A/N: This chapter is going out to Shadow of Yang. Thanks for the PM and the needed kick in the pants to get back on the RW fanfic wagon! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

And thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing, we're winding down now in "Hostage" and it's only getting more crazy from here on out!

Disclaimer: I don't own RW, I do however have two YST artbooks, a drawing board, a bunch of action figures and all the DVDs besides volume 7, does that count for anything?

Last time: Kyoko and the other hostages raced to safety, shutting off the lights as they went. Sage and Kento stumbled upon the hostage situation at the bank and realized that Rowen must be inside.

Hostage

By: Ada C. Eliana

Chapter 8

"A hero is one who knows how to hang on one minute longer" - Novalis

Before he could fire a shot off, the room was plunged into darkness. Rowen took his opportunity, Gunman was his most dangerous opponent, and so taking him out of the game first would make things much easier for him. He darted forward to attack, but Beanstalk intercepted him, saving Gunman and aiming a fist at Rowen's face. Rowen dropped, the fist hitting air and Rowen's legs swinging out, bringing Beanstalk down on top of him. The man now better able to gauge Rowen's location in the dark bank, punched and scratched at Rowen as he tried to pin him down to the floor.

Violence and the others circled around them, boots kicking out at Rowen, and to his own misfortune, Beanstalk was caught in the crossfire a couple of times. Rowen barely felt their attacks, instead, his mind was moving quickly, forming a plan to stop them. The last thing he expected was for Gunman to screw it up right away.

"Stop messing around with him one of you and get the lights back on!" Gunman shouted.

Rowen heard the heavy footsteps of Doughnut race by him to follow orders and realized that he had a better chance of stopping them in the dark, so he had better take the opportunity to stop as many as he could now, before Doughnut turned the lights back on. If only Kyoko could have ripped the wires or something too. But he knew that she had done more than enough for him, it was up to him to get himself out of this situation now.

Ignoring the punch Beanstalk had just landed to his cheek; Rowen pulled his fist back and connected with the man's nose. He toppled backward, clutching at his face, and Rowen leapt to his feet. He stared at the men surrounding him and found it difficult not to picture them as Talpa's soldiers, mindless drones without souls or even the ability to talk. He forced that image out of his mind, because no matter how cruel they might be, they were not dark soldiers, and he couldn't think of them that way.

The crowd closed in around him, and he jumped into the air, spinning and kicking Greasy in the neck before landing gracefully on his face. Greasy went down hard and Rowen did not take time to wonder if that had been a fatal blow or not, or to worry about the possible complications and consequences of his actions. In an ideal world he would only be knocking each of them unconscious, but without too much experience in fighting real humans he truly did not know how hard to hit or where to aim his blows. All he knew was that he had to get out of there alive. Now that he had no other hostages to worry about his number one priority was himself. And he would not be killed by a bunch of mortal thugs.

Death was not an option. He would do whatever he had to in order to survive.

Sage tried in vain to get the attention of the police officers who were holding the crowd back, but they all just yelled at him to stay behind the barricade and otherwise ignored him.

"They won't talk to you, you know," the woman they had been speaking with said. "I've been trying to ask them about my sister, but they just keep barking their orders and pretending they don't hear us. Something tells me they really don't know what they're doing."

"That's just great," Kento frowned. He knew just how useless authorities could be from the battles with the Dynasty, but then he could understand, when there was a supernatural phenomenon occurring it was difficult to know how to react. But a hostage crisis at a bank really should have been within their understanding, and he hated that they were standing there, doing nothing, while Rowen might be trapped inside. After all he'd been through already, the last thing Rowen needed was the death of those two people on his conscious, or to have to take care of the situation himself. The Ronin Warriors had saved the world, they shouldn't have to be responsible for each individual person as well. He did not even let himself think that Rowen might be killed inside, because if there was one thing he knew about the Warrior of Air, it was that Rowen was always thinking, always planning, and so out of the five of them, Rowen was the one Kento trusted the most in any situation. He would find a way to disarm the men and escape, because no matter how self-sacrificing any of them might be when it came to each other, they each knew that the Ronin Warriors needed to stay alive, their destinies had not been fulfilled yet, they were needed for important things, and so they had to survive at all costs.

While staring at the bank and still desperately hoping Rowen wasn't in there (while somehow knowing for sure that he was), Sage had quite a different thought process than Kento. While yes, he trusted Rowen with his life, and knew just how competent his friend was, he also knew that none of them had ever been in a situation like this. Not to mention, Rowen was used to fighting with the extra strength and power of his armor. Without it, he would feel out of sorts, would have a more difficult time.

"You don't understand, someone's still in there!" Sage's sharp ears heard the woman's protestations from far away and turned immediately to see a 30-something woman arguing with a policeman off to the side of the building. He recognized her as having been towards the end of the line of hostages that escaped the bank. Without bothering to be polite, Sage shoved himself through the crowd and towards the woman. "He was hurt, I don't know what they might have done to him but you need to do something!"

"Listen ma'am, we're doing what we can. You know as well as we do that it would be a danger to the hostage if we charged in there now. We're working through standard procedure to ensure everyone's safety."

The woman snorted under her breath, but the policeman walked away and left her there, standing on the sidelines and staring at the bank.

"Excuse me ma'am," Sage said, trying to catch her attention. "Excuse me!" She turned and caught his eye. "The person still in there – can you tell me who it is?"

"His name's Rowen," she responded, something about the intensity with which this stranger stared at her reminding her of Rowen. She wondered briefly if maybe they were related, but the resemblance she saw wasn't anything hereditary, it seemed more learned, and she wondered for not the first time just who Rowen really was.

Even having expected that blow, Sage still took in a sharp inhale at her words. "You said he was hurt?" Sage said, his voice sounding pathetic even to him. Kento had caught up to him, listening eagerly, the woman they spoke with earlier right behind him.

"His ear was bleeding," she responded quietly, wringing her hands. "I don't know if he could hear right with it."

"Let me guess, he caused a distraction so all of you could escape," Sage said, recognizing it as such as a self-sacrificing Rowen tactic. From behind him he heard Kento groan in exasperation.

"That's basically what happened. I guess you know him pretty well?" Kyoko asked, her gaze swiveling between Sage and Kento.

Sage nodded. "He's my best friend."

"He's the only hostage left in there, and those men… they looked angry when we got away. They're probably taking it out on him and I can't see why the police aren't doing anything!" Kyoko exclaimed, seeing an ally of sorts in Sage.

Sage blanched slightly at the implications of her words, but was quick to reassure the woman. "Rowen's tough, he'll be alright. But… he's probably going to need some back-up. What was the situation like exactly when you left?"

"I pulled the breaker on my way out – turned off the lights. Rowen asked me to, I don't know, maybe he thought if it was dark he'd have a better shot at getting out. But I only flicked the switch, I mean, they might have turned them back on by now."

"How many men are there?"

"There are six, they all have switchblades, but the one has a handgun also, and he already killed two people…" her voice caught slightly, and she had to stop, dark hair falling in her eyes as she tried to swallow over the lump in her throat.

Sage nodded sympathetically, impressed by the woman's courage, but needing her help for just a little while longer before she broke down. "How did you get out?"

"There's a side entrance," Kyoko said, pointing to where she had fled the bank. "But the police will be watching it now, and besides…" she trailed off for a moment as she stared in Sage's eyes, saw them take on that determined look she had seen in Rowen's when she told her to escape. "You're not planning on going in, are you?"

"I can't exactly leave Rowen alone now, can I?" Sage shrugged, pulling off his jacket, knowing it would only get in the way and forming the beginnings of a plan. Police procedure be dammed, he was going to help his friend no matter what.

The lights flashed on and as spots danced in front of Rowen's eyes at the sudden change, the group charged him at once. He fought without sight, with nothing but basic instinct, but they kept getting blows in – on his left side. Rowen's hearing had been compromised on that side and it had him feeling off-balanced, unable to predict the actions of the members of the group in a way he should have.

He ducked and blocked to the best of his ability. Someone grabbed his right hand, and as he fought to free it the others attacked on his left side. While still yanking to get his right arm free from the steel grip that someone – Samurai? – had on it, he fought back against the other, kicking Doughnut in the face and spotting Gunman watching the happenings quite coolly, leaning against a pillar with his gun.

A flash of metal sliced through the air and Rowen used Samurai's hold on his arm as leverage to flip into the air and out of the way, arching over Samurai's head and landing on the other side of him, his right arm twisted awkwardly. He spotted a coil of rope knotted around his arm and wondered how the hell Samurai had time to do that. Samurai abruptly released his right arm but then pulled on it with the end of the rope, dragging Rowen to the floor. His back hit hard, but then he was on his feet again, pulling against the rope while still fending off the others.

Doughnut launched himself at Rowen, pushing him to the floor and pinning him abruptly. A length of rope suddenly was looped around Rowen's neck and cinched tightly. Rowen stiffened, his pinned left hand groping futilely towards his neck. Doughnut leapt off of him and the rope around his neck tightened as someone pulled on it, dragging him like a dog on a chain towards the back corner where the vault was.

From outside he vaguely heard the police speaking through a megaphone, ordering the thugs to release the final hostage and give themselves up.

It appeared that Samurai, Beanstalk, and Doughnut were all dragging him, perhaps realizing that Rowen was too dangerous to be fought one on one or by any normal means. The rope on his arm was pulled painfully tight, and Rowen found himself helping them by shoving his feet against the floor to gain forward momentum and lessen the tautness of the bindings. He had to protect his neck the most, it would be easy for them to permanently damage his throat, crush his windpipe, damage his larynx, fracture his vertebra, if they tightened that rope too much. Rowen suddenly found himself wishing that he didn't have such a good memory as the list of potential injuries flitted through his mind, right along with textbook drawings of what each injury looked like. He couldn't take the chance of doing any fancy flips or anything of the sort against them until he figured out a way to get them to drop the rope. He pulled at the rope with his left hand, just enough to let up some of the pressure, not enough to end up damaging his spine himself.

He heard something large being lifted, and he remembered with horror the chainsaw they had been using on the vault earlier. His mind raced, trying to come up with some sort of counter plan, and as they pulled him closer Rowen saw Violence standing there with the saw in his hand, an expression of bloodlust on his face. Rowen's stomach dropped and the others laughed as they noted the panic on his face.

They suddenly stopped pulling him, and Rowen's right arm was twisted painfully against his back, the rope at his neck cinched tight to prevent him from fighting back as the wrapped the rope from his arm around his chest and tied it tightly, his right arm completely inflamed with pain and feeling as though about to break in its current position.

"Let's see how he fights back without his left hand," Gunman suggested from where he stood across the bank.

"You idiot! The cops have this place surrounded and I'm the last hostage you have, you should be trying to figure out how to get out of here alive, not wasting your time on me!" Rowen protested, his voice pained by the tight hold of the rope. Gunman said nothing, just walked slowly towards him, approaching him. He grabbed Rowen's chin, forcing his head forward despite the rope's tight hold.

"You decided to make a fool out of me, kid, by sending all your little hostage friends outside. And you're right, the police have us surrounded, there's no way out. But even if they do get us in the end, what do you think – that they'll win? – not if the news is reporting about the two people shot and that one stupid, moronic kid who got himself chopped into little pieces. That's not a win, kid."

"You can still bargain," Rowen protested, his voice scratchy and terrible sounding.

"You don't need to be alive to be a bargaining chip," he smiled. "Take his left hand," he ordered Violence before stepping away.

Greasy lumbered over towards him, his neck bruised but not looking too badly for his short bout of unconsciousness, and he helped hold the rope around Rowen's neck while Doughnut and Beanstalk grabbed his left hand and pulled on it. Violence approached with the chainsaw and Rowen knew he had to think of something fast if he wanted to make it out of there at all.

A/N: There're about two chapters to go! Let me know what you thought!

Thanks for reading,

Ada