The Kilbed Conspiracy

by Sartael

Summary:

Hagi and the Red Shield are forced into action again, when an old enemy resurfaces... posing a threat to Kanade, Hibiki, and even Saya, but also leading to a surprising new discovery.

Chapter 1: Innocence Interrupted

Summary:

Hagi chases down a helicopter when Kanade Otanashi is kidnapped, and she has an eye-opening look at his true self (and wonders about her own). But were she and her sister the real targets of the Kilbed Conspiracy's attack?

—Oji-san!  Uncle, help us!

The glass Hagi had been washing in the sink shattered as the armored claw that was his right hand tightened suddenly.  "Hibiki—?"

"What is it?" Kai asked. "What's wrong?"

"Hibiki. Calling for help." It wasn't much of an explanation, but it was all Hagi was going to take time to give. Kai didn't argue.

"Go. Call me as soon as you—"

Hagi was already gone.

Kai glanced across the room. Kato blinked at him. 

"Whoa, where'd Hagi go all of a sudden, he was right there—"

"Kato, can you watch the store for me for a while? Here—" Kai shoved the keys in his friend's hand. "Don't forget to lock up, and no free drinks—I'll call you later, okay?"

"Huh? Sure, but like, what's going on?"

"I'll explain later. Thanks!"

Kai couldn't move as quickly as Hagi could, but he was still in pretty good shape. And unlike Hagi, he carried a cellphone and knew when to call for backup. 

"David. Hagi just flew out of here in a rush—he said he heard Hibiki calling for help. Meet me at the high school in Koza—that's where they were supposed to be this afternoon.  I'll be there in five minutes."

"Understood. We'll meet you there."

The bike's motor roared, and Kai strapped the helmet down and took off.

---

Kanade struggled, but the masked man was incredibly strong.  “Let me go, please, let me go—You monsters!—“

She was lifted up off the ground and handed over to a uniformed soldier—the uniform looked American—who dragged her into a helicopter. The masked man climbed up after her. They pushed her down into a seat, secured her with seat-and-shoulder belts, and her hands were bound together with zip-ties. 

The third soldier shut the hatch, and helicopter began moving. The throbbing of the blades and the engine were so loud she could barely hear her own voice.  Her stomach dropped away; they were airborne. 

Higher into the sky they went, and the helicopter banked, heading away from the island, out over the dark ocean. 

“Get out of there, Icarus, get away, go higher—and fast!”  The voice over the radio said, in English, which Kanade could understand because she'd studied it in school, and had American friends. “You’ve got a bogey on your trail—“

“Bogey? What the—you mean a missile, or a drone?“

“Negative, negative. Shit. Looks like a man, maybe he’s got a jetpack—“

And then the helicopter rocked, violently, and spun dizzily in the sky for a second.  Kanade had never been so terrified in her life.  We’re going to crash, the Americans will shoot us down!  I don’t want to die!

“What the hell?”

“Icarus, you’ve got a unidentified hanging off your runners—“

“We need immediate back-up—“

“On our way. Keep going, don’t deviate from assigned course—“

The helicopter wobbled, forcing those inside to scramble for handholds. One of the soldiers jammed a fresh clip into his gun, and the helmeted one pulled his sword out of the sheath on his back.

Over their shoulders, she got the briefest glimpse through a window of a dark shape outside the helicopter's closed hatch, right before something hit that same closed hatch with incredible force.  

The helicopter rocked again, and the door’s steel frame actually buckled under the impact. The window cracked. Another blow, and the crack widened, and  something sharp and jagged-looking forced its way in between the hatch and the frame—a set of segmented, armored claws ending in long curved talons as long as her fingers.

There was an ear-splitting shriek of tearing metal, and a big gust of wind, as the owner of the claws tore the exterior door right off its hinges. The door flew away into the open sky, and a tall, dark-clad figure pulled his way inside the cabin.

Oji-san. Uncle Hagi.

“Shoot him!  SHOOT HIM!”

The soldier raised his rifle and fired a full barrage, at close range.  There was blood, Kanade could smell it, see the splattering.  The impact of the bullets knocked him backwards, almost right back out of the now-open door. 

“Oji-san!” Kanade tried to break free, though what help she could be to keep him from plummeting to his death now, she had no idea.

But as Hagi-san fell backwards, he also reached out, hooking those claws into the battered steel hull of the helicopter, catching himself in mid-fall. Using that grip as a pivot point, he pulled himself up again, and then kicked upwards, sending his booted heel slamming into the soldier’s solar plexus with a sickening crunch. The gun went flying, and the soldier crumpled to the floor, coughing blood.

The masked soldier moved in a blur, the massive blade of his sword thrusting straight forward into Hagi’s chest. Without hesitation, Hagi caught it in mid-thrust—in his right hand, the same armored claw that had just ripped the helicopter’s door off its hinges. Blood dripped down from his hand, but he didn’t even flinch. In one swift motion, the soldier was sent flying, sword and all, the force of his attack re-directed—right out the helicopter’s now-open door.

The third soldier reached for his gun, but froze  when those same claws—now straightened out into a flat wedge ending in four sharp pointed talons, stopped less than an inch from his throat. 

“Drop it.”  Hagi said, in English. "And let her go. Now."  

Kanade had never seen his eyes burn with such cold fury before. His face might as well have been carved from ice, and those claws…

The soldier released his grip on the gun, and fumbled with the plastic bonds on her wrists.

Over her uncle’s shoulder, Kanade saw the helicopter’s pilot draw a gun, and take aim at his back. “Oji-san—“

He turned. There was a flash of silver from his left hand.

The pilot cried out in pain and dropped his pistol, as a cross-shaped silver dagger impaled his right forearm. 

The last of the plastic ties was cut, and Kanade unlatched the seat belts herself. Uncle Hagi turned back to her, holding out his hand to her. “Come, Kana-chan,” he said, switching back to Japanese.  “I’ll take you home.”

She stumbled towards him.  Scary or not—and he was incredibly scary at that moment—he was still her Oji-san, and she very much wanted to go home.

But then she saw the blood—what remained of the front of his jacket and shirt were soaked in it.  With a sinking heart she remembered the barrage of gunfire—at such a close range, how could they have missed?  How was he still standing?  Or breathing?  “Oji-san! You’re hurt—“

“It’s alright.  Let’s go.”  He reached for her, grabbing her hand and pulling her hard against his blood-stained side. His arms went around her, holding her close.

Then he spun around and jumped out through the open door of the helicopter—out into thin air.

Kanade screamed. 

They were falling, the wind whipping at her hair and clothing, as his arms held her securely against his chest. Where she clutched his jacket, she felt the warm wetness of his blood dribbling through her fingers. Blood. So much blood!   

“Kana-chan. Don’t worry." His voice was very close to her ear; it was the only way she could hear him over the helicopter blades beating (though now swiftly falling behind), and the roaring of the wind around them. "Just hold on, it’s going to be alright—“ 

She closed her eyes and clung to him, bloody clothing and all.  We don’t even have a parachute—

Then there was an odd sound—ripping fabric and a harsh groan from deep in his chest, and a sudden throp-throp-throp-throp like a sail opening in the wind.  Then her sense of their motion in the air, the roaring of the wind whipping by them changed.  It was no longer coming up from below, but from the side.

She opened her eyes.  They weren’t falling anymore.  

They were flying.

A massive pair of leathery black wings stretched out on either side of them, extending from Hagi-san’s back.  Those wings were what had stopped their descent, and now supported them in the air. Flying.  As though it was the most natural thing in the world. Gliding like a falcon through the night sky, over the dark water, heading back towards the lights on the shore. 

But after a few minutes, she realized it wasn’t as easy for him as it felt. His breathing was rapid and ragged, and his jaw was clenched in determination. And even though he still held her close, she could feel the warm dampness of his blood seeping into her clothes as well. He wasn’t actually bulletproof; he was badly hurt, and he was carrying her weight as well as his own.

When she looked down, she could see they were slowly dropping in altitude. The smoothness of their glide was beginning to wobble, as if it took tremendous effort to keep those wings balanced and extended.  Below them, the dark water was getting closer and closer, and the lights on the distant shore seemed so far off. 

“Uncle Hagi,” she whispered and hugged him.  “Please. Please be alright. Please don't die—“

“Don’t worry,” he assured her, though his voice sounded strained. “Just a little further. We’ll make it.”

Somehow he stayed aloft, gliding just above the water for the last hundred meters or so, until they reached the beach. The landing was less than smooth; he stumbled as his feet touched down, and their ongoing momentum sent them rolling across the sand, his arms and wings wrapped around her, protecting her from the worst of the impact. 

When they finally skidded to a halt, he lay sprawled face-down in the sand a short distance away, gasping for breath, eyes closed in pain, his long hair hanging loose around his face, the tips of his wings buried in the blood-stained sand.  

"Oji-san!"  Kanade scrambled closer, tears blurring her vision. She grabbed his hand. "Oji-san, please—tell me what to do, I'll go get help—"

"No—" His fingers closed around hers.  "Stay close. I'll be fine… just a few minutes."

"Oji-san—"  She held his hand tightly in hers.  "Please, be alright—please—"

He coughed, and spat up blood, then pushed himself up a little more with the extended claws of his right hand, the talons digging into the sand. 

That  was what had been concealed under the bandages, the wrappings he'd always worn as long as she had known him. It was the hand of a monster, with a hard, leathery surface in reddish brown, each finger ending in a curved talon. Talons strong and sharp enough to rip through steel.

And then there were the wings… leathery wings like a bat's, or a dragon's, extended joints ending in curved claws… now half-folded along his back. They weren't some kind of high-tech personal glider apparatus, either. They were organic, flesh and blood, part of his body.

A flattened bullet, stained with blood, dropped to the sand. It was followed a few seconds later by another, and then another, and another, being forcibly expelled from his body.  As she watched, the ugly wounds she could see through the shredded remnants of his shirt and jacket, were closing. Even the horrible gash from the sword seemed to be closing, the edges closing in, healing without even a scar. In the space of a few minutes, over a dozen bullets fell harmlessly into the sand, and slowly his breathing grew easier and less labored, and the pain began to fade from his face. 

Kanade was used to her own and Hibiki's minor injuries healing remarkably fast. She'd never thought much about it. It had never occurred to her that Uncle Hagi might have that same ability too, or that it might work on something as serious as multiple bullet or deep stab wounds. But she also knew most people couldn't do that.  Normal people couldn't heal life-threatening wounds in minutes. Normal people didn't have claws that could rip through steel—or wings that sprouted out of their backs when they jumped out of flying helicopters, either.

Uncle Hagi was clearly not a normal human being. And by that logic… neither was she. Nor Hibiki.

“Are you alright?” he asked, after a few minutes. "Are you able to stand?"

She nodded. Not quite able to speak. Not quite ready to ask any questions.

Slowly he rose to his feet, his hand helping her to stand as well.  She stumbled on the uneven sand, and he caught her, his clawed right hand curling lightly around her arm, holding her upright. For all its monstrous appearance, it was warm and gentle against her skin.  She stared at it, fascinated and frightened at the same time.

As soon as she was stable again, however, he removed it.  "Forgive me," he murmured.  The wings were retracting, bones and membrane shrinking away and being reabsorbed into his back. "I didn’t mean to frighten you."

"I’m not frightened,” she said, looking up at him.  “How could I be frightened of you, Oji-san? You saved me." Kanade stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him.  "Thank you," she whispered into the remnants of his shirt.  "Oji-san, thank you."

His left arm encircled her shoulders for a moment in return. "I think we should go to the clinic now," he said at last. "Dr. Julia will want to check you over, I'm sure. And your father will want to know you're safe."

"What about you?" Kanade countered. "I think you need checking over more than I do, you're the one who was hurt!"

"I'll be fine." He bent down and scooped her up in his arms.  "Put your arms around my neck, we're going to be moving a bit fast."

She didn't obey right away.  Instead she reached down, laid her hand over where his clawed right hand supported her lower back, curled her own fingers around his. The fingers and back of the claw were was hard as armor, and smooth to her touch. The underside, his palm, felt more leathery, and was as warm against her skin as the other hand that was now supporting her legs.  "That's why you always have it all bandaged up, isn’t it?" she asked. “So people won’t see… Because they might be afraid of you?”

"Yes. I'll wrap it again when we get to the clinic."

"Oji-san... We're not like... normal people... are we?"

His hold on her tightened a little, holding her close. He didn’t meet her eyes.   

"I don't think I'm the best one to answer that question, Kana-chan," he said at last. "It's something you and your sister need to hear together."

Of course, he’d just answered her question, whether he intended to or not. Neechan and I need to hear it together. Yes. Of course we do, it’s about both of us, after all. 

She slipped her arms around his neck. She didn't care what he was, he was still her Uncle Hagi, and she trusted him.  "Are we going to fly again?"

"Not quite—but it may feel like it to you. Ready?"

"Ready."

Hagi-san took several long running strides, and then jumped. He made it up the tall embankment to the road in one bound; the next took them soaring across the road and over the trees, to the top of a rocky outcropping, and then they were airborne again, moving at tremendous speed, each leap a gravity-defying arc from one high point to the next. 

It was exhilarating, and it did almost feel like flying. For at least part of their journey, Kanade was able to momentarily forget about the ordeal she’d just experienced, just for the sheer joy of flying through the air, safe in Hagi-san’s arms.

---

“Dad!” 

Hagi put Kanade down on her feet, and she ran to her father’s arms. Her sister was right at her elbow, too, and her mother.  She was safe, and with her family again.

Hagi turned to go, and felt a tug on his sleeve.  

“Hagi—you look terrible,” Lulu observed, looking him over critically.  “What happened?”

“It’s nothing serious,” he said. 

“Liar,” Lulu said, sternly. “Come on—you’ve lost a lot of blood, haven’t you? You’ve got no color left to you at all.“ The Schiff girl grabbed his right hand in hers. Chiropteran claws didn’t faze her one bit.  “Come on, someone’s got to look after you, if you don’t take care of yourself—“

By the time Kai had figured out that the blood staining Kanade’s clothes was not actually hers, Hagi was nowhere in sight.

---

Blood transfusions had been part of Kanade’s life as long as she could remember. She and Hibiki got them all the time, two or three times a week.  It was boring, but normal.  Fortunately, there was a television in the transfusion room now, and Dr. Julia would play whatever DVD the girls asked for while they underwent their treatments. It made the time go by faster, at least.

Usually when they came in, there was no one else around.  But this time, as they walked down the hall, Kanade’s sharp eyes spotted someone familiar in the room next to theirs, and she grabbed her sister’s hand.  “Come on…”

Mustering up all her nerve, she rapped lightly on the door.

Hagi-san glanced up from his book, and laid it aside. He was sitting in a chair near the window. His right hand and forearm were wrapped in their usual bandaging again—the wrappings went more than halfway to his elbow, which is where the IV was now inserted, below the rolled up cuff of his shirt sleeve.  “Come in.” 

Kanade couldn’t see any sign of injury on him—no bloodstains or scars remained, and he'd put on a clean, undamaged shirt.  Just the IV, which looked a lot like the same kind of transfusion she and Hibiki had been getting for years.

The girls entered, and bowed. “Oji-san.” 

“Vous sentez-voces bien?”  he inquired. There was a hint of a smile in his eyes.

“Très bien, merci, oncle.” Hibiki replied, smiling. She was much better at French than her sister.

“It’s summer break, Oji-san,” Kanade pointed out. “We just wanted to visit, not study!”

“Ah, mais oui,” he agreed.  “I suppose lessons can wait a little longer. But not so long you forget.”

“We won’t forget,” Hibiki promised.

“Are you feeling better now?”  Kanade asked, coming closer, and pulling over a side chair to sit on.  Hibiki perched herself on the adjacent bed.

“I’m fine.  But thank you.”

“What about your hand?” Kanade pressed.

“Neechan.”  Hibiki frowned.  “Don’t be rude!”

Hagi-san looked down at where his right hand and forearm rested on the arm of the chair. The bandaged fingers flexed, straightening out and then relaxing again. “It’s alright, Hibi-chan. It is… as it always is.”

The door to the room slid aside.  “There you are,” Dr. Julia said. “Wrong room, young ladies—I’m all set up for you next door. All you need to tell me is which show you wanted to watch this time.”

“Can we do it in here?” Kanade asked.  “With Oji-san?”

Julia’s gaze flicked to Hagi’s; he gave a slight nod.  

“I suppose that’s okay,” she agreed. “But there’s no TV in here, you know.”

“We can just talk,” Hibiki said.  “Et nous pouvons répéter notre francais, nest-ce pas, ma soeur?”  

Kanade shot her sister a dirty look, and Hibiki grinned mischievously. “You clearly need more practice, neechan,” Hibiki pointed out.

“Alright then, get comfortable, and I’ll bring the IVs in for you—“ Julia chuckled, and departed.

“Please, no more French—“ Kanade pleaded, “I’ve had a hard enough day already, haven’t I?”

“Only if you tell me all about it,” Hibiki said. “Everything that happened, and don’t you dare leave anything out.” 

“Is this some kind of conspiracy?” Hagi asked.  He slipped a bookmark in the book he had been reading and set it on the side table.      

The two girls exchanged looks again.  “No, of course not,” Hibiki said. 

“Yes, sort of,” Kanade admitted.  “You said we had to hear it together, right?”

“Yes, I did,” he agreed, reluctantly.  “But I’m not sure I should be the one to tell you those things. Or if now is the appropriate time for you to hear them.” 

“But, Oji-san—“  Kanade’s protest was cut off by Dr. Julia coming in with the transfusion apparatus, and the next few minutes was spent getting both girls situated and hooked up to their respective IV drips. 

“What can you tell us?” Kanade asked, as soon as Dr. Julia had gone. “Please, Oji-san. Who were  those guys? Do you know?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But that’s something your father and I will look into, I promise you.”

“There was a guy with a helmet over his whole head,” Hibiki said, softly. “He had a big sword—“

“Yeah, there was one like that on the helicopter—“ Kanade looked at Hagi with a pleading look in her dark eyes.  “I thought he was going to kill you—“

 “You don’t have to worry, Kana-chan. Like you, I heal… very quickly.”

“But normal people don’t... heal like that.” Kanade repeated.  “Why is it we can do that, and Dad and Mom can’t?  What is it about us that makes us different?“

He was silent.

Hibiki laid her hand on his bandaged one, her slim fingers curling around his.  “Oji-san?”

“Yes, Hibiki?”

“Can we ask you something… personal? It’s really important.” 

Kanade’s startled eyes met those of her sister. “Wait. You’re asking him that? Now?”

Hibiki nodded. “We really need to know, right?”

“Right.” 

Two pairs of eyes, soft brown and clear blue, stared intently at him. A little scared. But determined. Whatever this was about, it was important to them.

Hagi glanced from one to the other. “You can ask me anything you wish,” he said, as gently as he could. “I can’t promise I will answer.  But if I can answer, I will.”

Another exchange of glances, and Hibiki plunged onward. “I know... we’re adopted. Dad says we’re still a real family, but… but we were wondering… if maybe…. Are you…. our real father?”

His expression softened, and the wrapped fingers enclosed hers.  “No, Hibi-chan, Kana-chan. I am not. But we are related. We are your real family—your father and mother, Lulu and I—and Saya.”  

“Auntie Saya?”

Saya. Hagi froze.  Something felt off. 

“Oji-san?” 

Saya?  Is something wrong?   Hagi closed his eyes, reached out... The wrongness persisted. And he couldn’t sense her, not at all. Saya!

He pulled the IV out of his arm abruptly, and stood up, pushing his sleeve down .  The small wound where the needle had been closed up without a trace.

“What’s wrong, Oji-san?”  Kanade and Hibiki exchanged a look of alarm. 

“Stay here,” he said.  “I have to go—”   

He picked up his jacket and the cello case, and took off running down the hall. 

Lulu appeared at his elbow, matching his speed without effort. “What’s wrong?”

“Saya.” 

“What?” The young girl’s eyes widened.  “But she’s—“

“I know,” he said.  “Stay with them, Lulu, please. And tell Kai.”

“Okay. You be careful, hear?”

And Hagi was gone.

---

Okinawa was not the largest of islands, but it still took a good thirty minutes to drive from Red Shield’s clinic to the hillside tomb where Saya slept.  Hagi’s mode of travel cut down the time considerably, he made it in ten.

His heart was sinking even as he made the last few leaps, landing at last in the courtyard of the Miyagusuku family tomb.  The door had been forced open; he edged the door aside and bent down to enter. 

Saya’s cocoon was gone.  Only a few of its anchoring threads remained, and to his eyes they looked as though they’d been cut with something very sharp.

“No—“   A hollow fear, and aching sense of loss; a Chevalier who had failed in his first and primary duty, to keep his queen safe during her long slumber.  “Saya!” 

They weren’t after the girls at all.  That was a diversion.  That explains—why they split up their forces the way they did. Why there was only one helicopter, and why the Corpse Corps was there—but not at their usual strength. 

But who is doing this?  Cinq Flèches is all but gone. Diva’s Chevaliers are dead—well. All but one of them.  But this isn’t his doing.  He has no reason to go after Saya.

I am Saya’s Chevalier, and I will find her. No matter how long it takes. That is my first duty.

Take care of them, Kai.  I’ll be back as soon as I find Saya—and deal with those who dared take her from me.

He leapt easily to the top of the tomb, standing there with the sea winds blowing his hair across his face.  But there was no scent on that wind to aid him.  Whoever had been here was long gone. 

His eyes turned northwards—the Americans had numerous bases in Okinawa, and it had been in cooperation with the American military that Cinq Flèches had been experimenting with creating Chiropterans fifteen years ago.  It would be a logical place to start.

“Hagi! Wait!”  

A black-clad blur, and the hooded figure of Lulu landed beside him.

He frowned. “I told you to stay with Kai and the others.” 

She snorted. “Like you have any authority to give ME orders. What happened?”

He motioned down with his bandaged right hand. “Take a look. Tell me what you smell.”

She gave him a wary look, but then hopped down to the tomb’s door.  Her sense of smell was much keener than his; that was just one way in which their Chiropteran abilities differed from one another.

She spent about five or six minutes sniffing around below. Hagi waited, his own senses on full alert, just in case he could pick up some echo from Saya’s sleeping mind. 

But he sensed nothing.

Lulu hopped back up and looked up at him from under her hood. Her expression was serious. “This is so not good,” she said.  “One of those Corpse Corp bastards, but just one, which is weird, 'cause I thought they were always deployed in threes. And humans. Six of them.”

"There was just one of the Corpse Corp on the helicopter," Hagi mused. "And Kai reported one on the ground, too. Perhaps they split up their three—if that was all they had, it might make sense."

"Yeah, maybe. Another thing… one of the humans… the scent's familiar. And not in a good way."

“Who is it?”

“Not sure of his name. Not like they ever introduced themselves to us, you know?  But he was at Kilbed.  I’m pretty sure about that.”

“I will find her. And bring her back.”

“Wait.”  Lulu’s hands wrapped around his arm. “Hagi. You don’t have to do this all by yourself, you know.”

“You should stay with the girls. In case they decide to come back.”

“What about Kai?  What about Red Shield, and Lewis and all his contacts?  He still knows people, right?  And Mister Joel, and David, and Julia, and Jahana-san.  We all care about Saya, Hagi. You have friends.  We’re a family, right? Like Kai says. And friends and family work together.”

Friends and family work together.  It was a lesson that the Schiff, in particular, had learned very well. It had kept them alive for a long time. Lulu was the only survivor now of Kilbed's Schiff, but she still remembered the most important lesson she'd learned from her siblings. But learning how to work with others outside that little circle—that lesson had come from Kai.

Hagi glanced down at her pale face. “You’re right,” he admitted at last.  “And Kai is right. We are a family now.”

She slipped her small hand into his left, squeezed it, and he squeezed back. “Let’s go talk to Kai and Lewis?”

“Yes. Let’s start there.”

And in a soft puff of wind, they were gone. 

---

 

Chapter 2: Return to Kilbed

Summary:

The Red Shield rescue party arrives at Kilbed, and breaks into the lab, looking for Saya. But they are separated...

“I never thought I’d ever be coming back to this place again…” Lulu muttered, peering out the window of Joel’s private jet. 

“We will be counting on you to be our native guide,” Lewis said, grinning at her. “Let’s hope you haven’t forgotten your way around.”

“I didn’t exactly get to see much of the place, you know,” she said. “We were more interested in getting out than committing it to memory.”

“Let’s hope that our intel is good, and this is where Saya was taken,” David said.  He was re-assembling his beloved revolver, after giving it a thorough cleaning during the last leg of their flight. 

“She’s here,” Hagi said, staring out the window at the lights twinkling below.  “I can feel her.” 

“I’ll take that as a good sign,” Kai said, grimly. “But there might be other Chiropterans there, too. At least two of their Corpse Corp soldiers survived, and they might have more.”

“That’s why we have these.”  Lewis patted the case beside him in the other seat. “If they were created from Diva’s blood—than these little babies should take them right out.”

“Use them wisely,” David said. “We only have a dozen, and this is their first real field test.”

A dozen small ampules of a very special blood mix—it happened to use Hagi’s blood as the base, because of the compatibility factors—but with the added punch of the S-23 enzyme from Saya’s blood, each of the ampules had the power of Saya’s own blood against any Chiropterans born from Diva’s. 

“I’ll just go with my usual, thanks—“ Lulu said, with a bit of a shiver.  Those ampules were as poisonous to her as they would be to any other Chiropteran. 

“Four other agents from the Copenhagen cell should be meeting us in Reykjavik,” David said, sliding his revolver back in its holster under his jacket.  “This needs to be a quick infiltration—get Saya back, pick up whatever records we can find, destroy any Chiropterans that get in our way. But safely recovering Saya is the first priority.”

Kai glanced over at Hagi, who was still staring out the window.  For Hagi, recovering Saya was the only priority—and anyone, human or Chiropteran, who got in his way was going to regret it very quickly.

“Attention, please,”  the pilot’s voice came on over the speaker system. “We’ve gotten our instructions from Reykjavik, we’ll be landing in about fifteen minutes. Please make sure you’re belted in and all loose items are secured.  Welcome to Iceland…”

---

 

The world was cold and gray and mostly made of concrete, but since it was the only world he knew, it did not seem strange to him.  Nor did it seem strange that he had no memories prior to six days ago, or that he had been born—released from the artificial womb in which he’d developed, floating in a sea of saltwater gel—as a full-grown adult.

His designation was J1N-3247-62C.  It was tattooed on his left shoulder blade for identification purposes, on the metal restraining bracelets fastened around his wrists, and was also on the mini-transponder tucked between the bones of his right forearm.  62C was his call sign.  He had no other name.

It had been a busy life so far, not that he had any basis for comparison.  Calisthenics, physical agility training, unarmed combat, sword drills, learning to understand and follow vocal commands from recognized superior officers, and mastering attack and defense kata moves in conjunction with his brothers—62A and 62B.  They were a team, and so they trained together, drilling over and over, faster and faster, until they finally met the unit standard code.  They stopped their training only for brief recuperation breaks, or for refreshment, when a feeding tube was inserted into the port just above their collarbones, and nutrients were supplied. Or to return to their capsules for brief regenerations, which eventually, they would not need anymore. Maybe in another week, their teachers told them, such regenerations would happen without the capsule.

Recuperation and Refreshment were over; the pitch of the chime told him it was time for Rest and Regeneration. He and his brothers presented themselves to the lab, where they were sealed into their regeneration capsules. 62C felt the soothing, warm liquid fill the capsule around him, and he put on the mouthpiece that allowed him to breathe, and then closed his eyes, floating in the capsule. Eventually, he slept.

---

 

Kaori couldn’t sleep. She always worried when Kai went out on one of the Red Shield missions, and this one was to rescue Saya—so sleep was going to just be impossible. Nor was she the only one.

Kanade and Hibiki were sitting in the kitchen, hunched over a laptop on the table.

“Oh. Hi, Mom—“ Kanade said. “Did you know Iceland has live volcanos?”

“… Iceland?”

“It’s where they all went. Lulu told us. Kilbed, where she’s from, in Iceland.”

“Somehow the word volcano doesn’t seem to belong with a country called Iceland,” Hibiki added. “But the hot springs sound really interesting. Though I don’t think they’ll be thinking about that at all.”

“Any news?”  Kaori knew better than to try to send them off to bed. They had every right to sit up and worry over their father and friends, too.

“Dad’s last email was four hours ago,” Kanade said. “They were about to land in Reykjavik.”

---

 

“It’s too damned cold in this place,” Lewis muttered, turning up the collar on his jacket.  

“You’ve clearly been living in Okinawa too long,” David told him. “If you think this is cold, we should send you back to Russia.”

Privately, Kai agreed with Lewis—but he also remembered Russia.  At least this was summer for Iceland—so there wasn’t any risk of freezing to death out there. Still, it felt good to have jackets on, especially when the wind picked up a bit.

Lulu wore her familiar black hooded monk’s robes, but not because of the cold—she and Hagi didn’t seem to really notice the chill.

Two large SUVs pulled up on the tarmac.  The drivers and two passengers got out and approached; David, as senior Red Shield agent and mission commander, came to meet them.

“Nikolaj,” the first identified himself, holding up his right hand, where a red crystal winked in a ring on his third finger.  He was a stocky, middle-aged man, with silvered blond hair and a beard, and he spoke English with a slight British accent.  “District commander for Red Shield in Copenhagen.”

The other was a woman, whose hair so blond it was almost white, in a long braid down her back. She looked to be not much older than Kai, but there was a hardness in her pale blue eyes that hinted of much sorrow in her past.  “Sofia,” she said. “I was born in Reykjavik, so I know where we’re going. I was one of the team that investigated that place the first time, a dozen or so years ago.”  She showed three red crystals, intermingled with other beads, on a necklace inside her jacket.

A scarred, stern looking man with an eye patch and short-cropped gray hair was next. “Sten,” he said, and flipped up his eye patch to show both the ruined socket of his left eye, and the crystal set into the underside of the eyepatch.  “From Jutland.  Always ready to kill more of the ugly bastards.”

The fourth member of the group was young—younger even than Kai, and of indeterminate race and gender.  Their head was mostly shaved, save for a multicolored Mohawk, and their crystal was on a piercing through their left ear.  “Pol,” they said.  “My pronouns are they/them. And I’ll be your security hacker for the evening. Point me at a system, I can break it.”

David stepped forward.  “David,” he said, and revealed his cross with its implanted crystal.  Kai pulled his crystal on its fine chain out of his shirt; Lewis showed his, a stud in his left ear.

“You brought… a child on this mission?” Nikolaj said, looking at Lulu. 

Lulu stared up at him. “I’m Lulu,” she said, flatly. “And I’m not a child, mister.”  She opened her gloved hand. A single red crystal glittered there, all she had left of one of her departed siblings. “I was born in Kilbed. I’m a Schiff.” 

“Schiff!”  Sofia knew the name, at least; her eyes widened.

Sten’s visible eye narrowed and he scowled.  “One of them?”

“She’s with us,” Kai said, laying his hand on Lulu’s shoulder. “She’s as much part of Red Shield as we are.”

“Alright, then…” Nikolaj agreed. His gaze turned to the last member of their party—who didn’t seem to be even paying all that much attention. Instead, he was facing away from them, staring out into the darkness, his black hair blowing across his face in the wind, the cello case on his back, as usual.

“That’s Hagi,” David supplied. “He’s with us too.”

“… the Hagi?” Sofia looked at him with new interest. “The one from Joel’s Diary?”

“Yes,” David said, once it became obvious that Hagi was not joining the conversation. “Let’s get moving, shall we?  We’ve got a lot of work to do….”

---

 

They arrived at the safe house—a rented duplex in a small village an hour’s drive outside Reykjavik—and got settled in. Sofia had brought plans for Kilbed’s research and development facility—at least the plans as they had been more than a decade ago.

“No one’s had need to go out there since then,” she said. “When Cinq Flèches went under, this facility was sold as part of the settlement—the current owners are an international conglomerate, and the stated purpose of the facility is the manufacturing of cement.  And they do seem to be making cement—but some of the deliveries we’ve been able to identify recently are not really related to that kind of manufacturing at all, but more to medical research and biochemical engineering.”

Lulu tried to see around Kai’s shoulder; he moved and let her come in and stand in front of him.  “Any of that look familiar, Lulu?”

“Yeah…. Wait a minute.”  She studied the plans with a slight frown. “Something’s missing. What level is this?”

“This is ground level, here,” Sofia said, pointing with a pen.  “Here are the main gates, and the main processing plant…“

“You don’t have a map of the underground levels?”

“That would be this one…”  Sofia pulled out another chart.  “there’s not a lot down here, though…”

“There used to be a whole lab complex and training facility,” Lulu said. “I think it was….  There,” she pointed on the map.  “I remember running through that corridor… I think that’s it.  So it would be… around there.“

"Was the facility underground?" Sofia asked.

"Some of it, but I don't remember having to go up any stairs or an elevator to get out. I'll know it if I see it again, though."

“That’s not a very detailed description…”  David said.  

“We were running, like I said,” Lulu repeated.  “All we cared about was finding a way out.”

“Here, Lulu, look at this one—“ Lewis said, spreading another chart out on the table.  “This is a satellite photo taken about three days ago.  If you look closely, you can see what the terrain is.  Here are the gates, and the main building… so you’re saying the facility you remember would have been… about there?”  His finger tapped a dark area to the west of the main plant.

"Yeah, but... I don't see anything there. It's just dark."

"That's because it’s a hill, Lulu." Lewis said.  "But soil density scanners got some very strange readings from that hill. The hill is artificial, and there's definitely harder mass under there too, so—"

"They built a hill around it—to hide that it was back in use."  David said, nodding. "Now that starts to make sense."

Lulu turned the photo around so it matched up with the floor plan’s layout.  “Yeah. That’s where it was.  They were making cement there even back then, I think. They kinda needed a lot of it.”

“I hate to ask,” Kai said, “but… why?”

“Because that’s how they disposed of their, uh, failures,” Sofia said.  “We found one facility on a remote island once, where every cell had been sealed up in four foot-thick walls of concrete. They couldn’t kill the beasts. So they just sealed them up—forever.”

“Well, if we see any cells like that,“ Lewis said, "let’s try not to open them."

“Right,” David agreed. “This mission is to find and rescue Saya. That will almost certainly mean getting into the underground facility, and past whatever security systems they have—that will be your responsibility, Pol. And we may face Chiropterans—or surviving members of the Corpse Corp—along the way.”

“Did you bring the prototypes?” Nikolaj asked.  “How effective are they?”

“We have a limited quantity of the S-23 ampules, yes,” David said. “We have not had a chance to test them in actual combat. In the lab, they’re highly effective—the difficulty will be in getting the ampule’s payload into the bloodstream or flesh of an actual Chiropteran. They need to have contact with an open wound, or interior muscle or organ tissue to work. And once exposed to the air, it doesn’t retain its potency very long. So the only time you want to break one of the capsules is if you’re going to have a very good shot of getting it into a Chiropteran within a matter of seconds.”

“Alright, then—“ Nikolaj nodded.  “Now based on the intelligence report from our analysts who’ve been watching via satellite, here’s the usual routine at the plant….”

Kai stepped away from the table for a moment.  He found Hagi standing outside on a second-floor balcony, the cello case resting beside him.  “Hagi-san,” Kai said, dropping into Japanese. “Are you okay?”

Hagi glanced at him, offered the briefest of nods.  “We need to… not waste too much time…” he said, in a low voice. 

“Can you… still sense her?  Is she okay?”  

Hagi closed his eyes for a moment, then pointed out to the northwest.  “That direction. But we need to move. Soon.”

“I’m with you on that, nii-san.”  Kai agreed. “Come inside and look at the map. Let’s push this along a little faster.”

Hagi picked up the cello case and slid his arm through the strap. “Alright.”

---

 

The Kilbed D-Base Cloning Laboratory was a marvel of biotech engineering, with the most sophisticated genetic cloning equipment and enhanced-development capsules available. In this particular lab, three capsules were in use, each containing an identical, young male subject.  

“And in this lab,” Dr. Greer said, escorting a number of Russian VIPs through the clean room, where they could look into the lab, “we have the next J-series prototypes. They’re in their regeneration mode at the moment, which is why they’re in the sustainment modules. In another week or so, they will no longer need them, and can be moved to the cells.”

“So these J-series prototypes,” Mr. Vladivostok said, glancing through the report in his hand. “How soon can we expect them to be completed? Extremely anxious, my client is, to take delivery—as you can imagine.”   

Dr. Greer sighed.  “As the report in your hand states, these prototypes will complete their initial development stages in another week. They will next move to their full-on training mode, so they will be ready for delivery when the contract specifies, but not before.”

“And how soon can we get new prototypes from that girl’s blood under development?”

“I can’t predict that yet, sir. We need to do a thorough analysis of the Dbase elements present in the new sample source; this is the first opportunity we’ve had to analyze this particular subject. And since her blood contains the counteragent enzyme that can destroy the original Corpse Corps elite troops, you understand why she must be isolated and treated with extreme care.

“Now, if you’ll come with me, I can show you the ones we have currently in their training phase—”   

After the Russians left the lab, Dr. Collins came out of his office. He was glad Dr. Greer was handling the marketing now—he had no patience for customer relations. He much preferred being on the cutting edge of scientific technology development. This was his laboratory, and his research. It was a shame that he had to market their product to people like Vladivostok; he much preferred the American military as customers. But they had quite literally dropped a bomb on his last project a decade and a half ago, and it had taken him all the intervening years to reconstruct his research.

“So how are the J-series coming along?” Dr. Collins stared down his nose at the sys-admin technician. “Are they meeting their achievement goals?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.  “The J-series is showing a considerable improvement over prior iterations. They’re still not quite up to the original specs, but we’re getting an average of 89% on physical attributes so far. Of course, having new cell and core blood element supplies will improve the next generation’s level of development remarkably. We may be able to finally meet the original design specs, within one or two series.”

“Only 89%, hmmm…”   Dr. Collins frowned, watching the video monitors. “They seem to need a little additional motivation. The transponders do emit electrical signals, don’t they? At what voltage?”

She hesitated. “Sir?”

“What voltage level do the transponders carry?  More than the minimum necessary for the satellite connection, right?”   

“Yes, sir.”

He picked up the phone.  “Mr. Margolis.  Your recruits seem to need a bit of encouragement. It looks to me like they’re not putting forth their full effort. Next pass, make sure the last one in line regrets his tardiness…  Use the transponders, give him a little shock. Just a little one, we want to encourage him, not really hurt him, right?”

“Yes, sir.  That ought to give ‘em some additional enthusiasm, for sure...”  

---

 

Lewis laid three square packages down on the table. They looked like clay bricks, except for the tiny electronic receivers attached and wired into them.  "These should provide plenty of distraction," he said. "I've marked on the map approximately where they should go for maximum effect. But you'll have to be creative finding exactly where to put them so they won't be discovered too soon."

"These two—" Lewis laid two more out beside them, "these pack more power. Hagi, these need to go up on their satellite dishes on the roof. Can you and Lulu get them up there?"

"Yes, of course," Hagi said.

"You will need to be careful not to trip their alarm system. Don't land directly on the roof. There are motion detectors… here, and here, and here. I don't know how sensitive they are, but be careful."

"I will take one of the others—"Sofia said. "Do any of the rest of you speak Icelandic?"

"Ja," said Lulu.

"English or Danish should be sufficient," Nikolaj said. "The plant seems to employ a number of foreigners already. I'll take one, too."

"I'll take the other," David said. "Kai—why don’t you go with Hagi and Lulu."

"If they don't go too fast for me," Kai said, glancing at Hagi.

Hagi nodded. "Understood." 

---

It would be Sofia, Nikolaj and David's job to first provide the distraction, so that Hagi, Kai and Lulu could get inside, and Pol’s job to get them past the security into the underground development facility. Then Hagi, Kai and Lulu would find Saya and get her out. The three agents plus Sten would also provide cover for their escape. Lewis would monitor communications and secure their means of departure.

They split up the S-23 ampules; Kai had four.  Hagi declined, and Lulu shuddered and wouldn't even look at them.

Hagi and Lulu took their explosive packages. "Be careful, you two," Kai said. "I'll see you at point B."

"You, too," Hagi murmured, and then was gone in a puff of wind. Lulu gave Kai a quick smile and vanished as well.

Kai turned and jogged off into the darkness, heading for the entrance point. The terrain was somewhat rougher than indicated on the map; he had to slow down and watch his step, even wearing the night-vision goggles, to avoid slipping on the loose rock and shale.

By the time he got to the place on the map where the vents had been located, Hagi and Lulu were already there, waiting for him.

"Everything go okay?" he asked.

"Piece of cake," Lulu said.

Kai checked the time. "Ten minutes. Let's see how strong that grill is…"

"It's screwed in," Hagi said.  "Do you want it opened quietly, or quickly?"

"Let's go with quickly—when the blasts go off. Can you do it?"

Hagi unwrapped the bandage on his armored right hand, flexed his claws. "Yes."

Kai nodded, and dug the grappling hook and rope out of his pack. 

"What's that for?" Hagi asked. "Don't you trust me to catch you?"

"I do, but—" Kai started, and then smiled. That was as close to a joke as Hagi was likely to get on this trip. "You might have your hands full on the way back, nii-san. Better to have a rope, just in case."

"You humans," Lulu chided him. "Always slowing us down."

"Someone has to keep you from running around like a crazy little kid,” Kai told her.

"Hah!" But under the hood, she was grinning.

The cellphone vibrated, and Kai tapped the receiver in his ear. "Hai."

"Countdown starting to Christmas," Lewis said, in Japanese. They had agreed to use Japanese for phone conversations—that language being less likely to be known here in Iceland.  "Twenty. Nineteen.  Eighteen—"

"Got it. We're ready."

Hagi adjusted the backpack on his shoulder—he'd left the cello back at the safe house—and stood up, hooking his claws into the grate. "You might want to stand clear…" he advised, and Kai and Lulu took cover behind a low wall.

"—Five.  Four. Three. Two.  One… Saaanta's heeere!"

BOOM.   

The explosions were pretty impressive, even from a fair distance away. A lot of noise and light and smoke—and sufficient damage to start fires, at least. It also was enough to knock out at least some of the plant’s power—lights on the distant hulking tower winked out.

Hagi ripped the grate off the ventilation shaft with one powerful twist and yank, sending stripped screws and bits of metal framing flying. He tossed the grate a good thirty feet away, into a patch of undergrowth, then leaned over the shaft, peering down. "An exhaust fan about .. twelve meters down," he said. "There's a floor somewhere below that."

"Exhaust fan? I got it," Lulu said, and hefted her axe.  Hagi moved out of the way.

The black-cloaked girl and her giant axe vanished down into the darkness. Half a second later came a series of loud metallic clangs, as Lulu and her axe cleared the shaft of any obstructions.  

Kai secured the grappling hook. "Twenty meters of rope," he said. "Think it'll be enough?"

"Too slow," Hagi said, and dropped to one knee in front of Kai, looking back over his shoulder. "Get on."

"… alright," Kai said, though he tossed the rope down anyway before he settled onto Hagi's back, then held on for dear life as Hagi jumped down into the darkness.

Kai felt like his stomach had gotten left up on the tundra above; but they had landed before he'd had enough time to panic.  "Whoa. Arigatou, Hagi-san," he said. "Okay, now which way…?"

Lulu pointed. "This way. I smell them. Bastards."  

"Them—?" Kai asked, though he had a good idea.

She scowled.  "Corpse Corps."

Kai and Hagi followed Lulu down the corridor. 

---

 

So far, the rescue was just going swimmingly. In other words, Lulu thought, straight to hell.

The klaxon alarm went off, though its volume was nothing compared to the full-throated roar of a chiropteran at the end of the corridor.  “Back—" Kai ordered. 

A metallic grinding noise sounded behind them.  This corridor had emergency fire doors, and they were now closing. 

“Back, now!” Kai ordered, turning Lulu around bodily.  “Hurry, before it closes!  Hagi, come on—“

Hagi’s gaze flicked between the closing door, and the charging chiropteran, judging relative speeds.  “Go!” he said, flexing his clawed hand.  “I’ll slow it down—“

“Hagi, don’t—“ Kai suddenly realized what Hagi was doing.  “Leave them—“

The door was closing.  Lulu raised her battle axe.  “I’m coming—“

“No!” Hagi shouted back. “Stay with Kai—keep him safe! I’ll find you later.”

Then the chiropteran was nearly upon them. Hagi leapt forward to intercept its claws with his own. 

The door closed.

“Hagi!”  Kai hit the door hard with his fist. 

Lulu put her ear to the door.  “This is really thick,” she said.  “I can’t hear anything through it.”

“There has to be a way to open it again!”  Kai looked at the wall.  “Dammit, Hagi—“ 

“We need to keep moving—“ Lulu said.  “That way—“ 

Kai glared at the sealed door for another second, then turned away.  “Gotta keep looking for Saya—where were those labs Lewis marked on the map?”

“This way—“ Lulu said.  “It looks kinda familiar—“

They went on down the corridor, and found a pair of secured double-doors; Lulu made short work of the locks with her axe. 

“What kind of place is this… a locker room?” Kai looked around. 

“Clean room,” Lulu said. “It means the lab has to be kept super-sanitary, for genetics work or whatever, so they have to change clothes out here…”

“So whatever’s beyond this is really important,” Kai said.  “Saya?”

“Maybe, yeah?” Lulu agreed.  “Let’s go see.”

These doors were harder to open, though eventually even they succumbed to the power of Lulu’s axe. 

There were different alarms flashing in here—a lot of blinking red lights on the monitoring equipment, and three long capsules stacked vertically on one end.  Two of them were already red-lit, the monitors showing flat lines.  The third was still beeping, with its red light flashing in alarm.  

As they approached, Kai saw a pair of fists pounding at the capsule’s walls from the inside. Whoever was inside—was trying desperately to get out.  He came closer, wiped the surface of the capsule free of the frosting and haze, to see the occupant more clearly.

The face he saw was that of a young man, with shaggy dark hair floating around his face, his eyes wide with fear.  A familiar face.   

“Moses—?“  Kai breathed.  

“What?” Lulu came over to look.  “Oh. Corpse Corps.  Those bastards used Moses as their genetic template.  They all look like him, Kai, you just don't usually see one unmasked—“

Those eyes saw them now.  The boy—he didn’t look any older than Moses had, about sixteen or seventeen at most—reached out, his hand pressed against the glass. With his other hand, he tore away the respirator, and the medical sensors still attached to his body. His eyes pleaded with them. 

The monitors attached to the capsule began to show flat lines.  The red blinking light kept going. 

“He’s drowning—“ Kai realized.  “The capsule’s malfunctioning, he can’t breathe—“ 

He turned to Lulu, who was staring at the boy with horror and grief in her face.  “So much like him—“ she whispered. 

“Lulu!”  Kai grabbed her shoulder.  “Lulu, we have to at least get him out of there.  Break it, can you do that? Break it, so he can breathe—“

“Oh!  Yes—Get back, it’s going to be messy—“  She gripped her axe, studying the capsule, picking a spot.   “Okay, here goes—“  And she leapt up into the air, nearly to the ceiling, then brought the full weight of her axe down on the top section of the capsule.  

Kai backed up, putting a control desk between himself and any flying glass.

Sparks flew, and bits of metal and glass fell free.  The capsule cracked all the way down its length.  Liquid began to seep out, shorting out the monitor. 

“Again—“ Kai said.

“Got it,” she said and turned the axe slightly, smashing into the center of it with the flat of the blade.  The crack multiplied and shattered, glass and liquid exploding out in all directions.  As the liquid spilled out, so did the nude figure of the boy who’d been trapped within, his head and shoulders now free, his hands grabbing onto the jagged edges of his prison to pull himself up into the open air.  He coughed, spewing bloody mucus and liquid as he struggled to get a good breath. 

Kai came forward, sliding an arm around the boy’s shoulders, helping support him.  “Easy, easy—just breathe,” he said, in Japanese.  “Oh, I guess I should use English, shouldn’t I?   No, don’t hold on to the glass, you’re going to tear your hands to shreds on that.  Just breathe, I’ve got you—“

Lulu dropped her axe on the floor and came to help, hopping up to find a place to balance on the capsule frame.  “Let’s get him out, then—“ she said.  “It’s okay, we’re going to help you—give me your hand.“ 

The boy coughed a bit more, but was finally able to breathe, and raise his head to look at them.  He had Moses’ face, for certain—even his hair hung over half his face, just as Moses’ had.  His visible eye was green.  But there was uncertainty and fear in his face. 

“It’s going to be alright,” Kai said, in English.  “Give us your hands, we’ll lift you out.  Easy does it—“

The boy’s hands were already lacerated from the glass, but he barely winced; his fingers closed around theirs, and between the two of them, Kai and Lulu were able to lift him free of the shards of the capsule. 

He was slender, wiry and totally naked.   His legs didn’t seem strong enough to hold him, he collapsed onto the wet, tiled floor, breathing hard.   “Lulu—“ Kai said. “See if you can find something in that locker room for him to wear….” 

“Oh.  Yeah, sure..”  Lulu scurried off to do that. 

It occurred to Kai only as she left his side that he was alone with one of the Corpse Corps—who were chiropterans in their own right—and his gun was not in his hand.  But the boy didn’t seem like a threat.  Perhaps he hadn’t had the training that made him into the same killing machine as the others.  Or perhaps he recognized that Kai and Lulu were trying to help him. Or perhaps he was like Saya had been—without a memory, born into the world as a full-grown adult, but with the mind of a very young child. 

The boy looked around, and then saw the other two capsules.  His mouth moved, but no sound came out; instead, he scrambled up to his knees and then to his feet, using the machinery as his support, to see the capsules more closely.   He looked back at Kai, then pounded on the capsules with his fist. 

“I’m sorry,” Kai said.  “I don’t think they made it—“

The boy turned, looking around, then spotted Lulu’s discarded battle-axe on the floor.   Ignoring the shards of glass that cut into his bare feet, he went straight for the axe, picked it up easily.  Kai noted his hands had already healed. 

Chiropteran. Of course.

“What—?“  Lulu came back, just in time to see the boy raise her axe over his head, his eyes focused on the two remaining capsules.     

“Kai!  Look out!”  She moved in a blur, grabbing Kai and bodily dragging him to the other side of the room, behind a workstation, just as the glass and metal shards, and the interior liquid of the capsule sprayed outwards, first from one and then the other.   

“Thanks—“  Kai said, taking his gun out again.  “Now what is he going to do?”

“He’s trying to get them out—“  Lulu said, peering over the counter.  “I guess they’re his brothers. Like Moses and Carmen were mine—“

Kai stood up.  “I guess so.  Like Hagi said, they’re always deployed in threes—”

But the two remaining capsules had been the first to malfunction.  The boy pulled his look-alike brothers partway free of the broken glass, out into the air, looking for any signs of life.  There was none; they were limp, not breathing, unresponsive. 

Then there was an odd crackling sound.  Red lines appeared on the two bodies, cracks that crossed and crisscrossed their pale flesh.  Both Kai and Lulu had seen that effect before.

“Oh, no—" Lulu whispered.  “Thorn….”

As the lines spread, the dead flesh crystalized, turning to stone.  Arms and fingers fell off, crumbling into reddish-gray crystal.  The boy watched, his eyes wide and staring with disbelief and horror, backing away across the glass-strewn floor. 

He slipped, and fell, landing on yet more glass, until his flesh was crossed with red too—but his was blood.  Staring at his own flesh, the boy staggered to his feet again, breathing hard. He looked around, saw the open door that Lulu had just come through, and stumbled in that direction.

“Wait—“ Lulu cried out, extending a hand towards him. “Don’t go—“

He looked back at her, for just a second.  To Kai, the boy seemed to be terrified, confused, utterly lost.  And then he turned away again and was gone.

Lulu went to get her battle axe, treading carefully through the puddles, broken glass and metal shards.  “We have to find him, Kai—“ she said.

“No, we can't,” Kai said, though he hated dashing her hopes.  “We have a different mission—to find Saya. Remember? That’s what we came here for, Lulu.  We can’t do anything more for him right now. ”

“Yeah… you’re right…” Lulu agreed, though she still looked in the direction the boy had gone. “Hope he’s gonna be okay…”

---

 

Chapter 3: Rescue Mission at Kilbed

Summary:

The Red Shield rescue party searches for Saya. But they find more than they bargained for—someone else who has a stubborn will to survive and also carries a serious grudge against Dr. Collins.

Kai and Lulu had gotten separated—she had taken a quick side trip, investigating a curious scent—only to find what looked like the same kid they’d rescued earlier, locked in a cell, one of three such cells off that particular room. And when she entered the room, a door slammed shut behind her, and the barred doors of all three cells opened.

Crap. Lulu lifted her battle-axe and waited for the inevitable attack.

But this one—armed with only a sword, wearing only a thin hospital tunic so much like the ones she and her Schiff siblings had once worn—was just enough of a shock to her that she hesitated.

So did he. He was breathing hard, and he looked scared to death.  Not like one of the cold, invincible, unflappable fighting machines at all.

“What are you waiting for?”  A voice crackled down from a speaker somewhere above. “Attack her! TERMINATE!”

The boy’s eyes flicked around the room, possibly looking for either a better opening for that attack, or a way to escape, but whatever the reason for his hesitation, it angered the watcher.

“I said, attack!”

The boy’s body convulsed; his mouth opened in a soundless cry of agony, as he dropped the sword and fell to his knees, clutching his right arm close against his body.

Lulu glanced up. Someone was watching this?  Ah. There—up in that corner, a red light, a hint of reflection off glass.  “Butt out,” she snarled, and leapt right at the camera, battle-axe raised high. 

The camera made a most satisfying target; camera, speaker, and a good section of the ceiling disappeared in one powerful blow.

Lulu bounced back, landing lightly on her feet, battle-axe ready, watching the boy warily.

He was struggling back up to his feet, his right arm hanging down by his side.  She could see a red burn mark appearing on his bare forearm.  He raised his left arm, took a defensive stance, but did not pick up the sword again.  

Lulu lowered her axe.  “You’re just a kid,” she said. “Stay out of my way. Got that? I got bigger fish to hunt.”

She turned and slammed her axe against the exit door, which cracked it down the center. Another blow cracked it further, and one more split it in two. Then she went out the way she had come, continuing her hunt.

---

She and Kai came upon Hagi, who was fighting a trio of Corpse Corp soldiers in a large room, probably some kind of training room, with upper level observation windows surrounding it, and an open stair on the far wall, going up to a door on the upper level. 

She and Kai joined the fight—well, actually, they were skulking around the edges of it, because Hagi was proving himself a one-man demolition team. Kai dug into one of his pockets for the S-23 capsules, and Lulu kept herself far away from those, but kept her axe up and ready.

Hagi swung around, his booted foot sending one helmeted soldier flying into a concrete wall; his clawed right hand lashed out and forced another Corpse Corp fighter to twist away or be disemboweled.

The next of the Chiropteran soldiers to get within range of his claws was just a hair too slow; Hagi’s claws ripped through his abdomen and ribs, spraying blood, sending the wounded soldier skidding across the width of the room, practically to Kai’s feet.

Kai cracked one of the S-23 ampules open and dropped it right on top of him.

The results were immediate and dramatic; the wound immediately began to bubble, and then crystalize, sending ruby cracks racing across the man’s body, the tissues solidifying into stone and then breaking apart.

Hagi had already moved on, gracefully dodging two attacks coming at him from different sides, sending one of his silver daggers flashing out. 

Lulu picked up quickly on the plan of attack—she or Hagi could disable the masked fighters; those they didn’t kill, Kai could finish off.  It worked.  

Then she saw the boy again.  He had the most determined look in his eyes, and he had picked up that sword again after all. Still wearing only that thin hospital gown, barefoot and bare-headed, he was moving to the bottom of the stairs.  

But the glare in his visible eye was not focused on her, or even on Hagi or Kai.  He was looking up.

Lulu turned and looked up too.  A human, an older man in a lab coat, who held a remote control in one hand, was standing behind one of the observation windows on the upper level.   

Once again, the boy staggered, almost dropping his sword as he clutched at his right forearm.  She saw him crouch at the bottom of the steps, start his run up the stairs—

And then she was aware of a blurred shadow out of the corner of her eye, already on a deadly intercept course.

“No—!“  

Lulu dropped her battle-axe and leapt, too.  She managed to strike the boy off course, send him careening back down the stairs, just as an equally powerful force slammed into her from behind.  Pain exploded in her middle; looking down, she saw the blood-stained tips of Hagi’s claws protruding from her own belly. 

“Lulu!” Hagi’s voice, practically in her ear; shocked, distressed. The claws withdrew in an instant, and he twisted in mid-air, snatching her up in his arms, and taking the brunt of the impact as he ricocheted off the opposite wall, and carried her back down to the ground. 

She almost blacked out; it had been years since she’d taken a blow like that. 

“Stay still,” he ordered, laying her down and standing over her, his bloody claws now ready in her defense. 

“Up there—” she whispered. “Hagi—“

He glanced up, and his eyes narrowed, but he then had to refocus on one of the last surviving Corpse Corp soldiers coming at him with a sword.  “Kai—“ he called. “Up above.”

Kai’s face hardened too.  “Collins,” he said, and headed for the stairs.

The boy was already on the stairs, dragging himself upwards again. Hearing someone behind him, he turned, breathing hard.

Kai found himself staring right into a familiar face.  “You—?“

The boy swung his sword outwards, forcing Kai to back down a few steps, and then turned again, struggling upwards. 

Up in the window, Collins sneered and fiddled with the remote control again. The boy’s entire body went rigid, and his knees buckled out from under him; the sword fell from his fingers, and he collapsed against the wall. 

“You bastard,” Kai hissed.

“Kai—“ Hagi sent the last of the standing Corpse Corp soldiers slamming into the wall, a deep gash across biceps and chest. Kai vaulted over the railing to the floor, breaking the last of the S-23 capsules and throwing it into the Chiropteran soldier’s chest.  

Lulu gasped for breath as her muscles re-knit themselves, aware of Hagi’s arm now supporting her shoulders.  “I’m—okay,” she managed. “Go get.. that bastard.. up there.”

Kai was already on his way up the stairs again, stepping around the boy, who was still shivering and unable to rise.  

“Be still,” Hagi told her again, and carefully lifted her into his arms. Against the wall, the last of the Corpse Corp soldiers crackled into stony death. 

Up at the top of the stairs, Kai fired once into the lock of the door, and then kicked it, hard.

Hagi paused, one foot on the bottom step, studying the boy sprawled on the stairs above him. “He is not Schiff,” he said quietly.

“I know,” Lulu said. “Put me down… I can stand by myself, okay?”

Gently he set her down, but made sure she really was stable before he let go.

The boy was watching them warily, still recovering from whatever damage Collins had inflicted on him with that remote control. 

“Hagi—“ Kai called from above. “I need you up here.”

“Go on,” Lulu said.  “Don’t let me slow you down. I can handle the kid, okay?” 

Hagi nodded, and leapt over the boy and Lulu both, to the top of the stairs, and followed Kai.

Lulu held on to the railing that ran up the stairs on the wall side.  Her injury was healing, true, but it still hurt. And Hagi was probably still feeling guilty—that’s why he was treating her like that. But if she just stayed still another few minutes, she’d be as good as new.

The boy struggled to push himself at least to a sitting position. He looked like the pain he’d been subjected to had drained all his strength.  And the right arm looked it had been burned from the inside out. 

“There’s something inside your arm, isn’t there,” she said. “That’s why he can hurt you like that. We had something like that, too….  but ours only tracked us, they couldn’t use it to hurt us. Ghee and Irene, they knew about them. We had to locate them and cut them out—it was the only way we could escape and not be tracked.”

He looked down at his right arm. He had to move it using his left, it seemed to have no strength left. 

“Why aren’t you like the other guys?”  Lulu asked. “Why are you after that human—and not us? Whose side are you on?”

“Lulu.”  Hagi leapt down to the bloody floor and picked up Lulu’s axe. “We need to keep moving.”  He extended his left hand to her. 

“Right—“ she said, and accepted the indignity of being carried one more time. 

Over Hagi’s shoulder, she could see the boy’s single visible eye watching them go.

---

As it turned out, the observation level was a quick access to a lot of other training rooms, and one of them had the particular individual they were looking for.

Saya.   

Lulu tossed the battle-axe forwards; Hagi grabbed it in his right claw, and then swung at the double-plated observation window with all his strength.

The glass shattered. He dropped the axe on the floor, and was through the gap a half second later, landing on the tiled floor of the room below.  He went right to Saya’s side.

“Hagi, wait—“ Kai looked at the jagged shards of what was left of the window, and ground his teeth in frustration. “Can you open the door—?“

“I’ll get it,” Lulu said, leaping through the broken window after him.  She ran up the stairs to the door on the other side and figured out how the locking mechanism worked, then let Saya’s brother into the room.

Hagi was leaning over Saya, studying the medical apparatus she was hooked up to.  “She’s very weak,” he said.  “This is not a transfusion—this is draining her.”  He began to methodically disconnect her from the machines, pushing them aside, a grim look on his face.

“Let’s get her out of here,” Kai said, though he was almost physically ill when he saw how pale and wan Saya looked, lying on that gurney—asleep, helpless, wearing only a hospital gown, and totally unaware of the danger she was in.  

They had come prepared to handle an unconscious Saya. In fact, unconscious was preferable to another incident like the one that had happened in Vietnam, when awakening her prematurely had sent her murderously out of control.  Carefully Kai and Hagi laid out the sling, and settled her into it, then lifted the sling to Hagi’s back and strapped her down so her head was resting against his shoulder, her legs were supported against his hips, and her arms were folded under her, secured against his back.

“Let’s go,” Kai said.  “Hagi, if you have to, you keep going—get her out of here. Don’t wait for me or Lulu, just go.”

Hagi nodded.

They retraced their steps.

The boy who looked so much like Moses was no longer on the stairs when they passed through that room.  Lulu looked around, but saw no trace of him.  Sorry, kid,  she thought. Hope you make it okay…

---

They almost made it out without another incident. Almost.

They’d finally gotten to the parking garage, which had an exit ramp going up and outside. There were not many cars parked inside—one of the advantages of coming at night had been fewer mortal employees to confront. The ramp to the outside was just there… and Kai knew David and the others were just outside where the ramp led.

Hagi’s reflexes were fortunately better than Dr. Collins’ marksmanship; he pulled Kai back behind a thick pillar, out of the line of fire, just in time. 

“You’re not getting away again—“ Collins shouted, his voice echoing in the space bounded by concrete and a handful of vehicles. “You have no idea how long I’ve been working on this—how long it’s taken to reassemble all the research data, to rebuild to even half of what I had before.  You can’t do this to me all over again!”

”Yeah? Just watch me,” Kai muttered, and reloaded his pistol.  “You had no right to use Saya for your damned research,” he shouted back. “Amshel’s empire has crumbled into dust.  It’s not coming back.”

“You talk about her—about them—as if they were people!” Collins replied, still shouting, still frustrated and angry and not caring who knew it. “They’re Chiropterans!  They’re monsters—alien life forms in human shape!  Fighting is all they’re good for—they’re not human, and they never will be!”  

“You know, that guy is seriously beginning to get on my nerves,” Lulu said. 

“Kai! Hagi!” David’s voice, a very welcome sound, echoing from the upper ramp to the surface, where the exit was, or at least where Lulu remembered it was.  

“Stay under cover—“ Kai called back.  “We’ve got Saya.  We’ll come to you.”

“I’ll take Saya across,” Hagi said.  “Then I’ll come back for you.”

Gunfire suddenly erupted, three shots in quick succession, and a man’s scream of pain. 

Kai glanced around the corner of the pillar, holding his own gun upright and ready.

Collins stood with his back to them—less than twenty yards away—and from the middle of his lower back was the broad, bloody blade of one of the Corpse Corps’ ugly swords. Then he fell, tumbling down several stairs to land in an untidy, undignified heap. 

The boy, Moses’ clone, stood there, swaying on his feet.  Blood splattered across the thin tunic he was wearing; his skin was waxy and pale, and his right forearm was a bloody mess. 

“Chiropteran!”  Sten raised his hand; he held one of the S-23 capsules, attached to a throwing dagger. “Get down!” he shouted and let it fly.

“NO!”  Lulu and Kai shouted at the same time.  Lulu started to leap—the only thing that kept her from crossing that space was Hagi’s arms wrapping around her shoulders.

He was protecting her—she knew that. The S-23 was as deadly to her as it was to the Corpse Corps.

The boy looked down at the dagger embedded in his shoulder, the blood and serum flowing together down over his chest, already bloody from bullet wounds.  His knees buckled out from under him, and he fell.

Lulu threw Hagi’s restraining hold off, and was across the room like a shot. “No!” she cried. “No, he wasn’t—he wasn’t like them—“

Kai followed her, shaking his head.  “Dammit.  Damn, damn, damn—” 

“What the hell?” David asked.  “He’s one of their Corpse Corp soldiers—isn’t he?”

“He’s a Chiropteran!”  Nikolaj said, surprised at the pushback from his own Red Shield allies. 

“Yeah? So what?”  Lulu snapped back, suddenly changing her directional vector, halfway across the space, turning to face him. “So am I! So’s Hagi, and Saya!  Is this what we really are to you?”

“Lulu—“  Kai said, coming up behind her.  “Lulu, Neechan—“

“He wasn’t one of them!”

Hagi came up to join them.  “Lulu.  Look.”

The boy was slumped against the wall.  His wounds were already healing, the bullets Dr. Collins had fired being expelled from his body.  And slowly, a few centimeters at a time, so was Sten’s dagger.

“He’s not reacting to the S-23—”  Kai said, astonished.  “It’s not affecting him! But it worked on all the others.  We used it—it worked just as Saya’s blood did. He’s different.”

“Then he was not created from Diva’s blood,” Hagi said.   

“Whose blood, then?”  Kai asked.  “Not Saya’s, surely—”  

“No, he couldn’t be,” David said. “According to Julia, it would take them a good six months to grow a full-sized soldier—they haven’t had access to Saya’s blood anywhere near that long.”

“We can’t just leave him here!”  Lulu said. “We need to help him!”

“Julia probably would want to take a look at him,” David said. “We need to know where he did come from—in case there are any more like him out there.  Can we restrain him well enough for transport?”

The boy picked up Sten’s dagger with his left hand.  Breathing rapidly, he set the point against his own right forearm. 

“There’s some kind of implant in his arm,” Lulu said. “I remember, we had ‘em too. But that man was using it to hurt him. Electric shocks or something. That’s why he attacked him. That man was torturing him.”   

Kai came closer; the boy tensed, and held the dagger defensively in his left hand.  Kai held up his hands. “It’s alright,” he said.  “I’m not going to hurt you.  I think you’ve been hurt enough, haven’t you?”

Lulu approached him, ducking around Kai; she squatted down on her haunches and held out her hand.  “You can give that to me,” she said. “It’s okay.  Nobody’s going to hurt you, not anymore.  Give that to me, and you can come with us.  Not all humans are bad, you know. I know it’s hard to trust people you just met and don’t know. It was hard for me and my brothers too. But it’s worth it, trust me. It is. I’m here today, because these humans helped me.  And if you let them, they can help you, too.”

He looked from her face, to Kai’s, to Hagi’s…  then slowly lowered the knife and let it fall to the floor.  Then his eyes closed, and he slumped over in a heap.

Kai leaned over him.  “Out cold—“ he said. “He’s really weak.  David…?”

“Keep him restrained,” David said. “Just as a precaution, for everyone’s safety.  But yeah. Let’s see if Julia can figure out where the hell he came from.” 

---

They bid farewell to Sofia, Sten, Pol, and Nikolaj at the airport, and boarded Joel’s plane.  It would be a long flight back to Okinawa.

Saya was still in her deep sleep; she was very weak.  Julia, who had stayed with the plane, had started giving her plain blood transfusions already, but there had not been much change. 

Normally, when she was awake and weak from blood loss, Hagi’s blood could revive and sustain her; he had often done so for her during their many years together, either through transfusions, or more directly.  But that was when she was awake.  Giving her his blood now, while she was in her long sleep—well, that was what had triggered her mad rampage in Vietnam, and no one, least of all Hagi, wanted to see that again. Hopefully, her body would be able to metabolize the regular transfusions until she had replenished what had been taken from her.  In the meantime, Hagi stayed close by her side, and watched over her anxiously.

The boy was another matter entirely.  He was definitely Chiropteran—his uncanny resemblance to Moses seemed to indicate he had been created by the same genetic manipulation that had created the Corpse Corps.  But the Schiff and the Corpse Corps had all been created using a template made from Diva’s blood, which made them vulnerable to the S-23 enzyme in the blood of Saya, her twin.  Yet this particular Chiropteran seemed to be immune to that, and not even Julia had a ready answer for that. 

The space inside the plane was limited; Saya was in the small medical lab, in the back compartment.  They had secured the boy in one of the chairs, but David and Lewis had insisted on restraints, both steel handcuffs on wrists and ankles, and strong cargo webbing to hold him in place in the chair. But at least they’d been able to get a long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of Kai’s pants on him, and wrap him up securely in a blanket before strapping him into the seat. 

“We’ll have to do more tests when we get him back to the lab,” Julia said.  

“It’s like seeing him again, isn’t it—“ Kai said, laying his hand on Lulu’s shoulder.

"Only at first," she said, sadly.  “He doesn’t smell the same at all.”

Kai studied the sleeping youth’s face.  Gently he reached down, and brushed the long hair back away from the left side of his face.  Moses’ hair had always veiled half his face, too. “There,” he said.  “Give him a haircut, and he’ll be a whole new person… I wonder what his name is?”

—If I am ever reborn in this world, Kai Miyagusuku—I hope it is somewhere close to you.

Kai wasn’t sure he believed in reincarnation any more than Moses had. But still, they’d connected somehow with this boy—an artificially created Chiropteran, just as Lulu and Moses had once been—and there had to be a reason.  A reason he was immune to Saya’s blood—and a reason he had not attacked them, despite being ordered to by his own creators. It could even be because he remembered them helping him—if he had been the same boy in the capsule. Kai thought he might well have been. Could it be that little act of kindness had altered his programming that much?     

“What’s this—?”  Kai noticed something, an odd bump just under the boy’s collarbone.  “Julia—?”

“Oh, that’s a feeding port,” Julia said.  “They get their transfusions that way.  It’s one of the first things done when they’re first born.”

Kai covered it up again.  “How old is he, do you think?”

“I’d have to do a more thorough exam—but my guess is he’s very young. A week, maybe two, at tops?”

“A week?”  

“Remember they’re born as adults,” Julia said. “Training and indoctrination take about eight to ten weeks—after that, they were ready to be deployed.”

“We got a lot more training than that,” Lulu said. 

“Your training allowed you to improvise, think independently, and make swift decisions in the heat of battle,” Julia said.  “Those same traits also led you to rebel, however, and escape.  For the Corpse Corp—anything that wasn’t absolutely essential to their mission was deemed… unnecessary.” 

“Were you born as… like you are now?” Kai asked. 

“I don’t remember,” Lulu said.  “I think I was always just like this. I don’t remember being smaller, either, or growing.  And I guess I’ll never get any bigger.”

“But you’ll never get any older, either,” Lewis said, ruffling her hair. “You’ll just be our cute little Lulu for all time.”

“Lewis, stop that—“ Lulu protested, but she was grinning as she said it.

There was a sudden movement in the chair, but no sound. The boy’s eyes were open, and he looked terrified.  He had already discovered his immobility; now he strained against the restraints, but hadn’t mustered his full strength against them yet. 

Kai slid into the seat opposite him.  “Easy. Easy,” he said, in English. “No one is going to hurt you, okay? Just take it easy—”   He laid his hands on the boy’s shoulders.  “Just relax. Relax and breathe. Take nice, slow breaths, that’s it. Just sit still, it's going to be alright.  You remember me, right? My name is Kai. I’m going to look after you. You’re safe. It’s going to be okay.”

The boy's eyes stared back up at him, but his breathing did even out, and he stopped struggling. So much like Moses, right down to the color of his eyes, the shape of his nose and ears, the mop of hair—though Moses' hair had been nearly black; this boy's hair was more of a sandy brown.

"You're rather the quiet type, aren't you?" Kai said. "Can you speak? English? Icelandic? Anything?"

“Don’t expect to get a verbal response from him,” Julia said, standing in the aisle between the seats.  “None of the Corpse Corps actually speak—they physically can’t. They’ve got no vocal chords to speak of—it was deemed unnecessary to allow them that trait.”

“You’re kidding—no, I guess you’re not.”  Kai looked horrified.  “Every time I think I’ve heard the worst about those bastards—you manage to tell me something new that makes me hate ‘em even more.”

The boy’s eyes traveled between them, and his breathing quickened again, as he looked back at Kai.

“It’s alright,” Kai said.  “Easy.  It’s not your fault, I know that. It’s not you I’m angry with, so relax, okay? ”  He reached across, touched the boy’s cheek.  “Look at me.  It’s going to be alright.  It doesn’t matter where you came from.  You’re with us now.  You don’t have to go back there, ever again….”

Lulu came over and parked herself in the seat next to him, tucking her legs up under her.  “When I lost my brothers, Kai took good care of me,” she said. “He’ll take good care of you too. You look a lot like one of my brothers—so if you want, you can be my brother too, and I’ll be your big sister.”

“If you ask me, you’re more like the little sister,” Lewis commented from the other side of the cabin.

“I didn’t ask you!”  Lulu said, turning to face him.  “And I’m older, Lewis!  So there!” 

Lewis merely chuckled. “You keep telling yourself that, little girl—”

“Arrrgghh!  Lewis—” Lulu got out of her chair, and Lewis ducked into the cockpit of the plane, to avoid her (mostly feigned) wrath.

The boy stared at them all, and then closed his eyes. Kai continued to speak softly to him, keeping physical contact, until the boy’s breathing evened out, and he seemed to sleep again.

The plane headed out into the night, crossing over Newfoundland and Canada, on its way back to Okinawa.

---

 

Chapter 4: Jin

Summary:

The boy they bring home is named "Jin" by Kanade, whom *he* is extremely taken by. But they soon discover that Jin is still vulnerable to Thorn... which leads Kanade to try Desperate Measures.

Kanade was done with her transfusion early, so she went looking for her father at the Red Shield clinic.  “Where’s Dad?” she asked Dr. Julia.

“Upstairs,” the American replied. “With the new patient.”

“A new patient?” This, Kanade decided, she had to see, so she went upstairs. Julia followed.

“Dad, what’s this I hear about a new patient—“  Kanade’s voice, as she poked her head in the door.  “Dad—?”  

The boy’s head turned, seeking the new voice.  He was lying in a bed, with restraints holding him down—and Kanade was curious.

“Who’s this?”  Kanade asked, coming closer.  

“Stay back,” Kai said.  “He’s restrained for a reason. “

“He doesn’t  look dangerous,” she said, looking over his shoulder. “He’s kinda cute, actually.”

“Kana-chan—“ Kai started, though he didn’t relish the idea of having an argument with his daughter in front of even such a silent witness. 

The boy was staring at Kanade as if he’d never even seen a girl before—well. Probably he hadn’t.  He’d stopped struggling, too.

Kanade offered him a formal little bow. “Good afternoon. Do you have a name?” she asked.

“Try English,” Kai said.  “I don’t think he speaks any Japanese.”

“Oh. Okay.”  Kanade smiled at him. “Hi. My name’s Kanade Otanashi. What’s yours?”

He just stared at her.  His lips moved, as if he was trying to speak, but no sound came out.

Kanade stepped closer. “Can’t you talk?”

“He can’t talk, Kana-chan,” Kai said, in Japanese. “He has no vocal chords, Julia said.”

“Oh. So ka,”  Kanade murmured, and went back to English “You can’t speak? Then you can’t tell us what your name is, can you…”

“He wouldn’t have a name, either,” Julia said, coming into the room.  “Remember, they weren’t designed to be people—just weapons.  He would have had a numerical designation—that’s all. It’s tattooed on his shoulder-blade.”

“Kana-chan, not so close—“ Kai said, extending an arm to block her approach. “Just a number, huh? Bastards.”

“What was it?”  Kanade asked. “Let me see.”

“Here, I’ve got it on the report—“ Julia said, checking the clipboard she was carrying.  “J1N-3247-62C.  That’s what his tattoo said, and that was the number on the microchip we took out of his arm, too.”

“Jin.” Kanade said, reading it.  “That’s a good name. It’s even Japanese!”

“It’s J1N—“

“No, he isn’t a number,” Kanade said, in English, to make her point understandable to the boy, as well as Dr. Julia.  “He’s a person, and he should have a name. And it’s Jin. Do you understand?” She turned to the boy, who had not taken his eyes off her from the moment she’d come in.  “Your name is Jin.”

“Shhh…iii….hhh”  It was barely a whisper, an exhalation of air, but it was definitely an attempt at speech.

“Jin,” Kanade repeated, showing him how she formed the sound with her tongue and teeth. “You can do it.  Jin.”

“Shhhhiiin.”  It was much closer, though barely audible, and his effort was rewarded with Kanade’s smile.

“Yes, that’s it.  Jin.  See, Dad, he’s trying to communicate, too—“  

“He does seem to be responding well to her,” Julia observed.

“He’s physically a teen-aged boy, of course he’s responding to her,” Kai muttered, in Japanese. 

“Dad!” Kanade glared at him. Her cheeks felt flushed. “Stop it!” 

Kai smiled. It took a lot to get Kanade to blush.   “Maybe you can help Dr. Julia look after him—but you have to promise me something, first.”

“What’s that?” Kanade asked.

“You have to always, and I do mean always, have someone else with you.  Dr. Julia, or Uncle Hagi, or Lulu, or me.  Hibiki doesn’t count, for this. You have to understand—he’s basically a clone of the helmeted man who helped kidnap you. He’s just younger—and so maybe we can teach him to have better manners, and he can be our friend like Lulu is.  He seems to like you—so you can help. But you have to be careful, Kanade.  Promise me.”

She looked at the boy in the chair, who was watching her with what looked like hope in his eyes.  “Okay, Dad.  I promise.  I’ll make sure someone is with me.  And I’ll help.  Because I think Jin really wants to be our friend.  Don’t you, Jin?”

And it was clear, even without a voice, that Jin very much did.

---

Jin recovered quickly—his recuperative powers were on a par with Hagi’s or Lulu’s. He seemed compliant and cooperative, though he clearly was more comfortable with Kai or Lulu nearby than almost anyone else.  Julia had once worked for Cinq Fleches on the Corpse Corps development, so she had a fair idea of how his physiology worked, but even she couldn’t explain how he had acquired immunity to the S-23 enzyme. His version of the Dbase biochemical signature was different than anything she had ever seen, and she was somewhat annoyed that no one in the infiltration party had been able to retrieve computer records or documentation that might have explained how Jin had been created.

On the one hand, he was a Chiropteran—granted, an artificial one like Lulu, but a Chiropteran nonetheless. Potentially, he was extremely dangerous—he had all the strength and regenerative abilities of a Chevalier, but no real understanding of the world or human society.  Everything was new to him—Kai was reminded of the first few weeks after his father had brought Saya home, when she’d been like a small child, having to relearn all the things she had once known, from eating and dressing herself, to talking, to acting like a young lady.  But at least Saya had once known those things.  This boy… it was all genuinely new to him, everything outside of the lab in which he had been born.

On the other hand—and it was the one thing that allowed Kai to persuade David and Julia to eventually take off the restraints—he was the least aggressive Chiropteran any of them had ever encountered. 

---

But their joy was short-lived—as was Jin, apparently. The first red crack of Thorn appeared less than three months after he was brought back to Japan, and it spread rapidly. 

“He was too young,” Julia said, shaking her head. “The first two weeks, they spend at least eight hours a day in their capsules—and there’s a reason for that. He should have a life span of at least three years, not three months.”

“Three years?” Kanade was horrified. “Why?”

“They’re soldiers,” Julia explained. “And they have a limited lifespan. It’s… economical, or at least it was considered so when Cinq Fleches was developing them.”

“It’s barbaric and cruel.” Kanade was adamant.

“Yes, it is,” Kai agreed. “But that’s how they were programmed. Or would have been, if we hadn’t interrupted… Maybe it would have been kinder to let him die with his brothers, I don’t know.”

“I’m so sorry,” Julia said. “It’s horrible, I agree. But there’s nothing we can do for him now, except make him comfortable.”

Kanade privately resolved that would not be all they could do. But she said nothing to the adults of her plans—she recruited Lulu and her sister instead. After all, she reasoned to herself, Dad had said that if Lulu was with them, that was okay, right?

Her idea was simple: Jin was a Chiropteran, and so were they, and if he could be transfused with blood from one of them, he might be saved. Maybe. Lulu had given her the idea, but even she wasn’t sure if it would work. And Dr. Julia would probably not let them even try, so this had to be done the sneaky way.

The girls snuck into the clinic late at night, with Lulu as their co-conspirator, and crept down the hall to the room where Jin was being cared for.

Lulu checked around the corner.  “Okay—coast is clear,“  she said.  “This way—”

Kanade and Hibiki followed her. 

“Damn,” Lulu muttered, trying the door.  “It’s locked. I can open it, but I'd have to break it.“

“Give me a second,“ Kana said, and dug a narrow pick out of her pack  “We have these same locks at school.  Trust me, they’re not that hard to pick.“ 

Hibiki looked down the corridor nervously.  “Hurry, Kana-chan.“

“Got it—“  Kanade said, and the lock clicked.  “Let’s go.”

They slipped inside the room. “Lulu, keep watch, okay?”  Kanade said.

Jin was awake—of course.  The red cracking lines on his neck had begun to spread to his jaw, and down his left arm.  

“Hibiki—“

“I’ve got the syringe.  Let me get his blood first—”   Hibiki bent over the stricken patient.  “Jin?  Just lie still, okay? I just need a little.  We have to make sure this is safe for you.”

“That’s it,” Kanade told him, stroking his hair back from his face.  “Just lie still for a moment—try not to be afraid.  We’re here, we’re not going to just leave you alone.”

“Got it—“   Hibiki took the syringe and laid out two small glass dishes—much as Julia had done for them all those years ago.  She split the small blood sample she’d collected between the two dishes.   “Okay, neechan,” she said.  “Want me to go first?”

“Sure.“  

Hibiki took the scalpel and held her hand over one of the dishes, then poked her flesh with the scalpel’s sharp point.  Several drops of blood ran down her hand and dripped into the dish. 

The results were immediate.  The combined blood crystalized, rapidly and sharply. 

“Oh, no!”  Hibiki cried out.  “No, no, no—That wasn’t supposed to happen!“

“Whoa,” Lulu said.  “that’s… yeah, definitely bad.  Let’s not use your blood, Hibiki.”

“So let’s try mine,” Kanade said.  She picked up a clean scalpel, and repeated her sister’s actions over the second dish.  A thin stream of blood dripped down into the dish.

Nothing.

Nothing happened.  They watched it for several seconds, but no reaction occurred.

“Okay, then.”  Kanade took Jin’s hand in her unmarked one.  “Jin, do you understand what that meant?”

He looked up at her.  Scared.  Trusting her.  He nodded. 

“It might not work.  It might even do horrible things to you.”  Kana told him.  “But I want to help you, Jin.  Do you want to try this?  Do you want to try my blood?”

His fingers tightened on hers, and then he nodded again. 

“Okay—”  Kanade bent over him one more time, and kissed his forehead.  “For luck,” she whispered, then picked up the scalpel again, and gritting her teeth, cut a deep wound across the palm of her hand.  “Ready?”

He opened his mouth.  She lowered her hand and tilted it carefully over his mouth, so a thin stream of blood trickled over the edge of her hand and into his mouth.

He swallowed.

“Please don’t die, Jin.  Stay with me, look at me—“

Then his back arched, struggling against the restraints.  He cried out—though his voice was barely audible.  And then he convulsed, trembling violently, shaking, his eyes wide in pain and fear.

“Jin!”  Kanade flung herself over his torso. “Hibiki, Lulu—help me!”

The three of them tried to hold the thrashing boy down. When they all worked at it, they managed to do it, but he was definitely stronger than they expected.

Finally, he was still.  “Jin?”  Kanade leaned over him.  “Jin—I’m so sorry, I only wanted to help—“

“You did,” Lulu said, pointing.  “Look!  The Thorn—it’s healing…”

It was.  The red cracks were fading, just as their wounds usually did.  Fading away as though they’d never existed. 

“Jin—“ Kanade touched his cheek. “Jin, please wake up. Please—“

His breathing was so slow, it scared her.  She laid her head on his chest, and heard his heart beating, steadily, but again, so slow.  “Jin. Please, Jin, wake up…”

“Crap, someone's coming—“ Lulu said, hearing something in the hallway downstairs; footsteps hurrying to find the source of the noise from upstairs. “We gotta go—“

Hibiki started to follow, and then came back. “Kana!  Kana-chan, come on, if Dr. Julia finds us here—“

“I’m not leaving him,” Kanade said, stubbornly.  “Go on, neechan.  I promise I won’t tell.”

“Kana-chan—“

“I can’t just leave him here, not now—“ Kana whispered back. “Go with Lulu, I’ll be fine. What are they going to do, arrest me?  Go on.”

“Come on,” Lulu hissed from the door.  Hibiki ran to her, and Lulu wrapped her arms around the slightly taller girl, and they both vanished in a puff of wind.

Kanade laid her head back down on Jin’s chest, her fingers interlaced with his.  “Please, Jin,” she whispered. “Don’t die. Don’t die…”

Footsteps in the corridor.  Lights flicked on.

“Kanade!  What are you doing in here? What—“

Julia took in the entire scene:  the medikit on the side table, the petri dishes and bits of blood-stained gauze and the scalpels; Kanade’s tears, her protective posture over the body of the young Chiropteran soldier.  “Kanade Otanashi—what did you do?”

“Please—Dr. Julia—“ Kanade cried. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! You have to help him. Please don’t let him die—“

“Let me see—“  Julia came closer and Kanade moved out of the way, though her eyes never left the stricken young man’s face. 

The first thing Julia noticed was that the ominous red cracks of the Thorn had faded from his skin. His skin was cool, and his muscles relaxed.  He was breathing, just very slowly. And the monitors showed a slow and steady heartbeat, and a body temperature that was dropping below human norms. 

She had seen those indicators before.  Almost sixteen years ago, when it had been Riku Miyagusuku— “Kanade,” she said.  “You have to tell me.  What did you do?”

“I—I gave him some of my blood,” Kanade said. “We tested it first!  Hibiki’s blood didn’t work, it all turned to stone, but my blood didn’t, so—“

“Wait.  You tested it—?“  Julia took in the medikit and petri dishes again, the used syringe, the scalpels.  “Hibiki’s blood crystalized his. But yours didn’t?”

“I only wanted to help him, Dr. Julia.” 

Julia looked back at the patient.  “Kanade, had you given him your blood before tonight?  Ever? Even a drop?”

“No, of course not!  It was only because—he was dying, Lulu said.  We didn’t want him to die.”

“It was your blood, then.  That’s why—but how?  How did they even get it to start with—“ Julia turned and looked at Kanade.  “Alright, then. If you want to help him, this is what I need you to do—“

---

“She did WHAT?”  Kai didn’t mean to raise his voice, but the volume went up anyway. Fourteen years of dealing with Kanade sometimes just up and doing what she knew she wasn’t supposed to do—it wore on a man’s patience, even a loving father’s. 

“I’ll give them this, they did take precautions.  They tested his blood for compatibility. Hibiki’s blood crystalized his—immediately. Kanade’s didn’t.  And Saya’s didn’t. You realize what that means, don’t you?” 

“He was created using Kanade’s blood?”  Kai said, shocked.  “But—how did they even get her blood? It would have had to have been before… that attack, right? They wouldn’t have had enough time to—“

“Right.  They have to have gotten samples of her blood—possibly Hibiki’s too—sometime in the past. At least a year ago, I would think. It means we've had a serious security breach here—in this clinic, and within Red Shield itself. That’s something we’ll have to look into—and I’ll have to notify Joel.  In the meantime…” 

“In the meantime, what?” 

Both of them looked through the observation window at the teen-aged girl holding the hand of the young man lying unconscious in the hospital bed. 

“We’ll need to keep a close eye on him.  He’s not Corpse Corps any longer. He’s now a full-fledged Chevalier who has never even known what it’s like to be human.”

---

The door to the room opened quietly, and closed.  A gentle hand rested on Kanade’s shoulder. 

“You don’t need to worry, Kana-chan,” Hagi said. “He’s not going to die.”

Kanade’s face showed signs of tears.  “Are you sure, oji-san? He’s… he’s so weak…  I only wanted to help him…”

“You did. You saved his life with your blood.  Just as a long time ago… your Aunt Saya once saved mine.”

“She saved you?” 

His gaze stared out into space.  “I fell… from a high cliff, and I was badly injured. Saya felt desperate, much as you must have felt, seeing someone she knew and cared about, dying before her eyes.  She knew she could heal from almost any injury—so she fed me her blood, hoping it could help me heal too.  And it did, but not in the way she expected. It changed me, forever.  It made me what I am; it turned me into her Chevalier.”

“What’s—what’s a Che-val-yay?”

“The word is from old French,” he said.  “It means knight. A Chevalier serves… like a knight to a princess in medieval times. He is her loyal retainer, her trusted companion, her defender and champion, her sword and shield. Jin has now become your Chevalier, Kanade. He will follow you wherever you go, and he will do anything you ask of him. He will watch over you and protect you—and if necessary, he will sacrifice his life for yours. He will serve you—as I serve Saya—for as long as you both live.”

“I didn’t mean for that—I didn’t want him to serve me, I just wanted to save him—“

“You did.  Only you could save him, Kanade. Only you. Your blood was what he needed to survive. Hibiki’s blood would have killed him—and it still would, so that’s something you both must remember, and be careful about.”

She nodded.  “Hibiki would never want to hurt him. She was helping me—“

“When he wakes again, he will want to be at your side.  You will be his princess, and his reason for living.”  His hand brushed her cheek, wiping a tear away.  “He is going to need your help. He doesn’t understand the world you’ve spent your entire life in. He has never been a child, growing up as you did. He doesn’t know how to be human.”

“How to be… human?”

“You must teach him, Kanade. Teach him how to live in this world.”

“Teach him… like Takashi and Rin? Like I’m his big sister?”

“That’s a good start. He’ll learn fast. It will all work out.”

“Nankurunaisa.”

“Exactly.” His eyes shifted over to the bed.  “He’s waking. Be yourself, Kanade. And remember to be kind. You’ll be fine.”

“Jin—“  Kanade didn’t hear or see Hagi-san leaving.  Her eyes were on the pale face of the young man in the bed. His eyelids fluttered a little, and his breathing rate increased.

“Jin. I’m right here.  You’re going to be alright.  It’s going to be alright now.”  Kanade bent over him. 

His eyes opened.  Stared up into hers. Green eyes with light brown centers, now staring up into hers with wonder and awe.  His lips moved, formed her name.  She almost heard it; a mere whisper of air from his lungs.  Ka-na-de….

Kanade smiled at him. “Jin.  I’m so glad you’re alright.  You’re going to be with me, Jin. We’ll be together forever.   Everything is going to be fine.”

---

To say Jin knew nothing of being human turned out to be something of an understatement. 

Moses and the Schiff had openly admitted they had been taught only one way to get what they needed—to take it by force. But even the Schiff had known more about the world than Jin apparently did. And the Schiff had been independent thinkers, and possessed a strong sense of connection to their siblings, which allowed them to cooperate in achieving the goals they independently determined needed to be pursued—which of course, had also led to them killing their jailers and tormentors, and escaping to freedom .

Jin had been taught to obey commands, and to fight—that was his purpose, and his creators had not seen fit to train him to do anything else.  He understood commands in three languages—none of which were Japanese. He was an amazing athlete—his physical strength and agility, speed and coordination were nearly the equal of Hagi’s.  But he was used to being told what to do—told everything to do.  He could remember and accurately execute fairly complex sets of instructions, even including layers of contingencies, but having to make a decision on his own, without prior instructions as to what action to take, left him all but paralyzed with indecision.  Given nothing concrete to do, he would literally do nothing—simply stand or crouch on his haunches in a corner, within sight of his mistress, and wait.

He also was not used to being touched.  His reflexive reaction to any other physical contact was to avoid it or strike back—unless the person touching him was Kanade.  She could do anything she wished, and he would passively accept it from her.  Even connecting to the feeding port for transfusions was more easily accomplished if Kanade was there.  In her presence, he was calm, and cooperative—when she was not in his sight, he was on edge and easy to agitate. Having him stay at the clinic when Kanade went home to Omoro was incredibly stressful for him.

“I don’t suppose… he could stay with you, nii-san?”  Kai asked Hagi one evening.  “I really hate leaving him there all alone.”

“It is not my company he needs,” Hagi pointed out. 

“He’s not exactly housebroken…” Kai sighed.  “Is it fair to him to bring him here, and just make him stay in Kanade’s room when she’s at school, or when the pub is open?   She’s fourteen.  I can’t just let a…. a teen-aged boy stay in the girls’ room with them.”

“You have to decide that, Kai—“ Hagi said.  “He is Kanade’s Chevalier, that cannot be changed. Whether he is part of your family or not, that is up to you.”

“But he is, isn’t he,“ Kai leaned against the counter.  “She made that decision, I didn’t—but it’s true.  He’s part of my family now. And it wouldn’t be the first time we had a strange kid in the house—you should have seen Saya when she first arrived.  But she learned so fast—because for her, it was really relearning things she already knew.   He’d be learning it all from scratch… like he was a little kid, just adopted.  I was a kid like that once.  Me and Riku… when Dad brought us home.  I was seven or eight years old… I guess Riku was about five.  Dad had his hands full for a while. I think. It took us a while to trust him, to know we weren’t gonna be sent back to the orphanage as defective or something….”

Kai looked over at Hagi, who was simply standing there—his face revealed nothing of his thoughts or feelings. “I guess you know a little something about that too, don’t you, nii-san?”  Kai said.  “When you first came to the Zoo… you weren’t that old, either, were you. You were still a kid.”

“I was twelve,” Hagi said at last. “It was Saya who made me feel like I belonged, just as your father did for you and Riku, and Saya, and as you have done for the girls, and Lulu…  and me.”

“That’s what we have to do, then,” Kai said. “I’ll call Julia.  I don’t know how it will work, but…. Nankurunaisa.  Somehow it’ll work out.”

---

And so Jin came to live in the apartment above Omoro, too.  Kanade took a week off school—with her parents’ permission—to help him get settled. Julia’s suggestion had been, since Jin had never actually had a childhood, to start him off almost as a child—bearing in mind he was physically grown and learned at a much faster rate.  They also decided to teach him to understand Japanese, and to be Japanese—as much as possible.

Kaori was nervous about having him around, at first.  She’d heard plenty of stories about the notorious Corpse Corp, and Jin’s social manners were awkward at best. 

But Kanade took on the responsibility of looking after her new brother very seriously. And once the family hierarchy was made clear to him—who could give him orders and where he fit in—he did seem to try to get along as best he could.

It took time.  It took patience. Especially when Kanade went back to her usual school routine. During the day, when all the kids were in school, Lulu or Hagi came by and kept him company. Jin took a while to relax around Hagi.  He seemed to instinctively realize that this was another queen’s Chevalier, and it was his duty to protect Kanade from such dangerous creatures.  And of course, he’d also seen Hagi in action at Kilbed, dealing out bloody death to fellow Corpse Corps soldiers. Hagi, with Saya to protect, was a truly formidable and potentially deadly foe.

But Hagi without Saya in evidence, being his usual quiet, stoic self, was not nearly so threatening. Especially when Kanade and Hibiki treated him as a trusted family member, and Hagi himself treated Jin with courtesy and patience.

Hagi also started to teach Jin to read, and more importantly, to write. As he had once tutored Lulu, now he made use of children’s schoolbooks and paper and pens, and started teaching Jin the basics of reading and writing English and Japanese.

Hagi and Lulu took on another teaching task as well—one only they could do.  In the dark hours of the night, they would take Jin to a deserted part of the beach, or a lonely stretch of land on the sprawling American airbase, and do the things only Chiropterans could do—honing combat skills, agility and speed, and learning the geography of Okinawa.  

But it was ten-year-old Savannah, the daughter of David and Julia, who introduced him to sign language, having learned a little basic American sign from a classmate with a deaf sister. Jin, of course, was not deaf—but his voice would never be more than a whisper, and so he rarely attempted to speak at all.  The girls—Kanade, Hibiki and Savannah—did some research, and found an instructor in sign language who didn’t mind new students.

Suddenly, Jin was no longer mute.  And while he was more likely to communicate with Kanade than anyone else, he slowly began to use his new skills to “talk” to the rest of the family too, using a combination of writing and sign.

Six months after Jin came to live with the Miyagusuku family, he seemed to be settling in  fairly well.  He referred to Kai as “Dad” and Kaori as “Mother,” and Uncle Hagi as sensei. He had chores to do around the house, he was doing well in his studies, and he was reading simple books in two languages, and he wasn’t flinching when touched unexpectedly, even letting five-year-old Rin sit on his lap, or wrestling—very gently—with nine-year-old Takashi. He had learned to smile, and laugh, although silently.    

Nankurunaisa.  It was working out, with a lot of helping one another—which, Kai reflected, was rather the point of family.

But Jin was not happy watching Kanade go off to school without him. And he resolved to do something about that before the next semester started.

 

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 4 of Blood+ Aftermath