The dull light of the setting sun cast orange hues through the windows of Russian sushi as the group sat heavily, waiting for the remaining few who had yet to arrive.

The tension was thick in the air and it was clear there was a lot of hate from the people gathered together. Izaya sat at the edge of the table furthest from the door with Naime standing a little bit away from him, looking bored.

Kida and Anri sat together. Kida was glaring dangerously at Izaya and it seemed that if the information broker made one wrong move Kida would leap in to kill him.

Anri sat with an uncharacteristically stony expression. She looked ready to kill as well, but her anger wasn't directed to Izaya. Instead she was looking down at the table, her fist clenched lightly in her lap.

Simon stood at the door, yelling out that the store was closed in his usual manner, still handing out fliers. He was promising a special tomorrow to make up for today.

Celty was sitting next to Shinra on the same side of the table as Kida and Anri and was fidgeting nervously. Shinra was holding her hand, trying to calm her down. She wasn't nervous about the tension; that was to be expected under the circumstances. It was for Mikado she was worried. Thoughts of whether it was too late, or if it was about to be too late were crossing in her mind, along with all the horrifying things that could have already happened to the boy, and all the things that might happen to him.

Togusa, Erika, Kadota and Walker were sitting on the other side of the table. Erika and Walker were missing their usual goofy expressions. Instead they wore their classic sadistically happy expressions as they planned what to do when this meeting had decided what they were actually going to do.

It had been an hour since Izaya had told everyone he thought would be best to help to come here and so far everyone but one person was here. Izaya wasn't sure if he'd even show up. He almost hoped he wouldn't in fact. Although, there was no reason for him not to; after all, Izaya had gotten Cetly to tell him to come, knowing he wouldn't so much as glance at a text from Izaya.

Simon opened the door, walking in with the man dressed as a bartender. He shot Izaya a death glare from behind purple tinged sunglasses. "Why's the flea here?" He growled, not attacking for one reason; Celty had said it was urgent and that she needed Shizuo's help.

Izaya paused for a moment, no doubt swallowing an insult. He kept his gaze away from Shizuo. He knew he needed the idiot right now, despite how useless he was. Shizuo had a few dull uses, although Izaya would certainly not call them 'talents'.

Erika looked up at Shizuo, glancing at Izaya and deciding now was not the time to make a comment about 'boy love'. Besides, Izaya had promised to let her watch him and Mikado on a date when they got Mikado back. That wasn't the only reason she was helping of course.

Izaya stood up, looking around at the people he'd gathered. He summed up what had happened, leaving out almost all the details. Basically all he said was that Mikado had been abducted because he'd been careless and had allowed Mikado to become a weakness and not protected him. He left out them actually dating, what he'd seen on the video and the fact that he'd actually cried. He'd tell that to Mikado if he had to and that was it. He'd already had to give Naime a raise just to make sure she shut up about it.

Kida stood up, his gaze down at the table though it was doubtful he was actually looking at it. His hair covered his expression but his shaking was all you needed to see to know he was angry. Well, maybe angry wasn't really the right word.

"So you allowed Mikado to get abducted. You didn't even think, for one second about his safety?" His voice was shaking with pure rage and it was clear that he was loosing whatever control he had.

Izaya looked away, nodding once. "I didn't think. But I will get him back. That's why you're all here. I could probably do it on my own, but he's too important to take any risks. I can't let him get hurt because of my own failings."

Celty looked up at Izaya, her helmet reflecting the remaining orange lighting from the setting sun. She typed out her message quickly and people waited for her with different reasons for doing so. Kida and Shizuo were simply too angry to speak right now.

'When do we go?'

Izaya looked over, reading the message quickly. "As soon as we can. We have to get a plan first; I give us half an hour. If we can't come up with anything by then we'll go with plan B. Go to where they told me to meet them and find where Mikado is and then just get him out whatever it takes."

Shizuo finally managed to calm down enough to be furious rather then in a blind rage. "So basically you've been fucking a school boy and now he's going to die."

Izaya glared at Shizuo coldly. "He won't die." He said determinedly, but despite not saying it quietly no one heard it over the commotion that Shizuo's statement caused.

"That's not what's happening! Mikado wouldn't so much as look at that creep like that!" Kida managed to be heard purely from his raw anger behind the words.

Izaya would have laughed under normal circumstances. Right now his sense of humor was lacking slightly.

"We don't have time for this!" Yelled Kadota over everyone else. Everyone shut up, knowing that he was right. They really didn't have time to fight over stupid things. "Right now we have to figure out what we're doing, or would you all rather him dying because you can't get along for two minutes?"

Erika nodded. "Yeah. We have to figure this out. I doubt Mikado's being well cared for as we argue here, so if you really care about him just keep that in mind."

Walker nodded in agreement, unable to hold back a grin. "Plus, the sooner we sort this out the sooner we can make sure these guys don't hurt anyone again." Erika grinned in agreement and they both opened a few different manga books, looking for the best (worst) way to torture someone. It would have to be something bad enough to make even them feel a little sick while doing it.

Shizuo lit his cigarette, taking a long drag. He looked like he was about to speak, probably to say how this had nothing to do with him so Izaya spoke first.

"Help me get him back and you can name whatever you want. I'll stay out of your life, out of this city."

Shizuo blew out the smoke, glaring death at Izaya. "This has nothing to do with me, but I'm not going to be taking your offer. I don't care about you enough to accept that when you've fucked up enough for some kids life to be in danger. So long as you don't talk anymore than you have to I'll help. Stay out of my way and don't fucking mention that I ever helped you after this."

Izaya couldn't help but feel slightly more hatred toward Shizuo. He was such an idiot.

Simon spoke up. "Then we plan now." He said, holding off the punch he was going to be giving Izaya for this. It could wait until this was sorted out, but Izaya was certainly getting a punch for allowing Mikado to be put in danger.

Mikado's eyes were still closed, but he couldn't close off his other senses. The stale smell of the bed he'd been on for however long it had been. It was hot, so he was sweating a fair bit. There was the smell of blood as well, and his vomit from earlier. Basically it smelt foul.

Then there was the pain as well. His feet were just pain right now, nothing else. He couldn't feel any details of them, just general pain.

There was the sound of his guards chatting. The 'nice' one was being quiet and sitting next to Mikado on the bed, his hand resting on Mikado's upper leg in a way that was not at all comforting.

Taste was no better for Mikado. He'd been given water and some food since before, so at least the taste of stomach acid was gone, but the food had hardly been gourmet. The water hadn't been great either and it tasted like the piping was very old and rusty.

Mikado had gotten a little sick with fever, and the sounds seemed to echo eerily around in his mind while his skin felt too hot but under his skin felt too cold. He was shivering and sweating but he still wasn't actually too bad. It was probably an infection from his feet, or something from the food. He wasn't sure what the symptoms of food poisoning were actually...

He was distracted from his blissful distraction by the hand that was just higher than his knee moving up a bit and loud laughter. Were they laughing about the movement?

Mikado wished that were it when he smelt alcohol. They were celebrating something, which meant that they were likely to force him into drinking some of the stuff as well. They'd done that before and Mikado had felt so sick afterwards. He was lying down but the world kept moving anyway. Plus his head hurt a little while afterwards. If he ever drunk again it would be too soon for him.

Sorry it took so long! I've been really lazy...heh heh...I'll try harder...