The Innocent (A 'Finder' Fanfiction)

Shadow of Pluto - 39 - Akihito

At one point he had stood in an opened door that led out into the garden. He could see the huge cast iron gate from there, black in front of the night sky that hung over the slope leading down the hill. Trees and arcades and fountains and bushes had all been but shadows out there between which someone could lurk easily, waiting ...

But right there, he had been sure that he could make it. He would sprint as fast as he could, even if it felt like his lungs would burst; he'd reach the gate, find a way to pull it open or manage to climb across this time. He could make it.

Then he had turned around and had sneaked down another of those gloomy corridors, holding the heavy gun at the ready. Never would he leave without Asami. What reason was there any way to get out, if they weren't together?

It had been the same question that had made him smash his rucksack into his guard's face in Macao; the same question, that had him exit the van and walk into the warehouse. He had been supposed to stay there, where it was safe, but how could anybody think him capable of doing that, while the shots in the building echoed through the night, while shouts could be heard, and the flashes of muzzle fire flickered in the windows.

He had not been able to wait, or to just hope, or to stay there knowing that he would be safe and would make it out alive. It was strange how in these moments he had known so fiercely that he did not want that life, if he could not share it with the man he loved.

It was not worth living at all.

Therefore, he had marched into the building, not to prove himself to anybody else who thought him weak or scared in the first place – but to quench the dread inside him. Sure, the next day would have come even if he had just waited patiently in the van, but that tomorrow had probably been one he could not suffer to see the dawn of.

It was the same now. He had been able to run, he might have made it, yet he did not even try. Without Asami, he would not leave. Without Asami, there was nowhere to run to.

The corridors, however, lay now in almost darkness; the shots, and the sound of the footsteps of others engulfed him. It made his heart race so violently, so loudly that he was sure, the beating would be heard by anybody else in the whole mansion. He tried to calm it down, pushing himself backwards against a wall, so violently he might have almost merged into it, yet all it did was make his muscles tremble and sparks of light burst in front of his eyes. The thumping, yet, went on.

'THUD, THUD, THUD', and once more there were steps somewhere close. He listened, he closed his eyes, he bit his lip, and it bled again. It had before from Aaron hitting him with his fist, it did again now, filling his mouth with the taste of iron. The sparkles were still there, even behind the darkness of his eyelids, and the thundering of his heart only mixed with that of the steps until one became the other.

Blindly, he pushed himself sideways along the wall in whatever direction he thought for a second would be the safer one. Then he found a door, caressed it open and slid inside. Behind an armchair, empty but for the moonlight that flooded in through the windows, he hid, crouching there, listening.

He had to find Asami! If only he knew how. In the warehouse, he had run into Kirishima and had learned that Asami had rushed ahead, trailing the enemy. But where was 'ahead'? He had not known; he had just walked on, and soon enough there had been no way to go but up. This was different. In the darkness, everything looked the same. He might have raced in circles from the moment he had been told to run by Aaron.

And even why? Why had the other not just shot him? Why had he stared down onto him as if he was searching for something, waiting for something – for a thought inside his head or a change of mind of the other?