Chapter 6

It takes just shy of a day for the new member of Chiho's flock to make it downstairs for a meal, and when she does the difference in her demeanor is astonishing. She enters the kitchen with a perky smile and, after bowing to the landlady until she receives the same in return, she speaks.

"Thank you for your hospitality. I am number forty-four, Yosuga."

Miya offers a half smile partially hidden behind a hand that she has placed over her mouth. "Please, Yosuga. Sit and be welcome. I trust that the rules of Izumo have been made clear to you?"

The sister-wife of Uzume nods, though her happy demeanor takes a bit of a beating in the process.

"Yes, I have been informed that we will need to leave to go to a love hotel if we wish to partake in the pleasures of the flesh, and that there is no fighting allowed in Izumo house."

Miya's expression has a slight downturn as she glances at Uzume, who is desperately trying to ignore the entirety of the conversation, or at least appear to, as she eats her fish and rice meal. Poor Chiho is simply not a good enough actor and is staring at her plate turning redder by the second as a blush creeps all over her face. Finally, Miya turns back to the newcomer and sighs. "While true, I would remind you that lewd conduct can also be attributed to words and concepts being bandied about at the dinner table and would encourage you to not indulge in such behavior again. She glances at Bruce, who is quietly eating with his Sekirei on either side of him, and just the slightest hint of irritation crosses her features for some reason. "Regrettably, I am having to curb my normal response to such transgressions for reasons I do not wish to explain. So just this once, I will merely remind you. Do not test my patience."

Yosuga reddens a bit at the reprimand, and nodding frantically, she sits. "I am sorry, landlady. I will try to be less suggestive in my manner of speaking. Forgive me."

Nodding at her new tenant and resuming eating, Miya still gives the occasional dark look to Uzume, whom she is pretty sure is to blame for the new girl's 'pleasures of the flesh' comment. She'll have to impress upon the young woman all the ways in which such talk is not to be bandied about in Izumo house sometime when Bruce is not at home. The man in question, the only one at the table as Kagari has gone off to work the evening shift at the host club, takes the time to speak to the new girl.

"So, Yosuga. I know my girls here have visited you in your room during your recovery, and I imagine that they told you. But if not, I thought I would introduce myself. My name is Bruce, and I am a doctor, among other things. Specifically, I am a doctor that specializes in your new condition. If you like, I can take a look at you this evening and make sure everything is going alright." He sighs. "Well, I can do what I can with the tools I have access to, at any rate. Chiho and Uzume would be welcome to join us during the exam of course." He adds the last bit at her look of wariness, which seems to do much to mollify her. "Beyond that however, I have to ask. What was that all about?"

Yosuga sighs, though she looks a bit confused as well at some of the things Bruce has said. "Those were two of Mikogami's flock. He basically rules the southern portion of the city as far as the S-plan goes these days. Some spoiled rich kid that is treating the winging of my species as if it were some kind of contest, as if he could win by having the most. Like we were Pokemon or something. Might not be so bad if the Sekirei in question were actually reacting to the worm, but he just sends the ones he's already got to kidnap more and forces himself on them. It's like rape, but worse in some ways. Because once it's happened, there's no way out. They're stuck with their rapist until they die." She gives her plate a somber look and then her gaze passes across her rescuers. "That's why I was trying so hard to get away. I don't really want to die, but given those options? I'll take the chance."

Bruce nods, his face a mask of irritation. "How many? How many does this walking dead man have?"

Most everybody at the table looks at him as though he's lost his mind. Yosuga looks at the rest of the table and sees that while most of the table is concerned aside from Yashima, who seems to think the the entire concept is just delightful if her smirk is anything to go by, nobody seems to be particularly worried for the man or his Sekirei.

"At least six that I know of. It really is too dangerous to go after the slime. Only maybe Higa of the East could manage it, and he is just as bad, if not worse. Mikogami is a piece of crap, but he is at least treating it like a game and is supposedly treating his flock as valuable collectors items. Higa is treating the whole thing like he is a member of the Yakuza and we're just a resource that can be used up. Like bullets from a gun. I even heard a rumor that he was blackmailing other Ashikabi into doing his bidding by various means, so he doesn't have to put his own resources at risk as often."

Bruce's eyes flicker over to Uzume as a few pieces of the puzzle begin to become a little more clear, or rather just how widespread the corruption has become in any case.

Seeing that the Ashikabi of her rescuers wasn't considering her warning with the gravity that she thinks he should, she shakes her head. "Kuno? Yashima? I was pretty out of it, so I don't know exactly how you got me away from Mutsu, number five is probably one of the deadliest Sekirei there is. But you can't let him send you against them like he's planning! They'll take you out for nothing. No good can come of it."

Kuno's head finds solace in her hands with her elbows on the table, while Yashima's smirk stretches into a full on grin. "He's not planning to send us after them, Yosuga. And while we did carry you here and did our best to help you, we're not the ones that made Mutsu turn away. He is. Has anybody explained to you yet why your eyes are green?"

The newest resident looks at her in confusion. "Green? My eyes aren't green, they're brown."

Aside from the two Ashikabi, the table starts laughing and Chiho squirms a little in her seat. "Not... Not anymore."

While the rest of the table is deep in conversation letting the newcomer in on what's what, Bruce is considering his options. He can ignore the situation. He'd rather not, but it is viable. Really, it isn't a great idea to turn loose the Hulk in a city for any reason.

Well, barring alien invasion. Or AI invasion. Or a little further back, dealing with something like him only without any possibility of redemption because the person they were is glorying in the power rather than trying to fight the corruption it causes. Okay, maybe there are good reasons. But is this one of them?

A serial rapist and mystical slave master that is playing with peoples lives as if they were game pieces and collecting a trophy case of super powered pawns bound to do his bidding?

He can almost hear Steve telling him to get off his dead ass, soldier up, and do something about it. Stark would probably make some kind of Sekirei subduing drone or weapon that would neutralize his flock without killing them and then spank the little shit heel before throwing him to Fury to lock up for the rest of his natural life.

Clint or Natasha would have already handled this by going straight for the source of the problem and consider the death of the six enslaved Sekirei an acceptable loss to prevent the situation from getting any worse.

Thor? Thor would walk in the front door and let them make the mistake of attacking him so he had the excuse, most likely.

But what can he do? The only one of those strategies that would be viable for him is Thor's and frankly, that's a hell of a risk. These Sekirei are a lot more powerful than the bullet he once ate trying to put himself out of his misery, and while there might have been a time he wouldn't have minded taking a chance like that, he's not willing to throw away the lives of the two girls that decided to tie their souls to him. Then he has a thought. It doesn't thrill him, that he is considering doing something like this. But the only local authority, MBI, doesn't seem to be interested in doing anything to regulate this fiasco or take care of things like this. So maybe, for once, his degrees in physics and chemistry can be good for something besides destroying his own life.

"Do we know where this piece of human garbage lives, besides just 'The South?"

Miya hangs her head for a moment, and then looks up at Bruce. "Bruce-san? While it is true that I have in the past only enforced the rules that I have already told you, I must ask. Are you contemplating activities that could cause problems at Izumo?"

Bruce makes a clicking sound with his tongue. "Yeah, looks that way. Is that a problem?"

Miya takes a moment to look at the ceiling and then back down to her lodger. "Are you considering an activity that could make you unavailable to help all of these people at the table to deal with complications arising from having been infected by your toxin?"

Bruce stops mid thought. He hadn't considered that angle. Miya continues.

"Your two young birds I am willing to believe would go along with whatever you chose, Bruce-san. It is their way. But is it moral for you to put yourself in such a position in light of other complications your being here has caused before first doing you duty as a physician?"

Bruce slumps in his chair. "No, Miya. No it isn't. I'm sorry. I'm not used to being the only one that is around to get things done. I'm used to being on a team. A... Well, a grab bag of people that are extremely skilled and powerful. Able to handle things like this. I was hoping that I could do it all, but you're right." He looks up at her. "For at least a few more months, I really shouldn't be going out of my way to take risks. There isn't anybody else around that has the knowledge to deal with the problems they picked up from me."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"What is it, Takami? I am quite busy at the moment."

Looking at the video screen that shows Minaka's face as highly annoyed, Takami pauses for a moment. Minaka is certifiably insane, but extremely intelligent and delights in frustrating others. Her especially. If he's found something so interesting that he can't be bothered even to make the effort to annoy her then whatever he's doing? It can't be good. But the information that she has is too important to get sidetracked. She'll have to hit the servers later and see if she can figure out what has him so distracted.

"I've finally figured out what is causing that big green thing that you are so interested in keeping here to screw so heavily with the safety protocols in the Sekirei. You charbroiling the area after his fight with Karasuba did too much damage to get any decent intel, but his tussle with Yomi left some blood behind to be analyzed."

She now has Minaka's complete attention.

"So what is it then? Don't leave me in suspense!"

Takami grins. Whatever he's doing isn't as important as this, at least. That gives her something to go on.

"That thing is radioactive. It bathes the area it's in with a fairly powerful amount of gamma radiation. I would guess that it probably does when it looks like a normal man too, but the effect is far more powerful when it expands as it does. The equivalent of getting x-rays done on your whole body the entire time you are in his presence. And not with a modern machine either, more like one of the old ones. Not lethal by itself, though if you set him in his green form next to somebody for a few years, you'd likely be carving some fairly interesting tumors out of them after a while. It temporarily messes with any Sekirei within a few hundred yards just by existing. Their shut-down protections are short-circuited. Their instincts to get winged and the way their body reacts to a potential Ashikabi will get turned on their heads. I wouldn't be at all surprised if any unwinged Sekirei that spends significant amount of time around him will more or less throw themselves at him after a while if they had any predisposition to want him at all. Combine that with what we are seeing in Higa's Sekirei and this situation is teetering on the edge of collapsing to a level of out of control that I don't think we can actually deal with. We need to get that thing out of the city, and while we are at it you need to send Karasuba and the rest of the Discipline squad to remove Higa from, if not the mortal coil, at least the city."

Minaka's face hardens for a moment, and then he chuckles manically.

"Takami, sometimes it just isn't possible to make a problem go away that easily. If they are here, they have to play! And once they're here, they can't leave outside of being eliminated from the game. You do what you have to, but no screwing with normal, human Ashikabi's is allowed. Figure out another way."

Takami realizes that she is building up to a bit of a rage, and Minaka, as always, is fairly decent at seeing that kind of thing coming. They were a couple once, so it isn't like he doesn't have knowledge of her. Intimate and otherwise.

"Damn it Minaka, there is no other way!"

His smirk sends her off the deep end and his response of: "There's always a way, don't be a lazybones and go find it!" Neatly pushes her off the edge.

Then her screen goes blank. He'd hung up. The son of a bitch had hung up on her.

Minaka can hear her inarticulate scream of rage from sixteen floors away, and decides that maybe he'll live behind locked doors for a while. But for now, he turns his attention back to the curious little drone they had found on the site where this 'Bruce' character had been found. Had it just been a simple device with a camera on it or something, maybe some transmitting or recording equipment, he wouldn't care. Probably wouldn't have even bothered to have them bring it to him once he heard about it. But while he is leagues ahead of most of his employees, Takami being a notable exception, he doesn't hire idiots as a general rule. But their admittance that they had no idea what half of the things on it did was worrisome to him. So he has spent much of the last three days investigating the curious thing. It does have an obvious camera on it, and a few other things that might be sensors of one sort or another. But it wasn't until he started the disassembly of the odd device that he truly became interested. Some of the parts are obviously custom made, with no identifying marks at all. All put together with a degree of fit and finish that his own scientists and fabrication teams would struggle to emulate, even if they knew what they were supposed to do. But the flying drone about the size of a briefcase and shaped like one of those little quad copter toys less the 'copter' portion and instead had been held aloft by some strange blue-white glowing apertures was full of serial numbers and company names neither he nor his web searches had ever heard of. Two, specifically. There is an oblong core about the size of a loaf of french bread that has a number four with a circle around it and "Patent Pending, RR." But the vast majority of it has a different logo. A stylized, obviously proud logo.

"STARK" the MBI madman muses as he looks at it. He doesn't know what any of it means, and he can freely admit to not liking the fact that he doesn't know. He doesn't like it one bit.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

In a workshop located in a high rise towering over a New York City, a man with immaculate facial hair and at this point slovenly everything else and with big bags under his eyes flips on an earpiece.

"Dial Rubberman."

As always he smirks a bit at the name he chose for his auto dialing program to use for the one he's calling while he listens to the ringing. And ringing. And then ringing some more. Finally a rather annoyed sounding man answers after four minutes and six calls, the first five having gone to an ignored voice mail prompt.

"It's three in the morning, Tony. Unless you want Susan to take a personal interest in your well being, you'll make this quick."

"Yeah. Sorry. But this is more important than her beauty sleep, since she really doesn't need that anyway. How you lucked into her I'll never understand..."

"Tony, I am going to give you three seconds to make your point before I hang up."

Stark smirks as he can hear feminine laughter in the background.

"How long until you can shake loose the time to work with me on the pod? I got a hit."

Author's note:

Hey all. No, I'm not dead. I promise. Just been busy with other stories and real life. Sorry about that. I hope this chapter will explain a bit of why Bruce is messing things up so bad with the safeguards built into this fiasco, I had a review or two that were curious.

Now don't get too excited. I'm not done yet by a long shot, but chapters are liable to be pretty slow still. (Though hopefully you won't have to wait years...) I have a lot of irons in the fire at the moment. I kinda figured I owed those few that have actually reviewed this another chapter though, since I got to looking at it and I have actually gotten more reviews on this since I posted the last chapter than I did when I was still actively writing the thing.

I got shamed into this by you guys, basically. Good job?

Sorry it's short, the next one when I get to it should be a bit longer. This was more or less a transitional chapter. Just getting a few things out of the way.

Anyway, I'll get back to it when I can and have a great day!