WD Spy rule two seventy five is entitled 'Despite many complexities there usually isn't a need to explain how to sacrifice onself for others'.

Previous rule two seventy four: Evil blood and innocent tears both flow downward.

Next rule two seventy six:  The key to living longer is to procrastinate thinking about troubling issues.  

Summary page

-Short summary-

Now that Asahara is dead, all should be calm....but there is still much to be done.

-Long summary-

Jax has had his fair share of waking up in strange places in even stranger situations, but there has to be some sort of award for waking up with a dead Japanese crime lord slumped over in the seat adjacent to you. Especially when said crime lord has a sword impaled through his gut with his teenage daughter holding the other end.

Jax completes this thought as he stares up at Ruka who's expression is caught between shame, fear, and just a slight, slight, very slight edge of satisfaction. The other members of Ruka's team stir awake and see their boss holding the sword that had killed her father and react with appropriate amounts of surprise and shock. The slight satisfaction that had once been on Ruka's face disappears and she begins to sputter, trying to come up with an excuse. Instead it comes out as incoherent babble, accentuated by snot and tears dripping from her face. The hole in the ceiling had allowed them a clear view of the night sky, and now rain begins to fall in small pellets on Ruka and the others in the hall. It's the straw that breaks Ruka's soul, as the rain -to her feels like her mother's tears...tears of sadness that her daughter had chosen this path...the path she had tried to hard to keep her from. Her physical and mental strain finally taking their peak, Ruka faints.

Lukas stands seeing Ruka waver to and fro on the helicopter's hood, and begins to make his way over to Ruka when a blur darts past him and gets there first. Fainting, Ruka falls backwards and into the arms of the blur who after his eyes come back into focus, Lukas recognizes as Daiki Asahara. Daiki glances at Lukas and then deeply into the closed eyes of his younger sister, his eyes filled with a heavy sense of regret and despair.

Heike kicks some debris out of his way and takes Mo's hand leading her out of the pile of rubble they had been trapped under. After making sure she's okay, the sector seven operative glances around until he sees Carlo's hand waving from under a pile of broken ceiling debris. He goes over and pulls the mafia operative out, and asks if he's okay. Carlo nods amidst some coughing and asks what the hell just happened. Heike admits that he has no idea, but if he had to guess someone must have set a bomb off. Carlo gasps and asks who would be stupid enough to do something like that? Is there an outside faction out for blood?

Heike calms Carlo down and replies that he figures this was an inside job, and since he doubts Penbur is in the business of blowing up mafia operatives that it had to be the other party...the Asahara group. Mo chimes in that it makes sense from a power standpoint since Asahara would stand to gain a lot of favor if he killed several mafia members and the whole of Sector seven. Carlo rages for a moment, and then realizes that Luciano has made backstabbing a daily occurrence in the new mafia, so he really doesn't have much right to complain. He decides to instead count his blessings, and says as much to his two new friends. It had been nothing short of a miracle that they had survived with little injury. Heike agrees while Mo crosses her arms in thought, the fact that they had survived bothering her. Asahara has been in the business of killing long enough to know how to set up a bomb competently, so how could this hallway have gotten out relatively unscathed? Heike shrugs this off and proposes finding the others ASAP. Miracles have been known to happen more than once after all.

Daiki speaks to his little sister in Japanese, apparently assuring her things will be okay. She makes a sleepy sound and instinctively holds her older brother close. Daiki allows her a tired smile and begins to leave, when Lukas stands before him and asks where he's going. His headache is threatening to bring him to his knees, but he'll be damned if Daiki is just going to walk out with Ruka after everything they had been through. Daiki stops and is silent for a minute, as if he's thinking of just bolting for the exit without answering Lukas. The Sector seven operative can feel this intent coming from the oldest Asahara, but oddly enough any sort of violence seems to have melted out of him, as if the younger sister in his arms is a calming placebo.

He replies to Lukas to consider the fact that he's still alive now and not trying to harm his sister in his judgement of what he plans to do next. What Ruka needs now is family, and he will take care of her. Lukas frowns and considers stopping him with force, but Daiki's mellowed out demeanor makes it difficult for him to work up the appropriate mood. He instead resigns himself to asking why Ruka would be happier going with him when she was trying to get away from her Dad in the first place. Daiki begins to call Lukas the 'Dark prince' again, but resigns himself to referring to the Sector seven agent by name. He regales to Lukas how Asahara would allow his children to get close to one person in particular and under the false pretense of acting interested in their well being tell them all the 'truths' of the world. That no one could be trusted, that he is the supreme dictator of their lives. Then he would wash the 'corruption' from his kids by torturing, beating, starving....and after enough time there they'd be primed to kill. His was a girlfriend, and for one reason or another, he had accelerated Mizuki's so that by her 11th birthday she had already killed a classmate.

Lukas tries his best not to grimace and asks Daiki why he'd tell him this. He smiles, allowing nostalgia to overtake him. He had found Ruka after she ran away, but kept his distance. He knows his sister is like her mother, quiet but strong, but even she would have given in to their dad if she had stayed there. He reveals that this is the reason he had goaded Ruka into dealing with him herself. It was the best way to keep her from his influence. Daiki grimaces and glances down at Ruka. He almost tearfully admits his paralyzing fear of his father, so much was he afraid of Asahara that he had allowed Mizuki to become tainted, and Ruka was in danger of the same fate so if he could just keep her away she might be saved....but now even she had taken a life...

Lukas is unable to stay wary of Daiki any more and stands with his hands to his sides. Daiki admits his now late father deserved this end, but it would destroy Ruka. He and Mizuki made a job out of killing but she was for the most part a normal teenage girl. He then glares at Lukas, his bloodshot eyes scaring the operative more than he'd like to admit. He quietly tells Lukas that one never forgets that first kill. You fool yourself into thinking you'll never do it again, but eventually it happens again, then again...and then you finally understand that it's all you know how to do. He refuses to let Ruka suffer like that. He knows when she awakens she'll ask for the moon and the stars, and he'll give them to her. Eventually though she'll ask for who he can't be and he can't give to her. He narrows his eyes and glances at Lukas.

Lukas blushes brightly and kicks a pebble away. Why did he have to put it that way? Daiki then promises Lukas that he will contact him when Ruka asks for him. He bows his head in a vain effort to hide his emotions and begs Lukas to allow him to do something for Ruka this once.

Lukas doesn't move, and Daiki takes his inaction as permission. He begins to walk forward, until the rest of Ruka's crew stands before him. Tariq glances at each member who nods in turn, and then bows to Daiki. He asks permission to accompany him as far as they can. She is the person who had gathered all of them together, so this is the least they can do. The oldest Asahara regards them for a moment, and then nods curtly. The group follows Daiki, nodding at Lukas in acknowledgement and gratitude as they leave. Lukas does the same and soon the hall is quiet again, until a loud yawn shakes his consciousness.  He turns and Mugen is standing and stretching, his eyes glazed over in mock(?) boredom. Mugen admits that he wanted to see a fight between Daiki and Lukas, and turning to Meifa grins a slasher's smile, asking her if she agrees that good fight is where it's at. Lukas glares at Mugen and asks if he wants to go at it, but he turns down the invitation. He only came to make Penbur suffer, which was accomplished. Meifa finally makes her way to her feet and asks Mugen what the hell he wants here? She would really love to stick her foot up his ass, but her body hurts too bad. So before she decides to abandon her own self preservation, he had better start talking or start leaving. Mugen glares at her for a moment before smiling and donning his hood. He cryptically states that Sector seven will soon be begging him for a job, so there will be plenty of time to talk then. Lukas frowns and asks what that means, although he can already feel regret seizing him before the question is even formed. Mugen's cheery smile is enough to disarm both agents, and he asks the two to take care of themselves. They're going to be working together soon so they'll need to be in top shape. He winks and begins to trot away. Lukas commands him to wait, but Mugen simply bids them farewell in a playful tone before disappearing in the same direction that Daiki and the Vestige Experience had disappeared through.

Lukas and Meifa stare dumbfounded at each other and then the exit until Lukas's cellphone buzzes desipite being broken in several places. After admiring Apple's handy work, he looks at the text and then back at the helicopter, where Jax is holding up an honest to god golden pocket watch and jabbing his finger at it. Lukas starts to complain, but realizes he actually misses Jax hassling him so he nods with a grin and holds up one finger before turning to Penbur. When he has done this, all joviality has disappeared from his face. Lukas walks over to the scientist and looks down at him in more ways than one.

Penbur stares up at the Sector seven agent and then glances at his daughter who limps to his side. He leans to one side and jokingly says that he can't raise his hands up to be cuffed because he's in a world of pain. Though he actually doesn't mind going with them as long as that psycho Mugen doesn't follow. Lukas starts to read him his rights, when Meifa suddenly grabs his shoulder as support, limps over to where her dad is lying and then collapses in a sitting position in front of him. She then slowly and painfully changes to a bowing position, her head tilted down to the floor. Lukas asks what she's doing, and she replies by saying his name and asking for a favor.

Lukas almost falls over upon hearing his name from his co-worker, as she never calls him anything other than 'dipshit'. He tries to remain calm and asks what her request is, and she says slowly that she'd like him to let Penbur go. This time Lukas does stumble a bit before standing up straight and asking -no almost yelling at Meifa, asking what the hell is wrong with her? Asahara, Mugen and Penbur are the main reasons they had to go through this hell tonight.

Meifa doesn't respond immediately, the answer is still forming in her mind. She finally admits she understands what Karoline and her mother had meant about not getting another chance to have a dad. Lukas groans and asks if she could have picked a worse time to go soft on him? Despite who he is and how she feels, he can't let Penbur go. Meifa shoots him a glare but remains bowed. She goes on; if they were to lock him up, the feds would kill him after a fair trial, if the mob didn't get to him first. Besides, it's because he knocked up her mom that she's even here in the first place. Penbur and Lukas both sigh at her lack of delicacy, and Lukas states once again his staunch opposition to letting him go. Meifa says his name again, and Lukas fighting down an urge to request she never say it again asks what she wants. She reminds him how when his Dad was their opponent, he was unable to do anything, and that had gotten her shot. Lukas grits his teeth and mumbles an apology, it shouldn't have happened...but he's said that thousands of times. Meifa shrugs as she didn't bring it up to guilt trip him, she doesn't feel like he owes her. She begs him again to let him go, her soft voice being drowned out by the rain dripping on the debris. Even Penbur is surprised by his daughter's change of heart and reaches out to her only to land on his side. The rain is enough that Meifa's hair loses it's curliness and lies flat against her head and the floor. She breathes heavily and again begs Lukas not to send him to prison, she knows he'll die there, and she doesn't want him to die. She stares up at him, purple and golden eyes without any sort of malice or falsehood in them, and holding back tears asks Lukas not to take her daddy away.

Lukas roars and jabs a finger at Penbur. He asks Meifa how he could possibly let him go again after having him once?! He's let Ruka go, Mugen got away, and now Penbur? Seriously? And he's just supposed to go 'Oh that's cool?' He turns back to Jax in the helicopter who looks at Nolan. Nolan shakes his head and glances at Lukas, as if to say 'this is your decision'. Meifa coughs as tears form, as Lukas calms down and shuts his eyes. He opens them again and glares at Penbur his voice slow and even. He commands Penbur to disappear, from public eye once and for all. If he hears about him in the news, or even finds out that he's got a facebook he updates on a regular basis, he will have his ass. He might lose his job after this whole incident but he has connections, and assassins in his pocket. He will be the civilian from hell. He asks Penbur if he understands what this means. Penbur regards the teenage agent and nods. He promises to never appear before them again.

With a huff Lukas takes Meifa in his arms and guides her to the helicopter. The two are almost there when Meifa turns to her dad and forces a laugh. She reminds Penbur how she had promised to kick his ass, and as she does her voice breaks and she asks if he feels as shitty as he looks. Lukas gives the two as much privacy as he can by looking straight at the helicopter. Meifa doesn't try to stop the tears now, and gives her Dad the secret of getting back at her. If he were to live his life It'd really serve to piss her off.

Meifa then buries her head in Lukas's arm as the two continue to the helicopter. Penbur shivers in the rain as tears fall from his eyes too. He remembered how he thought those who gush over their kids are foolish morons, but now, upon experiencing time with his own daughter, despite the length and situation, he begins to understand that perhaps to them he was the foolish one.