryouma. Likewise, Xiǎomíng and Ryouma shared what happened on each of their ends to corroborate details.

“If it weren’t for the fact that I was just told my father was alive this whole time, I would have called you to me sooner,” she said, giving Ryouma a pleading look. Midoriko could tell he was upset about everything that had happened, even if he wasn’t outwardly showing it.

“Midoriko, that man is the leader of the Shishiba-gumi—a very powerful yakuza syndicate in Nagoya. Is he really your father?” he asked.

“The Shishiba-gumi?! Her father?!” repeated Xiǎomíng. He looked between Ryouma and Midoriko with his mouth flapping open and closed.

“Ha!” Midoriko let out a sharp laugh. She smiled ruefully. “Well, I’d figured out that he was yakuza when I met him earlier, but to think he’s their leader…”

Judging by their serious expressions, she knew they were already aware of what kind of person he was. She’d experienced his ruthlessness herself—both in how he treated her and the way he’d murdered her mother’s entire family.

“I think I know where they took Itoko,” she announced. Ryouma and Xiǎomíng looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to finish.

“My father was trying to take me to Nagoya, and I believe he had them take Itoko there as well,” she explained, trying to keep a grip on the emotions welling up inside her. “He made it clear to me that he knew about her. He was trying to use her as a way to coax me over to his side.”

“That tracks with what I heard just before the men who took Itoko left. The neighbor told her she’d be seeing you soon,” Xiǎomíng confirmed.

Midoriko bit her lip and clenched her fists at the thought of how betrayed Itoko must feel now that she isn’t there to meet her.

“I infused one of my acupuncture needles with my qi before stabbing it into the leg of the sorcerer,” he added. Xiǎomíng shifted into a meditation pose, pressed his hands together, and closed his eyes. “I can try to track where it ended up.”

Midoriko held her breath as she watched Xiǎomíng ease into deep concentration. However, her eyes quickly drifted over to Ryouma, who was rubbing his shoulder with a pained expression once again.

It was obvious to Midoriko that his curse was likely raging on and spreading, judging by the slight sheen of sweat on his skin and the physical discomfort he was showing. He’d likely used a lot of magic to deal with the men he’d saved her from, in addition to healing Xiǎomíng. So why wasn’t he asking for treatment?

“I can’t pinpoint the exact location, but I can confirm that my needle made it to Nagoya,” Xiǎomíng announced, drawing Midoriko’s attention back to him.

“Then we should go find her!” she urged.

“We will,” Ryouma said, pointing to Xiǎomíng and himself. He looked at Midoriko and pointed to the floor. “You are staying here.”

“What?! Why?!” Midoriko pounded her hands on the tatami.

“It’s too dangerous for you.” He crossed his arms and gave her a stern look.

“But I’m a neutralizer! I can help!” she insisted.

“You can help by staying here.”

“I’m trying to be useful to you!”

Ryouma rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue. “So wait patiently for me to return. Then you can be useful to me.”

“Tch…So what you’re saying is, I’m only good for pain relief when you inevitably overexert yourself?!” Midoriko jumped to her feet.

“That’s not what I’m saying–”

“Whatever! Do what you want!” she shouted, stomping out of the room.

Ryouma pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He noticed Xiǎomíng staring at him with disdain.

“I’m aware that I messed up. I’ll apologize to her later…” Ryouma rubbed his temples, then got to his feet. “First, you and I need to do a little reconnaissance.”

“What did you have in mind?” Xiǎomíng asked as Ryouma helped him to his feet.

A wicked smirk crept across Ryouma’s face. “Are you up for a little B&E?”

***

When Akira opened his eyes again, the change in scenery was jarring. He went from that dark, trashed apartment to a huge, clean penthouse at the top of a high-rise. They were instructed to bring the girl directly to Shishiba’s residence in Nagoya and wait for further instructions.

Akira looked at Goto once more. He was covered in small cuts and bruises were starting to darken. His scalp was caked with coagulated blood from a blow that split his head. Goto winced as he bent over to pull his own shoes off.

That kid got you good, thought Akira as he fought a smirk. He kicked off his shoes and walked further into the penthouse to find a room where he could dump the wriggling child.

Akira dumped her in the first bedroom he found and closed the door behind him. Holding on to the door handle, he called out to Goto, “Hey, come lock this door from the outside so she can’t get out!”

“I’m in the middle of somethin’!” the sorcerer answered from the main living area.

Akira could hear the rustling of the girl untangling herself from the sheet he’d wrapped her in like a mummy. He looked between the door and the direction Goto answered him from, then reluctantly let go of the door handle to see what could possibly be more important.

“Tch…” Akira hurried back to the main living area to find Goto sitting in a chair, pulling huge splinters out of his leg. Bloody footprints led from the entryway to where the man was sitting. “What the hell are you doing? You’re getting blood everywhere!”

“Whatever, I’ll clean it up…” Goto muttered, pulling out the last splinter and tossing it to the floor.

Akira watched as he reached for a thin needle sticking out of his Achilles tendon. Just as Goto gripped it, a door slammed open from behind Akira, startling both of them. The girl rushed past Akira towards Goto.

“Shit!” Goto jumped out of the chair, but tripped over his own feet as he tried to back away from her. Just before she’d reached him, Akira hoisted her up and backwards.

“This is why I told you to lock the damn door for me, idiot!”

Itoko flailed and hollered in his arms. “Let me go! Let me go!”

“Damn it…The friggin’ needle broke off in my skin…” muttered Goto, running his hand over the spot.

“Worry about that later! It’ll probably push itself out anyway!” Akira barked.

When they put the girl back into the room, Goto put his hand on the door handle to place a spell on it that would prevent the door from being opened on the inside only. Then, Akira browbeat him to clean up the mess he made.

“Any word from the boss yet?” Goto asked while wiping up bloody footprints on his hands and knees.

“Not yet. I just let his assistant know that we finished on our end,” Akira said, scrolling through his phone. The two of them thoroughly tuned out the dull, but persistent thud as the girl pounded on the locked door.

“Didn’t all of that seem too easy to you? Where was Nishikawa?” Goto picked up the broken needle and examined it. It was long and extremely thin with a coil on the end he extracted. Was it for acupuncture? He shrugged and put it in the pile of splinters to toss out. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t laced with poison.

“Who knows. I didn’t have enough intel on his movements to begin with. We got lucky that he wasn’t there…”

Just then, Akira’s phone buzzed with an incoming message. He sucked in air through his teeth and frowned.

Goto stopped what he was doing. “What is it?”

“It would appear that Nishikawa took the boss’ daughter away…” said Akira through clenched teeth. This was surely going to bite him in the ass later since the whole point in bringing her to that location was to get her away from Nishikawa.

“Ha! Guess that’s why he wasn’t home.”

Akira shot Goto a venomous look to shut him up. He put his face in his hands and sighed.

“I have to stay and watch the brat. They want you to go back to the apartment to look for them.”

“Copy that,” Goto got to his feet and smirked. “Have fun babysitting.”

***

Getting into the apartment next door was surprisingly challenging for Ryouma and Xiǎomíng. They discovered, upon trying to magically force the lock on the front door, that it had a protective spell. A definite surprise for them, considering a neutralizer resided there.

“When I encountered him earlier, it seemed like he had total control over his powers,” Xiǎomíng explained.

“Is that so? Then he must be able to suppress it to bypass the barrier set up on the door.” Ryouma extended his hand to help Xiǎomíng as they climbed from one balcony to the other. “They really pulled out all the stops. Makes me wonder what they’re hiding…”

Fortunately for them, no one had considered erecting a barrier on the door to the balcony. Ryouma slid his hand over the sliding door handle and flicked the lock open. Then they were in, and nobody was home.

At a glance, the apartment looked like a normal residence for a twenty-something bachelor. A nice TV and gaming consoles. Girly magazines strewn out on the coffee table alongside empty beer cans and cup ramen containers. A pile of half-folded clean laundry.

The door to one of the bedrooms was ajar, and they could see the faint blue glow of computer monitors spilling out into the dark hallway. As they approached, the hum of a computer fan grew louder.

Ryouma pushed the door open slowly, half expecting some kind of trap. Instead, what he got was a setup that looked like a security station—a multi-monitor setup with live cameras feeding to it. One camera was pointed toward the front door to his apartment, while another was pointed at his balcony.

“Were they…spying on us?” Xiǎomíng asked in disbelief.

“Looks that way…”

Ryouma browsed the files on the computer. There were months and months of video footage from the cameras. He noticed a file with the name of his alias, Nishikawa Tatsumi, which confirmed to him that he was their original target. Then he found the file on Midoriko.

He clenched his jaw and ground his teeth as he opened Midoriko’s file. They’d made a complete profile on her—age, birthday, occupation, as well as approximate height and weight. It had her school listed, the museum she worked at, and what train lines she took on her commute. There were extensive notes about her personality, alongside other little details about her life.

“Actually, it feels more like the work of an obsessed stalker,” Ryouma said, disgust oozing through his words.

“Let’s not tell her about this…” fretted Xiǎomíng.

Ryouma raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“Because it’ll freak her out! She probably already feels tricked by this guy…”

“Hmph.” Ryouma wagged his finger, not even trying to conceal his foxy grin. “Wouldn’t it be hypocritical of me to keep this a secret from her after I told her not to keep secrets from me? She should know everything.”

“Honestly, you’re really twisted sometimes…” Xiǎomíng muttered, holding his hand to his forehead. He sighed and gestured to the computer. “Whatever. Let’s just find what we need and get out of here.”

Ryouma chuckled and dug through the files some more, but couldn’t find anything on Shishiba. He’d found emails from someone else that seemed like an intermediary between Shishiba and the stalking creep, but nothing that pointed out any locations that would point them to the Shishiba-gumi.

“It would appear that most of their communication was through phone calls.” He clicked his tongue in frustration. There wasn’t even a clear reason why they were targeting him to begin with, but considering that they’d taken Itoko, it wasn’t unreasonable to think it had to do with her.

“Then let’s–” Xiǎomíng stopped himself and whipped his head towards the door to the room.

“What? What’s wrong?” Ryouma asked, lowering his voice.

“The sorcerer who attacked me is nearby…”