let me hear your voice tonight (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexseanchai) wrote2016-01-21 01:52 am
alexseanchai) wrote2016-01-21 01:52 am
Entry tags:
Outside Looking In
Title: Outside Looking In
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Rating: T
Length: 3K
Content notes: kidnapping, offscreen attempted sexual assault
Author notes: This is set in my Yu-Gi-Oh! genderswap 'verse. It is not necessarily canon for that 'verse.
Summary: Yuuki's father has something somebody wants—but they don't know anything about Yuuki.
"Mutou-san," said Caroline, "I think you'd better take this video call."
Mutou Kaito sighed—what could possibly be urgent enough to interrupt his time with Izumi? The girl needed to master self-control, else she'd inadvertently set something on fire again—and turned to his laptop, pulling up the video chat program and accepting the call. The image took a moment to resolve—
"Yuuki!" His only child was on her knees, hands bound behind her back, violet-crimson eyes flashing with fury he'd never seen from her. Kaito punched the 'record this call' icon.
"Tell Anzu to call Momoka," Yuuki snapped out. "I'm several floors up, near water—"
A gloved hand slapped Yuuki across the face. "That's not your line, little girl," said a familiar male voice. (Whose?)
Yuuki rolled her eyes. "Help, Father, I've been kidnapped," she recited emotionlessly. "Bring the artifact you found last week to the alley behind the Domino arcade at midnight tonight. Come alone and unarmed. Don't alert any authorities. If you fail to follow instructions precisely, I die." She smirked. "They don't know who they're dealing with, do they?"
The gloved hand backhanded her across the mouth. "Your father is a coward good only for teaching small children rudimentary magic," said the man. Something sparked in Yuuki's eyes. (Of course. She wasn't a mage; he and Hitomi had never, therefore, told her they were.) "He has no way to save you except to do exactly as we order."
Yuuki spat blood. "Tell my friends that. Tell me that again."
"You don't want to play this game, little girl," said a woman. "It's more dangerous than you know."
"Shall we play a game, you three and I?" said Yuuki. It sounded like a threat.
The gloved hand slapped her so hard she fell sideways. "Well, Mutou?" asked the man.
Kaito swallowed hard, thinking quickly. "I'll do it," he said. "Don't hurt her. I'll give you the artifact. Just. Please. Don't hurt her any more."
"Don't worry about me," said Yuuki from the floor. "Just call Anzu. She worries about me."
A slim booted foot kicked Yuuki in the stomach, and the call ended.
Kaito sat there for a moment, breathing hard. Izumi looked up at him curiously.
"I'm sorry," said Caroline. "If I'd realized—"
"You knew it was important," said Kaito in a voice that hardly sounded like his own. "That's all we ask of precognitives, truly. Please stay with Izumi until her parents return."
"Of course, Mutou-san." Caroline beckoned Izumi out of the room.
Kaito fumbled at his pocket until he came up with his cell phone: Yuuki didn't carry one—an oversight Kaito now meant to correct, and damn the expense—so could usually be reached by calling Mazaki Anzu. He dialed.
"Moshi moshi," said the girl in question.
"Mazaki-san," said Kaito. "Yuuki—"
"She's not here right now," said Anzu.
"I know," Kaito said. "She's been kidnapped. She delivered the ransom note over video chat just now—she said to tell you."
"What do they want?" Anzu asked, and sounds on the other end of the line suggested she was furiously making ready for something.
Kaito grabbed up his case and checked: yes, the sealed jar he'd found in an antique store, something that had sparked magic at his touch, was still in his possession. "Something I have that would fetch a great deal on the black market," he said evasively. "Yuuki said to tell you to call Momoka. Who's Momoka?"
Anzu laughed. "Someone who owes us a favor. What exactly did she say?" she asked, turning serious. "Every word might be important."
"I recorded the call," said Kaito.
"Good," said Anzu. "Send me the recording—" She rattled off an email address, and Kaito clattered the laptop keys transferring the file. "I'll call our friends to meet at the game shop. Are you going to call the police or shall I?"
"We can't," Kaito said. "She'll die."
Anzu gasped. "They're threatening—wow. Okay. I've got the video. No police. We'll handle this," she said reassuringly. "Yuuki-chan will be perfectly all right. I mean, we'll probably be dealing with a furious Yuuki-san for the next few weeks, but she'll calm down eventually."
"Why are you telling me everything will be okay?" Kaito asked blankly.
"Because you need to hear it," Anzu said briskly. "Okay. Shall we meet you at the game shop?"
"I need to be in Domino tonight anyway," Kaito said. "Yes. Very well." He slammed his laptop shut. "I'll catch the next train."
* * *
Kaito arrived at the Kame Game Shop two hours later—four hours to midnight—to find his living room in chaos.
"I really don't think this is about her," Anzu argued to Jounouchi in one corner, the two of them huddled over a laptop displaying a freeze-frame of the ransom note video.
"When is it ever not?" Jounouchi argued right back.
"Gotta be somewhere around here," Honda said to Miho, tracing a circle on a paper map of Domino spread out on the floor.
"Yes, but which building?" Miho asked. "We don't have enough information—"
"If you lot would shut up, I could work faster!" snapped a familiar-looking young man from the sofa, where he was typing rapidly on a second laptop. Kaito did a double-take. No, it couldn't possibly be that Kaiba Seto was a friend of Yuuki's, or involved in the search for her.
The little girl perched on the sofa arm looked at Kaito, then back at the rest, and stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled.
"Ow, Momoka-chan!" exclaimed Jounouchi.
"Mutou-san's here," said the little girl. Momoka. This was the Momoka Yuuki felt it so urgent to contact?
"Oh, grand," muttered the Kaiba lookalike. "More people to confuse the matter."
"Shut up, Kaiba," said Honda.
"Kaito," said Hitomi from the doorway to the kitchen. Kaito stumbled in that direction and took a seat at the table.
Hitomi poured hot water into a mug and added a teabag: cheap American-style tea, but Yuuki inexplicably preferred that. "I do not understand a bit of what is going on out there," Hitomi confessed. "I think—I think our Yuuki-chan may have enemies of her own, and her friends are used to dealing with them."
"That doesn't make any sense," said Kaito. "She's not a mage, she's just a girl—"
"We thought we could keep her safe by keeping magic out of the house," Hitomi said. "Clearly we failed." She sipped her own mug of cheap American tea. "I found nothing by scrying," she added. "What is this 'artifact' they want?"
Kaito glanced toward the living room: no one appeared to be listening to anything outside that room. He explained to Hitomi about the jar. "I don't know what's in it, and I'm afraid to look," he finished. "Which..."
"They called you a coward," said Hitomi. "They don't know you very well, do they?"
Kaito looked back out at the children in the living room. "I don't think we know our daughter very well, either."
"Hey, Mutou-san," said Jounouchi, appearing in the doorway. "Mutou-san," he added to Hitomi. "Either of you want to tell us what this 'artifact' is they want so bad they'd kidnap Mutou Yuuki to get it? And what they mean when they say 'magic'? 'Cause, I gotta tell you, it's really hard to protect ourselves—and Yuuki—from something we don't know we gotta protect ourselves from."
Silence in the living room.
"I can't tell you," said Kaito. "None of you are mages—we can't tell you anything."
"Great," said Kaiba, "more people delusional enough to think magic is real."
"Shut up, Kaiba," said Jounouchi over his shoulder. Looking back at Kaito and Hitomi, he said, "Guess we can't tell you any of what we're worried about either."
Miho stepped up next to Jounouchi. "It's Yuuki-chan's decision whether to tell you, really," she said softly. "And since she hasn't, we shouldn't. Miho thinks you ought to know—but fair's fair."
Kaito and Hitomi glanced at each other.
"What has my daughter gotten mixed up in?" Hitomi asked.
"Nope," said Jounouchi cheerfully. "You tell us what you're mixed up in first."
"We can't," repeated Kaito helplessly.
Jounouchi shrugged. "Eh. We'll deal." He headed back into the living room, Miho behind him.
Kaiba swore. "They're using Tor."
"What?" asked Anzu.
"It's a browser designed for untraceable communication," Momoka said. "Unless my brother can crack it—and no one ever has before that I know of—tracing back the video call to its point of origin isn't going to work."
"I don't want to crack Tor," muttered Kaiba. "It's too useful the way it is. New plan," he added, louder. "Surveillance cameras. Where was Yuuki when she was taken, and when?"
"She went to the arcade after school," said Anzu. "She said she wanted to be alone with her thoughts and a puzzle game."
"School got out at three," said Kaiba, typing furiously again. "The video call came through five minutes before six...I have three hours of video from a multitude of cameras to look through. Amuse yourselves."
Miho got down a Pachisi board.
"My daughter is in danger of her life," said Hitomi, disbelieving, "and what we are doing about it is literally playing games."
"Don't knock it," said Honda.
* * *
At nine-thirty-two, Anzu, Jounouchi, and Honda jerked in the same moment.
"What did they do?" Anzu whispered, then swallowed hard and tried again. "What did they just do?"
"She's okay," said Jounouchi. "She's strong."
"What just happened?" asked Kaito.
"I don't know exactly," Anzu said. "But it's not good. She's alive!" she hastened to say. "But—it's not good."
Honda sighed. "Ushio," he said. "At best."
Anzu, Jounouchi, and Miho nodded in somber agreement.
"What are you talking about?" Hitomi asked.
"You first," said Miho.
Yuuki's laptop sang out, and Anzu scrambled over to it. Moments later, a video chat with a disheveled blonde woman took up the screen. "It is," said the woman, "four-thirty in the morning. I have been having vicious nightmares about—" She stopped. "Anzu? Where's Yuuki?"
"Hi, Mai," said Anzu tiredly. "That's the problem. She's been kidnapped."
Mai swore. "Not nightmares, then."
"Probably not," Anzu agreed. "Tell me."
"Let's start at the beginning," said Mai. "Domino, afternoon, Yuuki's leaving the high school by herself. She's just about to the arcade when she sees something in the alley. She goes to look. I couldn't see what happened, but there were at least two people and of course they're bigger than she is. Next thing I see, she's waking up in some office building on the waterfront."
"Give me details!" snapped out Kaiba.
Mai kept chattering while Kaito and Hitomi looked at each other. "So my daughter's friends include a dream-seer," said Kaito quietly. "Who is willing to admit to being a dream-seer to a room full of mundanes."
Hitomi shrugged and kept listening.
* * *
At nine-forty-eight, Momoka whooped. "We've got a visual match!"
"The camera in the particular room I think she's in went offline five hours ago," Kaiba said. "But footage from before that matches the background of the ransom note." He reeled off an address, and suddenly the entire house was scrambling.
Kaito stopped at the store counter, where his father waited even though the store had closed hours before. "She'll be all right," Kaito said, as much to himself as to Sugoroku.
"I know she will," Yuuki's grandfather answered. "That's why I'm staying out of the way."
* * *
At ten-thirteen, the cluster of teens—less the Kaiba siblings; Momoka refused to leave Seto's side, and Seto refused to take Momoka into danger—and two parents arrived at the particular office building on the waterfront that Kaiba had identified. Several lights were on in various locations in the building.
"Seventh floor," said Miho, repeating Kaiba.
"You should all wait out here and let the two of us handle this," Hitomi said, for the fifth time since they'd left the house.
"Not a chance," said Honda.
A crash from above. Kaito looked up. Something hurtled down from a broken window several floors up. "Gangway!" Yuuki hollered.
Jounouchi and Honda scrambled to be in position to catch her, collided, and fell in opposite directions. Yuuki hit the pavement between them, rolled a few meters, and flopped spread-eagle. "Ow." She reached down to flip her skirt into a more modest position.
But not before Kaito noted a dark stain on her white panties. "Yuuki-chan?" he asked delicately. "Did they—hurt you, in any way?"
"They tried," Yuuki said darkly, and got up, dusting herself off. "I will survive."
"You're—bleeding," Kaito said. "From—" He gestured at his own crotch, embarrassed.
Yuuki flushed. "I understand this to be a phenomenon that afflicts all women of a certain age at irregular intervals."
Miho dug in her purse. "Miho has supplies!"
Yuuki glanced up at the window. "We don't have time. Two of them are still alive."
"That many?" deadpanned Jounouchi.
"Shut up," said Yuuki. "I doubt either is suicidal enough to follow me out the window, which means we have only moments to decide on a plan of action. I believe I angered the man with the gun," she added.
Hitomi flinched.
Anzu stepped carefully over to Yuuki, as if Kaito's daughter were a bomb needing only a slight disturbance to explode. "Are you all right?" she asked.
"Two of them are still alive," Yuuki repeated.
"That doesn't—oh, whatever," said Anzu. "Let's just get out of here, okay?" She cautiously touched Yuuki's arm.
Yuuki put her own hand over Anzu's, exhaling, then straightened and turned to face the building.
The doors sprang open and a man and a woman ran out. The woman stopped, startled it seemed by the gaggle's presence. The man drew a gun.
Kaito flung up a domed mage shield, a heartbeat behind Hitomi. A spray of bullets bounced off Kaito's shield in all directions, rattling him as though they had hit him directly.
The woman threw herself to the ground. The man, not as quick, was struck by several of the returning bullets.
"Well," said Yuuki. "That is a less than gratifying manner of satisfying the penalty game."
"What were you playing?" Honda asked. "Out of curiosity."
Yuuki grinned. There was something dark on her teeth. "Cat and mouse, of course."
The woman, now that the crossfire had stopped, bounced back to her feet and threw a ball of magefire. Kaito's shield shattered, and the flames splashed harmlessly if heatedly across Hitomi's shield.
"Stop!" commanded Yuuki. She walked forward, alone, parting Hitomi's shield with a breath. The woman readied another ball of magefire but did not throw it. "You," Yuuki told the woman, stopping perhaps two paces from her, "laid hands on the royal person without permission. You have two choices. Surrender—or play a game with me."
The woman stared down at Yuuki. Yuuki stared up at her.
The woman's magefire died. "I surrender," she said, barely audible to Kaito.
Hitomi flicked out her fingers in gestures that bound the woman's hands behind her back with magewind and dragged her feet over to where Hitomi stood, then chained the woman's foot to Hitomi's in the same manner. Kaito stood up—he hadn't realized he'd fallen—and drew out his cell phone, dialing the number for a junior Council member, the very person he would have contacted when he got the ransom note had Yuuki not relayed that they meant to kill her if he contacted the authorities. "Inoue Hanako-san," he said in response to the Councilwoman's "Moshi moshi". "Mutou Kaito. We have a situation..."
Yuuki rejoined the cluster of her friends. "Miho, I'll take those supplies now," she said. "Thank you." She glanced from friend to friend. "Thank you all."
* * *
"Are you all right?" Inoue-san asked Kaito, sometime after eleven.
"I am perfectly fine," said Kaito. "Why wouldn't I be?" He glanced toward the stairs leading up to the bedrooms of his home. Yuuki was showering, with Anzu and Hitomi sitting outside the cracked-open bathroom door to keep her company.
"Your actions caused someone's death," Inoue-san said calmly. "Most people would be disturbed."
"I was protecting my daughter," Kaito said. "I may have nightmares tonight, but this is the happy ending."
"Yes," said Inoue-san. Her phone rang, and she answered. Kaito didn't listen until she touched his arm after hanging up. "My people found the third one," she said. "Dead."
Kaito put his head down on the table. "My daughter killed a man," he concluded.
"We don't know that," said Inoue-san. "The only injury he appears to have is a piece missing from his penis, which would hardly be enough to kill him—though if your daughter inflicted that, she may have left an important piece out of her story."
"Several important pieces," said Kaito, sitting up again and trying not to think about the implications of that statement. "Her friends—the way they're acting—like this isn't particularly unusual!"
"Yes, we have questions for them all," Inoue-san answered.
Hitomi returned to the kitchen. "That man is fortunate he is already dead," she said, vicious. "What he tried to do to my daughter—she bit his bits off," she added, pride shining through the concern, and continued, "but she told us this like it happened to a different her."
"Dissociation," said Inoue-san. "We'll have to find her a therapist."
Kaito put his head back on the table. "What good is a father who cannot protect his daughter? Who isn't even there when she needs protection?"
Hitomi put a hand on his shoulder.
"Hey, guys," Anzu called down the stairs, and without another word Miho, Jounouchi, and Honda charged past the adults and clattered up the stairs. Miho snagged a box of cookies out of the pantry on her way past.
"What are we going to tell the children?" Hitomi asked.
"What are they going to tell us?" Kaito replied.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Rating: T
Length: 3K
Content notes: kidnapping, offscreen attempted sexual assault
Author notes: This is set in my Yu-Gi-Oh! genderswap 'verse. It is not necessarily canon for that 'verse.
Summary: Yuuki's father has something somebody wants—but they don't know anything about Yuuki.
"Mutou-san," said Caroline, "I think you'd better take this video call."
Mutou Kaito sighed—what could possibly be urgent enough to interrupt his time with Izumi? The girl needed to master self-control, else she'd inadvertently set something on fire again—and turned to his laptop, pulling up the video chat program and accepting the call. The image took a moment to resolve—
"Yuuki!" His only child was on her knees, hands bound behind her back, violet-crimson eyes flashing with fury he'd never seen from her. Kaito punched the 'record this call' icon.
"Tell Anzu to call Momoka," Yuuki snapped out. "I'm several floors up, near water—"
A gloved hand slapped Yuuki across the face. "That's not your line, little girl," said a familiar male voice. (Whose?)
Yuuki rolled her eyes. "Help, Father, I've been kidnapped," she recited emotionlessly. "Bring the artifact you found last week to the alley behind the Domino arcade at midnight tonight. Come alone and unarmed. Don't alert any authorities. If you fail to follow instructions precisely, I die." She smirked. "They don't know who they're dealing with, do they?"
The gloved hand backhanded her across the mouth. "Your father is a coward good only for teaching small children rudimentary magic," said the man. Something sparked in Yuuki's eyes. (Of course. She wasn't a mage; he and Hitomi had never, therefore, told her they were.) "He has no way to save you except to do exactly as we order."
Yuuki spat blood. "Tell my friends that. Tell me that again."
"You don't want to play this game, little girl," said a woman. "It's more dangerous than you know."
"Shall we play a game, you three and I?" said Yuuki. It sounded like a threat.
The gloved hand slapped her so hard she fell sideways. "Well, Mutou?" asked the man.
Kaito swallowed hard, thinking quickly. "I'll do it," he said. "Don't hurt her. I'll give you the artifact. Just. Please. Don't hurt her any more."
"Don't worry about me," said Yuuki from the floor. "Just call Anzu. She worries about me."
A slim booted foot kicked Yuuki in the stomach, and the call ended.
Kaito sat there for a moment, breathing hard. Izumi looked up at him curiously.
"I'm sorry," said Caroline. "If I'd realized—"
"You knew it was important," said Kaito in a voice that hardly sounded like his own. "That's all we ask of precognitives, truly. Please stay with Izumi until her parents return."
"Of course, Mutou-san." Caroline beckoned Izumi out of the room.
Kaito fumbled at his pocket until he came up with his cell phone: Yuuki didn't carry one—an oversight Kaito now meant to correct, and damn the expense—so could usually be reached by calling Mazaki Anzu. He dialed.
"Moshi moshi," said the girl in question.
"Mazaki-san," said Kaito. "Yuuki—"
"She's not here right now," said Anzu.
"I know," Kaito said. "She's been kidnapped. She delivered the ransom note over video chat just now—she said to tell you."
"What do they want?" Anzu asked, and sounds on the other end of the line suggested she was furiously making ready for something.
Kaito grabbed up his case and checked: yes, the sealed jar he'd found in an antique store, something that had sparked magic at his touch, was still in his possession. "Something I have that would fetch a great deal on the black market," he said evasively. "Yuuki said to tell you to call Momoka. Who's Momoka?"
Anzu laughed. "Someone who owes us a favor. What exactly did she say?" she asked, turning serious. "Every word might be important."
"I recorded the call," said Kaito.
"Good," said Anzu. "Send me the recording—" She rattled off an email address, and Kaito clattered the laptop keys transferring the file. "I'll call our friends to meet at the game shop. Are you going to call the police or shall I?"
"We can't," Kaito said. "She'll die."
Anzu gasped. "They're threatening—wow. Okay. I've got the video. No police. We'll handle this," she said reassuringly. "Yuuki-chan will be perfectly all right. I mean, we'll probably be dealing with a furious Yuuki-san for the next few weeks, but she'll calm down eventually."
"Why are you telling me everything will be okay?" Kaito asked blankly.
"Because you need to hear it," Anzu said briskly. "Okay. Shall we meet you at the game shop?"
"I need to be in Domino tonight anyway," Kaito said. "Yes. Very well." He slammed his laptop shut. "I'll catch the next train."
* * *
Kaito arrived at the Kame Game Shop two hours later—four hours to midnight—to find his living room in chaos.
"I really don't think this is about her," Anzu argued to Jounouchi in one corner, the two of them huddled over a laptop displaying a freeze-frame of the ransom note video.
"When is it ever not?" Jounouchi argued right back.
"Gotta be somewhere around here," Honda said to Miho, tracing a circle on a paper map of Domino spread out on the floor.
"Yes, but which building?" Miho asked. "We don't have enough information—"
"If you lot would shut up, I could work faster!" snapped a familiar-looking young man from the sofa, where he was typing rapidly on a second laptop. Kaito did a double-take. No, it couldn't possibly be that Kaiba Seto was a friend of Yuuki's, or involved in the search for her.
The little girl perched on the sofa arm looked at Kaito, then back at the rest, and stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled.
"Ow, Momoka-chan!" exclaimed Jounouchi.
"Mutou-san's here," said the little girl. Momoka. This was the Momoka Yuuki felt it so urgent to contact?
"Oh, grand," muttered the Kaiba lookalike. "More people to confuse the matter."
"Shut up, Kaiba," said Honda.
"Kaito," said Hitomi from the doorway to the kitchen. Kaito stumbled in that direction and took a seat at the table.
Hitomi poured hot water into a mug and added a teabag: cheap American-style tea, but Yuuki inexplicably preferred that. "I do not understand a bit of what is going on out there," Hitomi confessed. "I think—I think our Yuuki-chan may have enemies of her own, and her friends are used to dealing with them."
"That doesn't make any sense," said Kaito. "She's not a mage, she's just a girl—"
"We thought we could keep her safe by keeping magic out of the house," Hitomi said. "Clearly we failed." She sipped her own mug of cheap American tea. "I found nothing by scrying," she added. "What is this 'artifact' they want?"
Kaito glanced toward the living room: no one appeared to be listening to anything outside that room. He explained to Hitomi about the jar. "I don't know what's in it, and I'm afraid to look," he finished. "Which..."
"They called you a coward," said Hitomi. "They don't know you very well, do they?"
Kaito looked back out at the children in the living room. "I don't think we know our daughter very well, either."
"Hey, Mutou-san," said Jounouchi, appearing in the doorway. "Mutou-san," he added to Hitomi. "Either of you want to tell us what this 'artifact' is they want so bad they'd kidnap Mutou Yuuki to get it? And what they mean when they say 'magic'? 'Cause, I gotta tell you, it's really hard to protect ourselves—and Yuuki—from something we don't know we gotta protect ourselves from."
Silence in the living room.
"I can't tell you," said Kaito. "None of you are mages—we can't tell you anything."
"Great," said Kaiba, "more people delusional enough to think magic is real."
"Shut up, Kaiba," said Jounouchi over his shoulder. Looking back at Kaito and Hitomi, he said, "Guess we can't tell you any of what we're worried about either."
Miho stepped up next to Jounouchi. "It's Yuuki-chan's decision whether to tell you, really," she said softly. "And since she hasn't, we shouldn't. Miho thinks you ought to know—but fair's fair."
Kaito and Hitomi glanced at each other.
"What has my daughter gotten mixed up in?" Hitomi asked.
"Nope," said Jounouchi cheerfully. "You tell us what you're mixed up in first."
"We can't," repeated Kaito helplessly.
Jounouchi shrugged. "Eh. We'll deal." He headed back into the living room, Miho behind him.
Kaiba swore. "They're using Tor."
"What?" asked Anzu.
"It's a browser designed for untraceable communication," Momoka said. "Unless my brother can crack it—and no one ever has before that I know of—tracing back the video call to its point of origin isn't going to work."
"I don't want to crack Tor," muttered Kaiba. "It's too useful the way it is. New plan," he added, louder. "Surveillance cameras. Where was Yuuki when she was taken, and when?"
"She went to the arcade after school," said Anzu. "She said she wanted to be alone with her thoughts and a puzzle game."
"School got out at three," said Kaiba, typing furiously again. "The video call came through five minutes before six...I have three hours of video from a multitude of cameras to look through. Amuse yourselves."
Miho got down a Pachisi board.
"My daughter is in danger of her life," said Hitomi, disbelieving, "and what we are doing about it is literally playing games."
"Don't knock it," said Honda.
* * *
At nine-thirty-two, Anzu, Jounouchi, and Honda jerked in the same moment.
"What did they do?" Anzu whispered, then swallowed hard and tried again. "What did they just do?"
"She's okay," said Jounouchi. "She's strong."
"What just happened?" asked Kaito.
"I don't know exactly," Anzu said. "But it's not good. She's alive!" she hastened to say. "But—it's not good."
Honda sighed. "Ushio," he said. "At best."
Anzu, Jounouchi, and Miho nodded in somber agreement.
"What are you talking about?" Hitomi asked.
"You first," said Miho.
Yuuki's laptop sang out, and Anzu scrambled over to it. Moments later, a video chat with a disheveled blonde woman took up the screen. "It is," said the woman, "four-thirty in the morning. I have been having vicious nightmares about—" She stopped. "Anzu? Where's Yuuki?"
"Hi, Mai," said Anzu tiredly. "That's the problem. She's been kidnapped."
Mai swore. "Not nightmares, then."
"Probably not," Anzu agreed. "Tell me."
"Let's start at the beginning," said Mai. "Domino, afternoon, Yuuki's leaving the high school by herself. She's just about to the arcade when she sees something in the alley. She goes to look. I couldn't see what happened, but there were at least two people and of course they're bigger than she is. Next thing I see, she's waking up in some office building on the waterfront."
"Give me details!" snapped out Kaiba.
Mai kept chattering while Kaito and Hitomi looked at each other. "So my daughter's friends include a dream-seer," said Kaito quietly. "Who is willing to admit to being a dream-seer to a room full of mundanes."
Hitomi shrugged and kept listening.
* * *
At nine-forty-eight, Momoka whooped. "We've got a visual match!"
"The camera in the particular room I think she's in went offline five hours ago," Kaiba said. "But footage from before that matches the background of the ransom note." He reeled off an address, and suddenly the entire house was scrambling.
Kaito stopped at the store counter, where his father waited even though the store had closed hours before. "She'll be all right," Kaito said, as much to himself as to Sugoroku.
"I know she will," Yuuki's grandfather answered. "That's why I'm staying out of the way."
* * *
At ten-thirteen, the cluster of teens—less the Kaiba siblings; Momoka refused to leave Seto's side, and Seto refused to take Momoka into danger—and two parents arrived at the particular office building on the waterfront that Kaiba had identified. Several lights were on in various locations in the building.
"Seventh floor," said Miho, repeating Kaiba.
"You should all wait out here and let the two of us handle this," Hitomi said, for the fifth time since they'd left the house.
"Not a chance," said Honda.
A crash from above. Kaito looked up. Something hurtled down from a broken window several floors up. "Gangway!" Yuuki hollered.
Jounouchi and Honda scrambled to be in position to catch her, collided, and fell in opposite directions. Yuuki hit the pavement between them, rolled a few meters, and flopped spread-eagle. "Ow." She reached down to flip her skirt into a more modest position.
But not before Kaito noted a dark stain on her white panties. "Yuuki-chan?" he asked delicately. "Did they—hurt you, in any way?"
"They tried," Yuuki said darkly, and got up, dusting herself off. "I will survive."
"You're—bleeding," Kaito said. "From—" He gestured at his own crotch, embarrassed.
Yuuki flushed. "I understand this to be a phenomenon that afflicts all women of a certain age at irregular intervals."
Miho dug in her purse. "Miho has supplies!"
Yuuki glanced up at the window. "We don't have time. Two of them are still alive."
"That many?" deadpanned Jounouchi.
"Shut up," said Yuuki. "I doubt either is suicidal enough to follow me out the window, which means we have only moments to decide on a plan of action. I believe I angered the man with the gun," she added.
Hitomi flinched.
Anzu stepped carefully over to Yuuki, as if Kaito's daughter were a bomb needing only a slight disturbance to explode. "Are you all right?" she asked.
"Two of them are still alive," Yuuki repeated.
"That doesn't—oh, whatever," said Anzu. "Let's just get out of here, okay?" She cautiously touched Yuuki's arm.
Yuuki put her own hand over Anzu's, exhaling, then straightened and turned to face the building.
The doors sprang open and a man and a woman ran out. The woman stopped, startled it seemed by the gaggle's presence. The man drew a gun.
Kaito flung up a domed mage shield, a heartbeat behind Hitomi. A spray of bullets bounced off Kaito's shield in all directions, rattling him as though they had hit him directly.
The woman threw herself to the ground. The man, not as quick, was struck by several of the returning bullets.
"Well," said Yuuki. "That is a less than gratifying manner of satisfying the penalty game."
"What were you playing?" Honda asked. "Out of curiosity."
Yuuki grinned. There was something dark on her teeth. "Cat and mouse, of course."
The woman, now that the crossfire had stopped, bounced back to her feet and threw a ball of magefire. Kaito's shield shattered, and the flames splashed harmlessly if heatedly across Hitomi's shield.
"Stop!" commanded Yuuki. She walked forward, alone, parting Hitomi's shield with a breath. The woman readied another ball of magefire but did not throw it. "You," Yuuki told the woman, stopping perhaps two paces from her, "laid hands on the royal person without permission. You have two choices. Surrender—or play a game with me."
The woman stared down at Yuuki. Yuuki stared up at her.
The woman's magefire died. "I surrender," she said, barely audible to Kaito.
Hitomi flicked out her fingers in gestures that bound the woman's hands behind her back with magewind and dragged her feet over to where Hitomi stood, then chained the woman's foot to Hitomi's in the same manner. Kaito stood up—he hadn't realized he'd fallen—and drew out his cell phone, dialing the number for a junior Council member, the very person he would have contacted when he got the ransom note had Yuuki not relayed that they meant to kill her if he contacted the authorities. "Inoue Hanako-san," he said in response to the Councilwoman's "Moshi moshi". "Mutou Kaito. We have a situation..."
Yuuki rejoined the cluster of her friends. "Miho, I'll take those supplies now," she said. "Thank you." She glanced from friend to friend. "Thank you all."
* * *
"Are you all right?" Inoue-san asked Kaito, sometime after eleven.
"I am perfectly fine," said Kaito. "Why wouldn't I be?" He glanced toward the stairs leading up to the bedrooms of his home. Yuuki was showering, with Anzu and Hitomi sitting outside the cracked-open bathroom door to keep her company.
"Your actions caused someone's death," Inoue-san said calmly. "Most people would be disturbed."
"I was protecting my daughter," Kaito said. "I may have nightmares tonight, but this is the happy ending."
"Yes," said Inoue-san. Her phone rang, and she answered. Kaito didn't listen until she touched his arm after hanging up. "My people found the third one," she said. "Dead."
Kaito put his head down on the table. "My daughter killed a man," he concluded.
"We don't know that," said Inoue-san. "The only injury he appears to have is a piece missing from his penis, which would hardly be enough to kill him—though if your daughter inflicted that, she may have left an important piece out of her story."
"Several important pieces," said Kaito, sitting up again and trying not to think about the implications of that statement. "Her friends—the way they're acting—like this isn't particularly unusual!"
"Yes, we have questions for them all," Inoue-san answered.
Hitomi returned to the kitchen. "That man is fortunate he is already dead," she said, vicious. "What he tried to do to my daughter—she bit his bits off," she added, pride shining through the concern, and continued, "but she told us this like it happened to a different her."
"Dissociation," said Inoue-san. "We'll have to find her a therapist."
Kaito put his head back on the table. "What good is a father who cannot protect his daughter? Who isn't even there when she needs protection?"
Hitomi put a hand on his shoulder.
"Hey, guys," Anzu called down the stairs, and without another word Miho, Jounouchi, and Honda charged past the adults and clattered up the stairs. Miho snagged a box of cookies out of the pantry on her way past.
"What are we going to tell the children?" Hitomi asked.
"What are they going to tell us?" Kaito replied.
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