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Mamoru hated it when missions went wrong. He especially hated it when he was called in half way through the mess, thereby missing important meetings for his day job. Honestly, he didn't know how Suuichi had scheduled everything. Not that Suuichi had taken as hands-on an approach to the job of being Persia as he did. It was something to be proud of: he was a more involved Persia than Suuichi, and a more diligent politician than Reiji, on the fast track for becoming the country's youngest prime minister. No matter which of them was his father, he'd have outdone them both by the time he was thirty.
Right now, however, standing on a cold street corner surrounded by people who thought reading the mission briefing was something other people did, he felt himself inexorably slipping back towards being Bombay.
"What do you mean, the information was stolen by a rival group of assassins?" he snapped. "There aren't any!"
"There were! And they took all the files!" Pantherette wailed. She held up a memory stick in supplication. "But one of them dropped this, so maybe there'll be evidence we can use . . ?" Her voice trailed off at Mamoru's expression.
"You should just kill this team yourself," Nagi stage-whispered behind them. "The bad guys would probably be too embarrassed to do it."
"Don't you threaten Pantherette, you weirdo," Angora said, trying to look like he wasn't scared stiff. Chartreux and Polydactyl both took careful steps back and away from him.
Mamoru turned to admire the look Nagi was currently giving Weiss as a whole and Angora in particular. If he could pull off that marrow-freezing effect himself, he'd be prime minister well before thirty. He held out his hand for the memory stick.
"Oh, hey, you found it! Thanks!" a young man said, sauntering up. He was dressed as badly as Yohji used to for very special dates, and had a rather unhealthy pallor. "That's mine, thanks."
Pantherette squeaked and dropped it on the ground. There was a brief tussle as she, Angora and the newcomer all bent down to try to get it at once.
"Hello again," the newcomer said cheerily, winking at Pantherette, who squeaked again.
Nagi levitated the memory stick up and handed it wordlessly to Mamoru.
"Gimme that," the young man said, bouncing up. Mamoru put it in his pocket. "C'mon, man, I've got an essay to hand in tomorrow, I really need it."
"And you are?" Mamoru said.
"Tamura Masakuzu," the young man and Pantherette chorused at the same time. "Oh, hey, you remembered!" Masakazu said, clearly pleased.
"He's one of the guys who stole the files," Angora said, glaring at him.
"No way! I was wearing a mask – I mean, I have no idea what you're talking about," Masakazu said as Weiss finally stopped looking confused and registered they had a lone enemy in their midst. He smiled in a guilty fashion and tried to run for it. Weiss charged down the street after him.
"You could still leave the country and take up a job in some thrusting, energetic, ethically dubious multi-national," Nagi said. "Or become an arms dealer."
"Don't tempt me," Mamoru muttered, watching Weiss triumphantly drag their prisoner back. "Tell me about your organization," he said wearily to Masakazu.
"I know nothing!" Masakazu said heroically, turning his best profile to the street light.
". . . fine," Mamoru said. "We can talk elsewhere. Load him up – and will you two please stop making eyes at each other?"
Pantherette stared at the ground, blushing, as Masakazu directed a smug grin at Angora, who attempted to break every rule Mamoru liked to think Kritiker had about the ethical treatment of prisoners by taking a swipe at Masakazu with his riding crop.
"There's a lot of job satisfaction in arms dealing," Nagi said as Angora started yelling about how he couldn't even get the time of day from some people on his team but let some random rival assassin turn up and some people just started making out with them, Masakazu started yelling about how if he was hit again he wouldn't be held responsible for ripping someone's throat out and Pantherette worsened matters by offering her opinion that it wasn't that she didn't think of Angora as a nice guy, but –
"Stop!" Mamoru yelled. He was pleasantly surprised when they did. "Were you fraternizing with one of my people?" he asked.
"I couldn't say. I'm a gentleman," Masakazu said airily.
Mamoru thought briefly how pleasant it would be, running away with Nagi to some place with an unpronounceable name and selling rocket launchers to both sides of a conflict. Nagi probably could set it up, he thought. He shook his head regretfully, and peered more closely at Pantherette.
"Is that a hickey?" he said. Honestly, this was what came of letting girls into Weiss. He was never taking a focus group's advice again. He pried her fingers away as she tried to hide it and blinked at the sight of two neat holes centered in the bruise. He turned slowly back to Masakazu, noting the pallor, sunken eyes and dress sense that came from another, forgotten era.
"Just tell me," he said. "Are you a vampire, or a humanities student?"
"I am enrolled in university," Masakazu said. He had the grace to look sheepish as Mamoru tried out one of Nagi's best glares. "But yes, I'm a vampire."
"I don't normally let boys suck my blood on the first date," Pantherette said anxiously. "I'm not that sort of girl."
"My virile magnetism overcomes all maidenly scruples," Masakazu said in tones of deep self-satisfaction.
Polydactyl held the furious Angora back while Chartreux took off the rhinestone crucifix he insisted on wearing on missions and dangled it in their captive's face.
"The power of Christ compels you!" he intoned.
Masakazu rolled his eyes. "Loser," he said.
"Do you work for Michitaka?" Mamoru said, feeling someone had to exert control over the situation.
"Who's Michitaka?" Masakazu said, confused.
"Tie him up," Mamoru said. "We can interrogate him later."
"You're not taking him anywhere! He may be an idiot, but we're not letting you kidnap him!" a new voice yelled.
"Thanks for the back-up, guys!" Masakazu yelled at the boys who'd run up. He thought about something. "Hey, who are you calling an idiot?"
Mamoru had had enough. He strode halfway over to the boys, who wore identical school uniforms and looked like they were up far past their bedtime. "Go home," he snapped. "Unless you want us to take you too."
"No," one of them said cheekily.
Mamoru had a vague impression of movement, then found himself borne over backwards by the boy, who now seemed to be sporting teeth longer and sharper than Mamoru was happy having close to his face. "Eep," he said. Suddenly the boy was snatched off him by an invisible force and flew head over heels to crash against a wall on the opposite corner. Mamoru clambered up, using Nagi's leg as a ladder.
"Ageha!" the other boy yelled, running to his downed friend.
"Ageha!" Masakazu echoed, breaking the handcuffs Angora had just put on him. All of Weiss jumped him, trying to beat him into unconsciousness.
"Let me just squash these baby vampires and we can go home," Nagi said, brushing Mamoru's hand off.
Several things happened at once.
The second boy snarled and rushed Mamoru and Nagi.
A large black car screeched up and skidded to a halt in the middle of things.
Nagi, looking rather more bored than usual, telekinetically flung the boy backwards, making him land hard on the windscreen of the car, where he lay for a moment before sliding off.
There was a moment's silence and then both of the car's front doors were flung open. Michitaka emerged, clutching his head in his hands.
"My insurance doesn't cover windscreen damage!" he shrieked.
Mamoru's attention was taken up more by Kiyoi, who carefully lifted the unconscious boy in his arms, putting him down on the pavement beside his friend, Ageha, who was now groggily sitting up.
"Kiyoi, my head hurts!" Ageha whined.
Kiyoi briefly and carefully stroked his hair, touched the unconscious boy's face gently, then stood and turned round. He looked both a lot less polite and a lot less human than the last time Mamoru had seen him.
"Michitaka, I told you I didn't want this sort of thing happening!" Mamoru said as he found a more competent-looking and clearly furious vampire advancing on him. He was grateful to be telekinetically pulled out of reach, but alarmed to see Kiyoi close a hand round Nagi's neck and throw him bodily to the side at high speed. Nagi interposed Polydactyl between him and a lamp post to cushion the blow and came running back.
"Oof," Polydactyl said, and fainted.
Mamoru scuttled off to the side as Kiyoi landed another blow on Nagi, and was then hurled through a window into a shop.
"This is interesting," Nagi said, and ran after him.
Michitaka stood silently by Mamoru's side, watching as bits of the shop collapsed and streams of cursing and disconcerting growls floated out over the sounds of demolition.
"He's not my boyfriend," he said at last.
"Huh. Nagi's not mine," Mamoru said absently.
Angora's scornful noise of disbelief cut off quickly, and Masakazu strolled over.
"Hey, my homework!" he said happily, swooping on the fallen and forgotten memory stick. "Who are you, anyway?" he added to Michitaka.
"He's Michitaka," Mamoru said, wondering if he could plausibly claim the damage to property was an earthquake.
"Who?" Masakazu said. He shrugged and walked off.
"He's a friend of Kiyoi's, idiot. Maybe you should go on fewer dates and more missions," Ageha said. "That guy said Kiyoi kissed him," he added jealously.
"I want to die," Michitaka muttered as everyone ambulatory stared at him curiously.
"Hey, your friend really gave me and Makoto headaches, you know," Ageha said.
"Sorry," Mamoru said, calming images of arms dealing floating behind his eyes once more. "You were trying to eat me at the time."
Ageha thought about it and shrugged. "Let's go home," he carolled to his friends. "That new game show is on TV!"
Mamoru turned round to see Weiss sloping off too, Polydactyl and Angora limping and looking very sorry for themselves. He sighed and sat on the bonnet of Michitaka's car. After a moment, Michitaka joined him, and they waited glumly for the sounds of combat to stop.
Mamoru had plenty of time to plan out several exciting alternate careers.