These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.
A/N: My apologies for the unanticipated 11 month hiatus between chapters of this story. Life got in the way, and then once I started writing again, other characters took my attention and wouldn't patiently wait their turn, as they should have. But I love this story and these characters – this is one of my favorite animes of all time, and that's saying something, considering the breadth of my interest and volume of shows I have watched – and I will finish this story. It just might take a while. Thanks for your patience! Kudos and Comments would be appreciated, so I know people are still interested in hearing the rest of this story. :)
This Chapter is for TheImmortalLegendaryPhoenix, blackkyu, viycta, and Miranda Amu, in gratitude for their reviews of my story, and for all those of you who favorited it as well.
Chapter 14 – Hope Kindles
Minamoto cursed as the gun was yanked from his hands by an invisible force and exploded in a shower of metal parts. This wasn't like before, when Hyoubu attacked their headquarters and took Kaoru. He didn't look irrational, or out of control, though black and fuchsia swirls of power surrounded him just the same. This time, he looked furious, enraged but in a more controlled, more purposeful and deadly way. Whatever Hinomiya and Fujiwara had done, they had better be able to fix it fast, or the rest of them were about to pay for it.
"Stay out of my way, unless you wish to also become a handful of useless parts upon the floor," Kyousuke threatened, as an invisible hand wrapped around Minamoto's throat, squeezing just hard enough to enforce the threat, but not truly harm him.
Thankfully, the girls, Hinomiya and Fujiwara appeared, before Minamoto could see whether that was about to change.
"Kyousuke!" Kaoru reprimanded, and suddenly the pressure around his throat was gone.
"Don't test my patience, Kaoru. Take your fiancé and your friends and these two traitors and evacuate this facility, unless you wish to become part of the collateral damage I am infamous for," Hyoubu snarled, glaring at both Fujiwara and Hinomiya purposefully as he spoke. "Leave the prisoners. The staff, the soldiers, are mine."
"We're not going anywhere. Those prisoners are under our protection, and we have wounded who can't be moved," Minamoto rebutted, swallowing against the pain of that thought. If they left now, they might never be able to fix whatever had happened to Sakaki. The thought of his overconfident, mischievous, impetuous best friend remaining a comatose vegetable for the rest of his life was too horrifying to even contemplate.
And from what Sakaki had told them, just before he collapsed, McGuire would die if the bullet lodged against the wall of his heart shifted even a millimeter. It was only because of Sakaki that he'd made it safely onto the operating table. Lieutenant Ford was currently keeping her partner alive, redirecting the blood he was losing back into his circulatory system, but she was nearing exhaustion from the effort of moving a fluid with a higher density than water in such a controlled and precise manner, and there was no one to perform the surgery McGuire so desperately needed. They'd achieved their objective, they'd rescued the prisoners and arrested the monsters responsible, but the price had been too damn high, both for B.A.B.E.L. and the U.S.E.I.
"Wounded? Not Irene?" Fujiwara asked anxiously.
"No. She is unharmed and the Royal Psychics made it through with only a few minor injuries to their group. But McGuire and … and Sakaki…" Minamoto couldn't even finish his sentence.
"McGuire? What happened?" Hinomiya demanded, his voice unexpectedly thick with concern.
"He took a bullet to the chest, protecting his partner. It severed a vein and lodged near the wall of his heart, so he's bleeding badly, we can't move him, and we don't have anyone skilled enough left here to save him. The doctor we have prisoner told us he would only operate if we dropped all charges against him and released him, but I know Sakaki would prefer death over that, and there's no way I'd let that butchering monster near him anyway. McGuire's partner, Ford, is keeping him alive for now, we're flying in a surgeon, but the damned storm's started up again and…" Minamoto looked helplessly at Hinomiya, who had paled, he looked ill, while Hyoubu looked even more furious than before.
"It's my fault. He gave his bullet resistant jacket to me. What about Sakaki? Was he shot too?" Hinomiya asked, sounding just as concerned.
"No. We're not sure what happened. One moment he was ready to operate on McGuire, he'd moved him safely to the operating theatre, but then he just collapsed and… Colonel Grisham has confirmed he's catatonic, but he doesn't know why. At first we thought there might have been some hidden weapon in the room, a paralytic agent or gas or contact poison, or that maybe he cut himself, and some unknown drug entered his bloodstream that way, but there's nothing, and when Grisham read our prisoners' minds, he couldn't find any information, from either the doctor or the soldiers or support staff."
"They won't be able to keep secrets from me," Hyoubu threatened.
"No. We can't let you near them. You'll leave them all vegetables, and we need to publically try them for the atrocities that were committed here. Who knows how many other victims have died on that operating table?" Minamoto insisted.
"642," Hinomiya whispered. "He called me specimen 643. They probably didn't all die here but-"
"Shit! Damn it! No wonder Sakaki's catatonic," Yoh exclaimed. "He uses his psychometry to diagnose his patients, right? We saw it in the van, in Maldrid. If he was using his power, and accidentally touched the operating table, instead of McGuire, or maybe from holding the same scalpel they'd used before…"
Hinomiya looked like he was going to faint, and suddenly Hyoubu was at his side, supporting him. "They torture and degrade people, they cut them apart while they're bound and helpless, probably while they're conscious and aware, no anesthesia, no painkillers," Hinomiya stated, shuddering, horrified. "Sakaki is a doctor. Seeing that happen, feeling it happen, to dozens, maybe hundreds of those victims… No wonder he's catatonic."
"Damn it! I should have realized," Minamoto cursed himself. He was supposed to be so brilliant, but the thought had never even occurred to him, he'd been so certain it was an intentional attack of some kind.
Hyoubu's lips pursed in determination. "Take me to Sakaki. He saved Magi's life and McGuire saved Andy. Neither of them is going to die here, their bodies or their minds. I refuse to allow it."
Minamoto felt cautious hope flare, not only because Sakai and McGuire might be saved, but because it seemed that Hyoubu had a new purpose, that his homicidal need for vengeance had been channeled into something constructive, instead of destructive.
"It's this way," Minamoto stated, as he began leading them, Hyoubu and Hinomiya beside him and the others trailing behind him.
Minamoto could see the tension increasing in Hinomiya the closer they got to the operating room.
"What's wrong?" Hyoubu demanded.
"Nothing. I'm fine," Hinomiya claimed.
Hyoubu stopped walking, pulling his supporting arm away and glaring at him. "You promised me you would never lie to me again," he accused furiously.
Hinomiya looked chagrined. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean… That room, where we're going… I was there. That's where McGuire, Ford and Grishom rescued me from. I was cuffed to the table, completely helpless and… When I said I was fine, I meant, I'll be fine, that I can handle it, going back."
"I need to kill them," Hyoubu stated bluntly, deadly venom in his voice, the black and pink swirling currents of energy which had begun to dissipate thickening with a vengeance.
"No. You need to save Sakaki and McGuire. The U.S.E.I and B.A.B.E.L. and Monarch need to see that the men here publically pay for their crimes, and the world needs to see those trials, they need to be publicized, to discourage others who think they can get away with atrocities like this," Hinomiya urged.
"That will depend upon whether McGuire and Sakaki can be saved. If either of those men cannot be, then everyone who took part in this systematic genocide against us will be executed, today, by me, and neither you, Yoh, nor the combined might of B.A.B.E.L., the U.S.E.I and Princess Sophie's Royal Psychics will be able to stop me," Hyoubu promised.
"I'm not your enemy, Kyousuke, but I am mankind's ally, as much as I'm yours. I won't let you kill bound and helpless prisoners, no matter what atrocities they might be guilty of. I don't want to fight you, but I will if you force my hand," Hinomiya stated bravely.
"You would lose, in a heartbeat. Literally. I can stop your heart with a thought, where you stand," Hyoubu threatened.
"You have control of my heart with or without your powers," Hinomiya countered.
"You continue to be exasperating, to challenge me at every turn," Hyoubu accused, but surprisingly, his expression softened, and the words sounded almost like an endearment, as the swirling energy currents significantly diminished.
"Because you are so strong-willed and powerful. But I will still do everything in my power to protect you and our whole family always, from every possible harm," Hinomiya replied.
Like Hyoubu's, Hinomiya's words seemed to have an alternate meaning from the obvious. Minamoto felt strangely like he was voyeuristically intruding upon a lover's tryst, as if he was overhearing a declaration of love and a solemn vow, even as the visible expression of Hyoubu's power completely vanished.
"Come. Colonel Grishom is no doubt as upset about his protégé as Minamoto is about his friend, and the Colonel is decades older. I will not risk his heart failing him," Hyoubu stated, placing his hand on Hinomiya's back to urge him forward.
Minamoto's eyes widened at the casual seeming touch. This wasn't a supporting arm, this was something far more telling. Hyoubu hated touching and being touched: many ESPers did, especially telepaths and psychometrists, and few ESPers who knew about Hinomiya's powers would voluntarily touch him.
Minamoto followed behind the two men, as Hinomiya led the way now, half his thoughts on them and half on Sakaki, as they proceeded down the corridor to the operating theater.
0 0 0
The closer they got to the operating room, the harder it was for Andy to continue on, to keep walking. He was dizzy and nauseas, and only partly because of what he was now sure was a concussion. He could feel every tortured muscle tense the closer they got to that horrible room, and he tried to force his breathing to remain steady. Kyousuke's temper was on a hair trigger today, after everything that had happened. He couldn't risk that tenuous control snapping. The last thing he wanted to do was fight him.
Colonel Grishom was on guard at the door. Andy knew he was roughly the same age as Kyousuke, and that there had been an unmistakable air of power and vitality surrounding him before, now notably absent. He looked as if he'd aged a decade or more in the hour or so that they'd been gone.
He didn't visibly tense when he saw them, but he blocked their path and was definitely assessing them. "Hyoubu. I didn't expect to see you here again."
"I understand McGuire is critically injured. I am here to save him, and that annoying doctor, Sakaki, as well," Kyousuke replied.
"I used my telepathy to copy Doctor Sakaki's unique ability to diagnose people psychometrically, to see if I could help Ken, but that level of psychic surgery is beyond me. I've at least been able to determine what's wrong with your man Sakaki, though, Minamoto. He accidentally absorbed a number of horrific images when his hand brushed against the operating table, while he was determining the best approach to reach the bullet without damaging Ken's heart. It's fortunate that you're here, Hyoubu. You're the only one I know strong enough to remove those memories, or erase or suppress them, to get him on his feet again," Grishom stated solemnly.
"And I will. I owe the doctor, a life for a life. That is what we suspected might have happened. It is good to know that is truly the cause. But to remove only that tiny portion of his memory without impacting the rest is a painstaking process, one that will take time McGuire does not have. Instead, I will operate on McGuire, if you will allow it. I have done similar surgeries before, many times, whenever one of our people or those ESPers we rescue are injured. Once he is out of danger and recovering, then I will heal Sakaki," Hyoubu magnanimously offered.
"Mary, help's here. I trust Hyoubu to save Ken," Grishom stated, without hesitation, as he stepped back into the room, and waved them inside.
Andy took a bracing breath and entered, his skin crawling as he saw the familiar room. McGuire was laid out on the operating table, but not strapped to it as he had been. His pale blue shirt had been cut away from his chest. Andy was confused for a moment at the absence of blood on the fabric, until he realized that Ford had apparently siphoned even the blood from his clothes and sent it back into his body. McGuire's tan skin was distressingly pale.
Ford nodded tersely and wordlessly to Grishom's statement, to their arrival, without looking away from her partner. She looked almost as bad, her formerly rich caramel skin almost grey with fatigue, her brow glistening with perspiration, her forehead crinkled in concentration, her hands hovering over McGuire's chest, as she used her power to redirect the flow of his blood.
"Keep doing what you're doing," Kyousuke instructed. "With you concentrating on the blood flow, it will be easier for me to concentrate on the bullet, and rebuild the damaged blood vessels and tissues. But if you begin to falter, I will assist you or take over."
Relief and gratitude flooded Ford's face, and cautious hope.
Without further word, Kyousuke went to McGuire's side and focused his attention on him, while the rest of them watched breathlessly.