"RETRIBUTION" (part 1)

It had cost Kusanagi and Benten more then a hundred grand each, up-front, to get
the work done.  They had gotten it back afterwards, of course, but still, it had
had to come from somewhere.  Benten had had no trouble with it; he'd just gone
straight to Mashiba.  Two weeks, and a lot of very busy nights with the old cunt
later, Benten had the money.  He had been tempted to just go ahead and leave,
get the job done immediately; but he and Kusanagi had been getting on a lot
better since the 'bathroom incident', and he felt that welshing on their deal
would have been unfair.  Especially since she had had to do a lot of freelance
killing in her own leisure time to make up the cash.  
      The news had come from Gogul that there was a guy downtown, who had once
worked for Nippontek, who could get the collars off.  Gogul himself didn't trust
him.  But Kusanagi and Benten had talked it over and had both decided it was
worth the risk.  Shortly after this, they had decided that, if it worked, they
would be going back into business together.  After all, neither had ever worked
better or more productively with anyone else.  And so Benten had promised to
wait until Kusanagi had the cash.    When the time came they both slipped away
from their doings and ended up in the flat belonging to Gogul's erstwhile
acquaintance.  Benten had gone first, after much arguing;  Kusanagi had forced
him to at gunpoint.  Normally, of course, Benten had no problem with guns; he
just sliced them into bits.  But this gun was different: it was being poked into
his back by a woman who still hadn't forgiven him for his previous treachery.
So, he had sat in the worryingly dentist-like chair.
       The procedure only worked with cyborgs.  Because it involved the removal
of the client's head.  Benten was most unnerved about the idea of having his
head cut off; he liked it very much, just where it was.  However there would be
no scar, so that was all right.  And the whole thing was absurdly simple anyway;
off-line, head off, collar off, head on, electricity, on-line.  Easy.  And so it
was.

~~~

By the time Hasegawa realised that Benten had done a runner, it was too late, of
course.  It was shortly afterwards that he discovered Kusanagi had done the
same.  He had already used the detonator on his lighter at least seven times;
there had been no sound or signal to indicate that the collars had blown.  He
couldn't understand it; there was no way ANYONE could have deactivated them.
Only he could have done it, and he hadn't!  Shit, the bastards had slipped right
out from under his nose!  Hasegawa was annoyed with Kusanagi.  For some reason,
he found it very hard to be angry with her.  He always had done.  It wasn't as
if he had any other feeling than loathing for her; she was scum.  But there was
something about her....  Yes, he was very irritated with the bitch.  But his
feelings for Benten were altogether different.  He had always hated that shitty
little queen, slinking around in his tight-fitting whites, with his fucking
gaijin nose in the air, talking down at Hasegawa.  Always.  Looking down on
people - snooty cunt!  Hasegawa swore that if he ever laid eyes on Merill
Yana-fucking-gawa again, he was going to tie him down in a bath full of manure
and flay his skin off with a stick of celery.
          The Kacho couldn't believe what was happening.  None of his Kido
pricks had ever escaped before.  Several, like Yamabana, had tried, and failed
miserably.  But there had been no indication that Benten or Kusanagi had snuffed
it, and it was....unpleasant...to think that anyone as violent as Kusanagi, or
as insane as Benten, was loose Out There.  If indeed they were Out There.
Hasegawa sincerely hoped they weren't.  But what he hoped even more was that
they weren't working together again, if they HAD escaped.  He remembered the
reign of terror the Yakuza had held in the city, with those two minge-scrubbers
at the top.  A repeat of that could be disastrous.  He sat back and lit up.  He
was too intent on his own worries to pay any attention to the security scans on
the back wall, and so he never noticed that they had stopped working.

~~~

The two companions had plotted their revenge carefully.  The replica collars
Kusanagi had thrown together were very effective; they looked real, felt real
and even responded to Hasegawa's radio frequency.  But there was a difference;
two differences.  The first was that they didn't lock.  The second, that they
contained not one single gram of trinitrocetaline.  Perfect toys.  Neither
Benten nor Kusanagi had raised a single eyebrow when they arrived at the station
(separately, of course) and made their separate ways to the armoury department.
Neither had aroused any suspicion when they logged into the BattleArmour
computer, two hours apart, and had thermoptic suits fitted.  And no-one knew
when Benten quietly, quickly erased the relevant memory bytes from the computer
five minutes later.  
          And when they disappeared, no-one knew.  Not even Hasegawa.  

~~~

There was a certain excitement involved in committing any crime after so long a
respite from your natural criminality.  Benten pondered this point as he raced,
unseen, down the corridor, followed by Kusanagi.  His vision was virtual green
light, the useful, see-all trademark of the thermoptic visor.  He had to
physically stop himself from laughing; he felt like a child.  He could have
skipped down the damn corridor, had he not been wearing such ludicrous heels.
But hell, it was a special occasion - he had a right to be dressed up, even if
it was only from the knees down.  Kusanagi had complained that the boots would
be noisy, why couldn't he just put up with the thermoptic spray-ons for a little
while?  But Benten had been adamant; besides, heels that wicked could prove
useful in the task ahead.
             Kusanagi was trying hard to hide her own excitement; the thrill of
the chase was back again, and it made her blood boil.  She was so high on
adrenaline, it would have killed her had she fallen back to Earth again.  And it
was nice to know she was going to be working with Benten again.  They had been
such a good team, and despite all the enmity, they could be once more.  The
enmity was the odd thing; now that she was free, Benten's disloyalty meant
nothing.  He had turned her in, but now she was out, so it didn't really matter.
She no longer felt the burning need to kill him.  Yet, she had to keep up the
pretence, didn't she?  Had to keep him believing that she despised him.  Because
if he didn't believe, there was no way SHE could.So the lie would go on
propagating itself - but they could still get on just fine, so long as there
were yen involved.    She cleared her head for the Chase; they were coming upon
Hasegawa's office.  
           "Won't Gogul and Sengoku be delighted, when they find out we've
nailed fuck-face for them,"  Benten almost giggled.  "D'you think we should go
and pay them a visit when we're done, just to say hi?"  Kusanagi smiled at him.
Of course, the smile didn't show in virtual-green, but he had a feeling she was
smiling.   It was almost time; Okyo was coming down the hall.
        "Why not," she said happily.  "We can do whatever the fuck we want.
We're FREE."
"Let's do the weasly cunt."
       "After you, Benten."
Okyo reached the office and the automatic doors slid open.  The two invisible
intruders followed her in, careful not to make any sound.  She arranged some
papers on his desk and he thanked her.  She left.  Benten blew an affectionate,
invisible kiss in her direction as she went out.  Kusanagi looked at him
quizzically - she had never noticed any Okyo-oriented feelings in him.
"She's such a lovely child," he explained softly, "And she's stuck in this
shitty job, yes-sir-no-sirring that old fuck all day.  I'll miss her."
        "You could set her up with a job in the Yakuza."
"Don't be stupid."
        "They want us back, you know, Yanagawa.  I got a hyper-mail this morning
- from Yoshitora, no less.  I don't know how he found me.  But they want us
back."
    "They know what they can do with themselves.  I've told them before. Bunch
of unscrupulous paedophiles."
"Hark who's talking! Oh don't give me that look!  I know, I know.  Now, shall we
get on with this, before we get old?"
     "Where shall we start?"  Benten asked with a grin.  The internal
'telepathy' of the Nippontek Special Order cyber-brain that is Chi-Theta-Omicron
Band radio is a useful thing; because of it, Hasegawa never heard them coming.
The first thing he saw was a disembodied beer-bottle floating through the air
with some sort of fuzz around the middle (where the light was being deflected
off the fingers of Kusanagi's thermoptic glove).  He rubbed his eyes and swiftly
lit a cigarette.  When he looked again, the beer bottle was gone.  He sighed
heavily... it was time he went home and got some rest.  Suddenly, from out of
nowhere, a gentle, familiar voice cooed from behind him, an unfamiliar word.
        "Juuuuuuuuuuuzo......."  Hasegawa whipped around in his swivel-chair.
No-one there.  He was imagining things; he knew who that phantom voice belonged
to.  Benten.  The sound came again, harsher, more snarl to it this time.
"Juzo."  Hasegawa shook his head violently; this HAD to be his mind playing
tricks on him.  Then another voice called out, sharp and cold and equally
familiar:
     "Hello, Hasegawa.  You look worried.  Was it something we said?"  The nervy
Kacho jerked his head from side to side.  There was no-one there!  He was
imagining all of this - Yanagawa and Kusanagi come back to haunt his brain.
The first voice was speaking again - a seductive purr, like honey dripping into
pools of crystal water deep, deep in some warm, dark place below the ground.
      "Oh, Dekacho.....I hope we're not interrupting," it said.  Hasegawa felt a
cool fingertip slithering down the back of his neck.  He shuddered and leapt out
of the chair.  
    "What's going on here?!?!?"  He was quite shaky, but it was hard to tell
whether it was with fear or fury.  He suddenly slapped himself, mentally; it was
SO obvious what was happening.  Thermoptics.... the bastards HAD escaped.  He
felt someone standing close to him, speaking in his ear from below. 
         "What will you do, Hasegawa?  Hmm?  How can you fight what you can't
see?"  Kusanagi stroked Hasegawa's cheek with the barrel of her favourite Colt
45.  "Don't bother calling for security.  All your external systems have just
been disabled."  She glanced over at Benten, who was ripping wires out of
Hasegawa's desk.  He nodded.  "How does it feel to be helpless, Dekacho?"
Kusanagi pressed the barrel into his face.  He couldn't see her, but he could
see the cold blue steel of the gun.  He didn't move.  He was only human, after
all, and he knew he couldn't win a fight with Kusanagi; she had completed her
Cyber Police training with a 99% average.  And she was a cybernetic
death-machine.  And she weighed over six hundred kilograms.
               Benten mooched around the office for a moment, and finally
settled in Hasegawa's chair.  He tapped delicately at the visor and the
thermoptics disengaged.  He pushed the big chunk of hardware back over his
forehead.  His fringe sprung out from beneath it and resettled itself over his
eyes.  Hasegawa stared at him, angrily.  Benten was lounging back in the big
chair with his long legs stretched out provocatively, resting on the desk,
crossed at the ankles.  He laughed a warm, bubbly laugh that set Hasegawa's
teeth on edge and said,
     "It must be nasty to be manipulated like this.  Still, it's all karma,
Hasegawa.  Do-As-You-Would-Be-Done-By.  And you have done.  And you are."
    "So let me guess,"  Hasegawa grunted, "You're going to slap me in a
restraint collar and make me run around like a headless chicken and then turn me
into one."
       "Oh no no no no no, Juzo!  For shame!  What do you take us for.... a
couple of amateurs?  Really!  I am quite insulted.  Never the less, I'm feeling
nice today, so I'll let you know just what we are going to do to you.  We're
just going to torture you a little, and then leave you to live with it the rest
of your miserable, pathetic little life."  Benten grinned broadly, showing a
wide expanse of bright teeth.  The grin was manic, unhinged.  Hasegawa squirmed.
He replied,
     "I can cope with torture."  Benten looked at him pityingly for a moment,
then in a manner so matter-of-fact that it frightened the captive chief of
police, the vacuum-packed bishonen shook his head. 
      "Not with ours," he whispered softly.  "We learned well from you, Juzo,
and people who have been seriously pissed off don't tend to forget things.  You
are going to go through horrible agony, so horrible it will bend your mind.  And
then you are going to live with it for a long, long time..... we have made sure
of that."    Benten was reaching into one of the desk-drawers, he pulled out a
big bottle of fake Scotch.  There wasn't much left.  He unscrewed the lid and
tipped the bottle up, pouring low-grade liquid fire down his throat.  Hasegawa
watched as he tongued the last drop from the neck of the bottle.  "Ugh," Benten
exclaimed, "No wonder you've got shit for brains, Hasegawa."
                   Kusanagi had locked the office doors before the game had
begun, and Hasegawa was trapped.  It had started.

~~~

It took hours for Okyo to realise that something was wrong.  When she finally
came to the office and found the doors locked, she initiated the override and
went in.  Benten rushed to the door, visible again.  Okyo was surprised to see
him there.  "Stay out here Okyo,"  Benten said, firmly.  
      "Why?  What's the matter?"
"I...uh....I have a....message for you, from Sengoku."
      "Oh?  But that's odd, I just saw him ten minutes ago!"
"Yes well, it sort of came to him after you left.  Come outside, and I'll tell
you."  He directed Okyo to the corridor outside.  She cast a glance over his
vacuum-packed body and blushed.  He leaned down and whispered conspiratorially
in her ear, "He wants you to meet him in the cantina for lunch.  I think he's
going to ask you out to dinner - you wouldn't want to miss THAT!"  She took the
bait - Benten was an excellent liar, of course.  As Okyo skipped off down the
corridor again, Benten called after her, 
     "Sayo-nara, Jonuchi-san!"  She turned and looked at him oddly, eyebrows
raised: what a strangely final thing to say!  Then she was gone.  Benten turned
back into the office, where a thermoptically-camouflaged Kusanagi was busying
herself with a trussed-up and gagged Hasegawa.  
             "How goes the work, Major?"
"Not bad - he's a real squirmer, though - and he's stronger than I ever
imagined, too.  I'll probably have some bruises!"  She sounded impressed.  It
never ceased to amaze Benten just how obsessed she was with personal violence.
If someone managed to cause her physical damage, it earned them her respect.
But then, you had to be pretty damn good even to cause her the least bit of
pain....  He wondered at the source of this, as he so often did; she was the
most enigmatic thing he had ever come across.  He sat back in Hasegawa's chair
and started to rifle through the drawers.  "Anything interesting in there?"
Kusanagi called.  Benten looked.
            "Nothing much.  Couple of disks, a few wank-objects.... tube of
KY....and a bag of ball-bearings."    Benten gave a little chuckle, "Well, I
suppose when you've got no balls of your own...."  He giggled.  Kusanagi sighed
- he was hyper again.    She turned her attention to Hasegawa, who was still
reeling from the last blow, and selected his right arm.  Carefully she targeted
the spot she was aiming for, bent her own arm, and slammed her sharp titanium
elbow into the gap between his humorus and the rest of his arm.  Hasegawa
shrieked through the gag, and she pulled him to his feet.  He looked at her with
contempt.  *He'll change his tune.  Another few hours, and there'll be nothing
there but terror.*
She pressed the nose of the Colt against his belly; she reminded him that a shot
to the stomach was the slowest way to die.  Hasegawa snorted through his bloody
nose, and it made him cough.
Benten said,  "Aim lower, Kusanagi - you'll do less damage, that way."  He was
still grinning as he went through drawer # 6.  Hasegawa spat a curse at Benten,
who lifted his head and pulled a pouty face.  "Don't be so rude, Juzo!  It's
silly of you.  You might just put me in a bad mood, and you know what happens
then...ha."  Hasegawa suddenly felt cold steel through his trousers,
frighteningly close to his cock.  *Go on,* he thought, *shoot the damn thing
off.  See if I care.*
                     The Perils Of Juzo Hasegawa lasted slightly more than
eighteen hours.  By the tenth hour, his ex-hounds had tied him by the wrists to
the ceiling with a length of adapter cable that Kusanagi had brought along.  He
hung for eight hours, naked apart from his military blue boxer-shorts, his arms
slowly dislocating themselves at the shoulders.  He refused to crack... he
wasn't going to let the bastards win.  Just after he had been hung from his
office ceiling, Benten had taken over Kusanagi's chores; a little flogging with
a steel lift-cable.  Fuck knew where the major had found it, but Benten could
imagine her tearing it out of some part of herself.  A ludicrous image, but it
amused him.  But then, flaying Hasegawa's skin off was amusing him.
                "Tell me, Juzo: did you have a happy childhood?"  Benten turned
from the hanging police chief for a moment, and took a sip from the wineglass
Kusanagi had filled earlier, having gone down to the off-licence for a bottle of
'something nice'.  Benten had practically had to write it down for her - she was
an absolute slob, sometimes.  She knew nothing whatsoever about wine.  Benten
licked his glossy lips and flexed the lift-cable dangerously.  Hasegawa rolled
his swollen eyes in the other man's direction and tried to spit at him, but his
mouth was as dry as brushwood.
"No, too slow Dekacho," Benten said, his voice bubbly and excited, and he pelted
Hasegawa across the back with the cable.  The kacho writhed and howled, yanking
his arms further out of their sockets.  Benten spoke again, but this time his
voice was a sharp, acid snarl, and it chilled Hasegawa's bones.  Kusanagi, who
was watching the show from the edge of the desk, shuddered.  "You're making too
much noise, Juzo,"  Benten growled, "And it's giving me...a ... headache!"
FWOOSH!  *Oh shit,* thought Hasegawa.  CRACK!  Hasegawa screamed again.  His
mind whirled; he wondered how much longer he could hold up.  He was in a bad
way, he could tell.  Both his cheekbones were shattered - he'd felt them go -
and he was certain most of his ribs had snapped in half.  One ankle was twisted
around and the bone was poking out through his skin, and his entire surface area
was a pulped mess of gashes and bruises and burns.  The burns had most
definitely been the worst;  One of Benten's ideas, not surprisingly.  The little
bastard was an expert when it came to causing pain.  He had used Hasegawa's own
lighter to inflict it; holding the flame under the kacho's toenails, burning
their edges crisp, and then flicking off the cinders; he had set fire to little
bits of Hasegawa's hair, laughing as the smell made his writhing victim retch.
Hasegawa's memory stopped churning as the cable hit him again, this time across
the back of the head.
            "Benten," Kusanagi spoke suddenly, and Hasegawa hoped against hope
that she would tell her companion to leave it alone.  No such luck.  "Isn't it
my turn yet?"
"You've had a go!"
         "Yeah, but you've been playing with it for hours!  It's my turn!  Look,
if you keep going like this, you'll kill it.  We want it to live!"  Benten
pouted again, a sickeningly lovely gesture so childish and out of place in the
terrible scene.  Hasegawa saw it, and wondered how he had ever found Benten
attractive.  The man was insane.  Benten whined exaggeratedly at Kusanagi, and
then dropped the cable heavily and flounced over to the chief's empty chair,
crossed his legs, and proceeded to finish off the wine.  
      "How many fingers am I holding up, Juzo?"  Kusanagi demanded.  Benten
chuckled, said,
   "Oh, not that old routine!  Can't you think of anything more 'us'?"
     "Oh come on, Benten! It always works.  He'll be a gibbering wreck by the
end of the day!"  Benten stared into his wineglass, dipped a long pale finger
into it, and ran it's tip around the lip of the glass. Then he grinned.
    "Oh, go on, then."
Gradually, the sounds of Kusanagi's fists striking their inanimate boss,
interspersed with her 'how many fingers' deal fell into a steady rhythm, and
Benten sat back, relaxed at last.  Another ten minutes, then they'd leave.  

~~~

*Why does no-one come?  Where the hell is Okyo?  Help me, someone!  Let me go,
please!  You've got your wish - you've broken me!  Now let me go....*  Hasegawa
raised his head, painfully.  His two acquaintances were nowhere to be seen.  He
was still tied to the ceiling, but he couldn't feel it; his arms had pulled out
of their sockets.  His eyes were sore, and he was finding it hard to breathe
through the clotted blood in his sinuses.  He realised with shame that he had
been crying.  He sincerely hoped that he had only started once those two were
gone.  If they had seen him cry....  He was too senseless even to notice that he
was now completely naked - Benten's last parting gift had been to strip the
Kacho of his undershorts.  Humiliation was an important part of torture, he had
told the Kacho calmly.  Hasegawa sucked in a deep, wheezing breath; air whistled
through the gaps in his teeth - most of them were gone.  There was a dull,
throbbing ache in his fingers: He had upset Benten at some time during his
ordeal, by way of some comment or other, and Benten had retaliated by peeling
off the man's fingernails, one by one.  Dragging past his lungs as much breath
as he could, Hasegawa howled.  Then he fell into unconsciousness.
              Okyo was standing in the corridor with Sengoku; they had been to
dinner after all, though Sengoku hadn't planned it.  They had both assumed that
Benten was playing cupid, and had gone out to a noodle bar.  Sengoku was reeling
drunk, and Okyo was giggling.  *He has so many cute little flaws....*  When the
Kacho's shriek came, Sengoku nearly jumped out of his skin.  Okyo ran to the
door and yelled, "Sir!  Sir!  Dekacho Hasegawa, are you all right?  SIR!?"  No
answer.  She pleaded with Sengoku to open the door.  He refused.  Whatever was
going on in there could go on going on, as far he could give a shit.  Okyo
begged him, her mouth pouted, lower lip quivering, eyes widening and brimming
with tears.  Sengoku groaned - he HATED it when she did that.  So, resignedly,
he curled his fingers around the edges of the auto-doors and pulled.  They
opened.  It was dark in the office.  Okyo ran in all a-fluster, and called to
the computer to turn the lights on.  
             When it did, she started to scream.  And scream.  And scream.
Hasegawa was hanging limply like some soggy scarecrow above his desk.  There
were gashes all over him, and blood had pooled and caked around several wounds.
His fingernails were gone - and he had been scalped.  Sengoku sped into the room
and tried to comfort the shrieking Okyo.  He dragged her out, still wailing and
weeping, and they went to get the medic.  As they left, Sengoku failed to notice
the small black rectangle, about 6 inches by 8 inches and a centimetre thick,
lying on Hasegawa's desk.  A few seconds passed, and the rectangle suddenly
sparkled green on it's upper surface.  From the sleek black panel emanated a
six-inch-high, pale-coloured holo-still.  It showed two people - a woman, and a
taller less specific figure, standing back-to-back and smiling wickedly and
looking at each other out of the corners of their eyes, holding matching
plasma-rifles.  Cute.  It was an old promo-pic of Benten and Kusanagi.  Back in
the Yakuza days they had had thousands of them made, as calling-cards.  Benten
had always kept one, for....no real reason. 
              
~~~

"Looks like a revenge job,"  Gogul rumbled as the paramedics plugged the
dilapidated Hasegawa into various machinery.  "I remember something in the press
a while ago about a Yakuza team who sometimes skinned or scalped their victims.
Has anyone seen Benten or Kusanagi?"
       "Not since this morning," replied Takeru N'ti, the Kido's youngest and
prettiest member.  He shouldn't have been there; he hadn't killed anyone.  He
continued, "Benten and I were supposed to be going to lunch.  He never turned
up."  The youngster said this with some sadness - or disappointment - in his
thin voice.   Gogul's facial expression was a cross between a furious scowl and
a big happy grin.
      "They did it!"  He exclaimed, "They actually did it!  I don't believe
it!!!"  Sengoku and Takeru looked at him.  Sengoku was too drunk to make the
connection.
   "Who did what, One-Eye?"
        "Baka!  Benten.  Kusanagi.  They must've gotten their collars off.  I
thought they might, though they were both stupid to try it.  But they got out!
The bastards!"  Gogul was laughing now, as the medics wheeled Dekacho Hasegawa
away.

~~~

Takeru N'ti was typing up a report in the squadroom.  He had an effete dislike
of dictating to machines - it made him feel uncomfortable, so he was doing it
all by hand.  But his typing was slow and clumsy, his long brown fingers unused
to so hard-working an employment.  On top of this, he kept jabbing the keys too
hard and chipping his nails.  Benten stood invisible in the doorway, watching
the boy cursing politely at the complex symbolic keyboard.  "Hello, stranger,"
he said quietly.  Takeru span around to see Benten disengaging the field and
leaning against the doorframe.  The kid's face lit up in an enormous grin.
     "Where have you BEEN?"  he cried, leaping out of his seat and running over
to the older man, flinging his smooth, dark arms around Benten's pale neck.
   "Around," Benten sighed casually, and then folded his arms around Takeru and
hugged him.
"Everyone's been looking for you.  Did you hear what happened to the Kacho?"
     "Uh....yes, I..."  Benten broke off.  Takeru was giving him the Look.
"What?  What are you looking at me like that for?"
  "Oh Benten, it wasn't - you didn't - no!"  The boy pulled away in horror.
Benten caught his arm and pulled him back, kissed him gently, and said,
       "Forget it.  It was necessary."
"But.... I don't get it, Merill.  How did you do it?  Why are you still in one
piece?"  Benten had been waiting for that: 'the opportune moment'.  The kid was
going to flip....
        "Um..that's what I wanted to talk to you about.  I won't be able to see
you for a while."
As predicted, Takeru looked up at Benten with eyefuls of hurt; it would be
guilt-trip time next. Benten was determined not to let the lovely little runt
spoil it, though.  "Let me explain.  I've got the collar off, and I need to get
back on my feet before I can start living again.  And living,"  he said,
squeezing Takeru a little tighter and looking fondly down on him, "Means you, my
boy."  Takeru seemed placated by this explanation.  Then all of a sudden he
exclaimed,
         "You've got the collar off?!?!?!  How?"
"An old.....acquaintance....of Gogul's."
       "And you didn't tell me! Oh, thankyou SO much, Merill bloody Yanagawa!"
*Oh great.  Here we go; he's going to have another tantrum.  Stupid.....*
    "Takeru, listen!  The man we went to was...well....less than trustworthy.  I
didn't want to risk your getting hurt."  *Let's hope he falls for it....
Bingo!*
          "Oh.  Well, I suppose....  Who's 'we', Merill?  Who else went with
you?"
"Major Kusanagi.  It was good sense to -"  Takeru disengaged himself violently
from Benten's neck and shouted,
       "Her again!  You're obsessed with that woman!  We can't have a bloody
conversation without her name cropping up!  I can't BELIEVE you sometimes!  You
BASTARD!  You're probably fucking her.  Are you?"  Benten's eyes widened.
*Stupid little - *  Then he began to look around nervously.  Anyone who heard
N'ti having a fit would automatically know Benten was around, and that was not
good.  He tried to calm the little shrieking bishonen.
     "'Keru, don't be ridiculous.  Enough of the histrionics, all right?  And
besides, you did ask."
"Oh just piss off, Merill.  You don't care about me at all, do you?  You're just
a selfish bastard like all the rest."  Takeru was sulking now, his voice
quieted.  Benten felt guilty, despite his own best efforts to feel to the
contrary.  Guilt was not a thing he was very good at, and he hoped to get rid of
said feeling as quickly as possible.
       "I am.... very sorry, 'Keru.  I am afraid I have to leave now, but I will
see you soon."
"Oh, all right then.  I suppose you're going off with HER."
      "We have always worked well together."
"Goodbye, Benten."
      "Sayo-nara."  Takeru suddenly sobbed and threw himself back into Benten's
arms.  *Always with the fucking melodramatics, Takeru, my sweet,* Benten's mind
hissed.  But he did care, really.  He cared about all of his 'companions', if
only a little.... and he held the slender youth for a while, until he deemed it
unsafe to stay any longer.

~~~

"Gogul?"  Kusanagi peered around the flat's open door.  She called again, a
little louder.  No answer, so she re-engaged the thermops and went into the
living room.  "GOGUL?!?"  She heard the toilet flushing, and the door opened.
Out came the hulking, orange-haired figure of Rikiya-san, straightening his
T-shirt and closing his book.  
     "Did somebody yell?"
"Yeah, me!  No baka, over here!  Ee!  Gabimaru!"  Kusanagi snapped off the field
and pushed up the visor. 
     "Well well well," Gogul said, his eye twinkling slyly, "What a surprise!  I
would have thought you'd be long gone by now.  That was a grizzly job you did on
Hasegawa.  Congrats."  He grinned.
    "I came... to say goodbye, Gogul.  And to thank you."
"Thank me for what?"
    "Well, for.... for always being such a nice guy.   I'll miss you."  Gogul
looked at her curiously.  Could it be that the Major was displaying signs of
feeling?   Nah, surely not.  He extended both arms and grinned again, even more
widely.  
"C'mere, kiddo."  Kusanagi went over and allowed herself to be hugged, her
super-human size lost in Gogul's gigantic embrace.  He scooped her up into a
ball and sat down on the sofa with her on his lap, and smiled at her.  Kusanagi
patted his face fondly, and said,
"Thanks again.  Maybe I'll see you around, when you get that thing off - I'm
afraid I had to kill your associate.  A hundred grand is a lot of cash.  Take
care of yourself!"  She leapt off, and was gone before he could say anything,
back into her thermoptic field, and back Out There. 
*Goodbye, kid.  Go carefully.  Stay safe.*  Gogul watched the door sadly for a
moment, then returned to his book.  *Benten probably gone too.  Hmph - not much
of a loss.  Still, he was better company than Shunsuke-Fuckwits-Sengoku.* 

~~~

The two months that followed were a nightmare for every cop and wealthy
businessperson and bank-manager and gangster in Oedo.  In the first two weeks of
their freedom, the re-formed team of Benten And Kusanagi took out and profited
heavily from the destruction of eight Yakuza Ice-Houses, four Tetsu-No-Tsume
Crack-Houses, seven brothels, the Oedo Central branch of the Imperial Bank Of
Japan, and Takahashi's Sushi-Shack on West Street.  The news-feeds screamed
bloody murder about the ineptitude of the law enforcers - they couldn't even
catch two of their own.   The government drafted in criminals, and then when
they escaped, they couldn't do a thing.  Even Section Four, the Imperial
Rangers, who spent the whole of the second week trying to find the escaped Kido
officers, turned up not one lead.  Kusanagi and Benten had hidden their tracks
well, and it seemed likely that those tracks would stay hidden.  Sengoku and
Gogul were dispatched to find and execute them; nothing.  No-one in Oedo knew
where the pair had gone, and they were all too terrified to talk anyway.
Sengoku, who had gotten hold of one of the duo's old Yakuza dogs, had actually
held a kitana to the man's throat and threatened to kill him if he didn't spill
the beans.  The man had replied,  "That's nothing compared to what Bonnie and
Clyde will do to me if I tell you anything."  So Sengoku had put a hole through
his neck.
        Gogul, and Tanaka from the Tank Division, had held an interrogation - or
rather torturing - session at the station, trying to worm some information out
of three Tetsu-No-Tsume members.  In the end the three were beaten to death; all
of them had said that they would rather die than face the ruthless Kusanagi and
her animal of a companion.  All the investigations led nowhere.  Hasegawa's
replacement, Jibe, was slated by the media for being useless.  The public of
Oedo, and in fact Japan, called for the reinstatement of the staunch and capable
Juzo Hasegawa - he'd Get The Job Done.  Nevermind the fact that two months
previously, the city had been calling for his resignation over his mis-handling
of the Puppetmaster affair.  Takeru N'ti was instructed to work with Gogul and
Sengoku on the finding of the two escapees; but his heart wasn't in it.  In
fact, none of their hearts were in it, not even those of most of the regular
police.  Most had slept with, and/or held affection for Benten; and almost all
would bend over backwards to help the unintentionally loveable Kusanagi.  And
less than five of them gave a shit whether their Dekacho lived or died. So, Oedo
waited for the State Hospital to send out some good news.

~~~

The man's breathing was shallow, aided by machinery.  How long had he been here?
A long time, he felt, but he wasn't sure.  He had been wishing for death, but he
felt stronger, now.     *Oh please goddess, wake me!*  He could feel the sharp
points of IVs and other devices pressing into his skin, and he was aware of a
heaviness above his eyes - a thick swaddling bandage.  There were similar things
wrapped around his hands.  He tried to remember what had caused this situation.
Slowly, it came back to him.  A mouth, red and glossy, grinning, laughing.  A
straight nose just saved from being too long.  Pale skin.  A pair of
almond-shaped, glowing red eyes, iridescent in their lack of melanin.
Ludicrously long eyelashes, thick with mascara.  A shaggy but perfectly kept mop
of brilliant white hair.  Yamagata?  No.  Yanagata.  No.  Yanagawa.  That was
it.  Meiji Yanagawa.  No, idiot!  Meri...Meri-something.  Meriru!  That was it.
Meriru Yanagawa.  BEN....................TEN.  Hasegawa's bandaged hands clasped
themselves into hard, bony fists.  *I am alive.*

~~~

"Hey, Major," Benten sighed, sitting down in the big armchair in their office,
and pouring out far too much Sake into a large crystal goblet.
"Unusual way to drink Sake," she said, glancing up from her gun-cleaning.  She
was mildly surprised - nay - shocked, to see that Benten wasn't wearing his
usual suit.  His fine body was today encased in a silver-white vinyl one-piece
covered in zips.  Not him AT ALL.  She turned her attention back to the
mini-canon on her lap.
"I'm feeling like that today," Benten replied, creaking as he replaced the
bottle on it's warming ring.  "I wonder how Hasegawa's doing?"
"I had Kiseki call the hospital today.  Apparently he's recovering quite quickly
- physically at least."
"Well, it wasn't his physique we were concentrating on."
"Exactly."
"Do you think the lasting damage will be as great as we hoped?"
"The hospital doesn't know.  He hasn't regained his coherence yet, and they
think it'll be quite a while before he'll be able to talk about it."  The two
super-villains snickered noisily for some moments.  Benten poured more Sake into
the glass and Kusanagi huffed onto her gun-barrel, and polished.  "Where did you
get that outfit, Benten?"
"Walter Ma."  She looked up momentarily at the mention of the name; Walter Ma
was the most expensive and exclusive designer in Japan, if not the world.
      "Wow!  How did you ever afford it?"  *and why did you bother?*
"I didn't.  It was a gift."
      "Who the hell from?"
"I told you.  Walter Ma."
     "You KNOW Walter Ma?"
"Very well.  He's quite fond of me."  Kusanagi sighed at Benten; most of Oedo
was 'quite fond' of him for some reason or other.
     "What did you do?"
"I went out with him for a while.  He's a very lonely man."  The Major sighed
yet again at her companion and lit a cigarette.  His rampant sexual appetite was
astounding.  Four times in the last two days she had had to contact him at his
new digs on some business matters, and all four times he had answered the
vidphone breathless and being pulled back into the fray by squirming human
bodies.  She laughed quietly to herself as she finished cleaning the gun.  It
was very.... endearing.  Benten was pacing about.  
     "What the fuck is the matter with you?"  
"Hmm?"  He seemed lost in his own thoughts again.  "Oh, nothing.  A little
bored, that's all."  He stopped pacing as he reached the office window, and
stood looking out onto the bright daylit city.  God, that was a stupid outfit.
*He looks like a Barbie in a straight-jacket,* Kusanagi thought.  It was a very
nice view, though, Benten trussed in skin-tight vinyl looking all sad and
deliberately moody.  
     "Well, if you're bored, let's go and trash something."
"How about we go to dinner instead?"
      "It's only half past three!"
"Late lunch, then.  No restaurant in Oedo would be stupid enough to be closed to
us."
     "Oh, all right - if it'll cheer you up.  I'm sick to death f you moping
around."  She was smiling at him but he felt as though she meant it.  He tugged
thoughtfully on the zip at his neck and looked at her out of the corner of one
straining eye.  A passing car or bus outside threw reflected light from it's
windows all the way up into their office.  The light caught Benten's eyes as it
flickered through the room, and they flashed an iridescent reddish pink, like
those of a night-hunter on the roadside when a car goes by.

~~~

"Err, affu ear ni?"  A voice.
"Err?  Ih eee, Oyo."  A voice he should have known, high-pitched but gentle,
full of soothing, mothering tones.
"Sir?  Can you hear me?  Can he hear me, nurse?"
"Oh yes, I should think so.  The drugs should be wearing off by now.  If you
need anything, push the bell, all right?"
"Thankyou.  Chief Hasegawa, it's me, Okyo.  Can you hear me in there?"  Hasegawa
twitched in recognition of the voice, and began moving his narcotics-numbed
mouth to make words.
       "Ohhh - ki - yo.  What are you.... doing here?"  Okyo laid a cool little
hand on his arm,  searching first to find a space between all the IVs plugged
there.   
"I've been here every day since they brought you in, sir.  I wanted to make sure
they were looking after you properly.  How do you feel?"
     "...Not sure.  It's very hard to talk, for some reason.  I can't get the
words right."
"Well, they...haven't replaced the lost teeth yet, I'm afraid.  Oh, but don't
worry!  They will, just as soon as you're well enough.  They've done a lot of
reconstructive surgery already, and it's rather worn you out, sir."  Okyo looked
with dreadful worry on her ailing boss, wondering who on Earth could have done
such a terrible thing to him.  Everyone at work was saying that Benten and
Kusanagi had done it, but Okyo was sure they were just being made scapegoats
because they had disappeared.  *Benten would NEVER have done anything like this!
He's much too sensitive.*
        "Sir..."  she went on, carefully, "...Can you... remember....anything?
About what happened, I mean?"  Hasegawa was silent for some time.  Okyo worried
even more, and wished she hadn't asked.
    "A little," he said at length.  "A lot.  It was....  Benten.  Benten and
bloody Kusanagi."  Okyo was shocked.  Then she reasoned that the poor dear was
probably just confused.
"Well I'm sure that's how you remember it, sir.  Oh gosh, is that the time
already?  Would you please excuse me?  I'm afraid I promised my mother..."
      "Yes miss Jonuchi.  Thankyou."  Hasegawa rolled his head in the direction
of her receding footsteps and winced when a bolt of pain shot up through his
neck and hammered at his scalp.  He could feel the bandage sticking to his head.
There was something wrong there; it shouldn't stick to his hair, should it?  No.
Then why - *Oh goddess.  No.....*

~~~

And time went by.

~~~

Benten leaned back in his chair and exhaled through his nostrils.  It was
nothing to be ashamed of, was it?  *I mean... it's not as if it makes me a
pervert.  Lots of people do it.  They make a lot of money doing it.  And I'm
good!  They tell me so.  But shit, if Kusanagi ever found out I'd never hear the
last of it.  Aa well.  Fuck it.  Why should I be bothered?  Time to go.*
Standing up and brushing himself off, Benten plucked the coat-hanger off the
door-handle, draped the long black plastic cover over his shoulder, and left.
As he got into his new car he wondered why the hell he did it.  *Probably just a
born showman,* he thought with a smile.  But the Other Voice jabbed at him,
*Show-off, more like.  And what do you think you're doing, wearing frocks, eh?
Twat.*  *Oh shut up.  I'm sick to death of you.  If you're not careful, I shall
go to a psychiatrist and have you ERASED.*  The Other Voice was silenced, and
Benten plugged into the road-net.  Well, at least it was dark.  No-one would see
where he was going.  But then, that really didn't matter, did it?  Everyone knew
Merill Yanagawa, and no-one would be surprised to see him going into a
night-club.  
     The Shinden was alive tonight.  It wasn't one of those review bars for the
old, rich, hierarchy of Oedo, where they played easy-listening classics and
served Strawberry Daiquiris.  It was a warm, dark, friendly place full of wild
youth and spangles.  Benten stepped through the imitation Edo-Period
screen-doors and into another world.  The world of Happy People.  Had he been in
his usual Bad Mood it would have made him sick, to see so many laughing, smiling
faces.  But the Shinden somehow managed to cool his temper each time.  He
slipped through the crowds of kids wriggling at each other barely in time to the
loud power-chords that were screaming through the PA system.  Not one of the
regulars recognised him.  It was amazing; just how many gaunt, hauntingly
beautiful albinos did they think there were around here?!?  But it was a relief;
Benten really didn't want news of his habit to get around.  And he most
certainly didn't all of Oedo knowing that he went slinking around in frocks at
night.  He carried tonight's expensive outfit through to the dressing room,
running in case any of the staff saw him. No-one knew who the hell he was; the
only persona they knew was Masamune Ito, the transvestite.  Who didn't even
exist.  Benten had to snicker to himself as he thought about this, leaning
against the dressing-room door and shutting it with his weight.  
          He glanced over at the mirror above the table and called for the
lights.  They came on, blazing around the mirror's edges.  Everything was there,
already set out for him.  Make-up, combs, hair-ornaments, jewellery, everything.
He sat down and started to pick through the box of hair-jewels.  There were some
lovely things in there, though they none of them held a single real precious
stone; diamante butterflies with little jingling antennae.  Lovely flickering
cubic zirconia on thin wires, like the women's costume accessories in Beijing
Operas.  It was time for Benten's least favourite bit: the transformation.

~~~

Hasegawa finished buttoning up his shirt and sighed.  The hair implants had
stopped hurting.  He was checking out of the clinic.  All he had to wait for now
was bloody Okyo, who had insisted on 'helping him' out of the place and back
home.  Hasegawa had argued; he just wanted to get back to work.  But Okyo
wouldn't hear of it.  Since he was on leave, she had said, he wasn't technically
her boss, so she didn't have to take his orders.  Therefore,  he was going to Go
Home And Get Some Rest.  Huh.  That was a fucking joke.  He wouldn't rest while
his Kido bastards thought he was on the edge.  He was going to go to work and
show them exactly the state he was in; he was FINE.  There would be no
suspicions of his not returning to the force.  Oh no.  And no more opportunities
for the shit-witted wank Jibe to make any more fuck-ups.  He grunted as he
caught a fingernail on a shirt button; those particular new implants were not
quite healed yet.  He turned as Okyo came in.  She picked up his jacket and
helped him into it, then patted down the shoulder-pads and span him around to
face her.
    "All ready to go, sir?"
"..........................Yes, miss Jonuchi.  All....ready."


~~~

Kusanagi sat on the ledge of the open office window.  The office itself was in
darkness, as was the sky.  She stared up at the stars, scanning them for signs.
It was stupid of course; she couldn't see anything in them but pretty little
lights.  She wondered how in the fuck Benten could interpret meaning in them.
But she wondered a lot about Benten.  Comet Hiyao burned brightly in amongst
those stars, blazing it's trail. As she watched it she felt some incredible
sadness; that comet only came once every three hundred years.  She would
probably be dead when it came around again.  She thought of it, burning through
the endless depths of space.  *Is it endless, though?  Benten says not....
Benten says a lot of things though, doesn't he?*  As she watched, one of the
brighter stars seemed to wink at her.  She imagined light reflecting off the
cold-sleep capsule that Yanagawa had ejected into space, with his
sanguine-thirsting love in it.  Kusanagi grinned and allowed herself a small
laugh.  "Konnichi-wa, Masuda Remi," she said quietly, as the chill night whipped
her hair about her face.  She inhaled deeply.  "Aa, the smell of Oedo.  Rank.
Lovely.  Huh.  My city."  She sighed.  *Time for a drink.  I'll go out.  I'll go
out to some nice little club, get completely off my face, and pick up something
nice.  Why not?*
Hopping off the window, she pulled her coat around her and went, carefully
locking the office up behind her.

~~~

Benten gazed narcissistically into the mirror, and Masamune Ito gazed back at
him, beautiful.  His hair was piled up on his head, hung with various tinkling
ornaments and festooned with pearls.  His face was carefully, painstakingly
shaded to make his razor-blade cheekbones hollow even more, the effect being an
even gaunter, thinner, more ghostly face.  The lipstick was red.  Always red.
And the eyelashes had been left alone, long white fringes.  Benten had changed
his make-up only slightly; dabs of pearly pink eyeshadow covered his eyelids.
He sat up straight and took his eyes off the mirror for a moment, straightening
the sleeves of his frock.  It was a long, body-hugging affair, brilliant white
and covered entirely in sequins.  He stood up.  The four inch heels underneath
it added to his already ample height and he had to crouch a little to see the
effect in the mirror.  When he finally managed to see, Benten was satisfied.  He
smiled and sighed contentedly.  *If I were a woman, I'd go out with me.*  He
laughed at his own attitude, and wondered if there was something odd about his
reasoning.  There was a knock on the door.
   "Yes?" he called, trying to raise his voice to a higher pitch.  Everyone knew
Merill Yanagawa, and everyone knew his voice, too, so that had to be disguised.
  "Ito-san?  Five minutes," the stage-hand called.  Benten looked at the clock:
11:30.  *Right.  Courage-chip engaged.  Ha.*  He always got stagefright just
before he went on; perhaps it was borne out of shame for his habit....
          He carefully hid his discarded, neatly folded suit in a cupboard to
the side of the room, and exited gracefully.  The little woman was still hanging
around outside; but she had a thing about blokes in dresses...particularly this
one.  "Oh!  Ito-san.  Good evening."
    "Miss Toyotomi."  Benten towered over her.  "How's the crowd tonight?"
"Mostly regulars I think.  But there're a few new faces.  You're getting to be a
bit of an institution around here."
  "I do hope not."  He said, and strode off to await his curtain call.  He
watched the screen beside him; he could see a lot of fairly familiar faces, and
he hoped none of them were acquaintances - of Merill Yanagawa, at least.  He
waited for the announcer to start drivelling.  *'Hi there, I'm Charlie Smiles
and this is club Don't Give A Shit!  Here's our next act, a sick psycho from the
West Side who likes to wear spangley frocks and sing cute love songs because he
says his life is shit!  Hooraaayyy!  Three cheers for this SAD FUCKER!'*
      "Good evening again, ladies and gentlemen!"  Benten could see Kanzaburo
Nishida in his ringmaster's outfit calling to the crowd. "It's that time of
evening again, our Grande Finale before the morning acts begin!  Ladies -
especially the ladies - and gentlemen, please welcome the lovely, the fabulous,
MASAMUNE ITO!"  Benten's stomach, bravado, every part of him churned.  This
happened every Friday night when he heard Nishida's vomitous speech.  Still.  It
was a hobby.  He waited for the lights to dim, and then sparkled onto the stage.
A few of the eagle-eyed punters spotted the spangles glittering in the dark and
began to cheer.  The small pale spot shone down on Benten's hobby-outfit and it
twinkled sweetly.  The floor threw cheers and flowers and promises and marriage
proposals.  Benten was almost sick.  The auto-band in the pit before him struck
up the first few keys of the ballad to come, and Benten took a deep breath. And
began to sing.  The females and younger males in the crowd had already jammed
their way to the front, and started to scream and squeak and leap up and down
and pass out as soon as Benten's voice struck out across the club.  For those
who hadn't heard him sing before, it was a troubling experience; the song was
any old soppy ballad.  But the singer was surely an angel.....   
          Kusanagi had just sat down with her drink when 'Masamune Ito' started
singing.  She was at the back and couldn't see the stage very clearly - just a
twinkling white pillar whose hair-ornaments occasionally flashed in the light.
At first she had thought the creature on-stage was just a very blonde woman with
a deep voice.  Further examination, however, showed a distinct absence of
mammaries... and melanin in the hair.  That hair was...white...  She picked up
her drink, and, enchanted by the voice, moved through the mesmerised crowd
towards the stage.  Kusanagi had been unsure at first, but she was no more than
a few metres away now, and she knew that nose.  No-one else in the living world
had a nose that long, that straight, and that perfect in proportion to his face.
It was Benten!  She wavered on her feet.  *Holy shit....Benten is
a....transvestite club singer?!?*  This amazement was soon overtaken by a new
one; he could sing.  He could really sing.  Tearing herself away from the sound
she moved through to the stage-door and slipped through it.  Dressing room.
Just one.  Quickly she ran to it, knocked out the out-dated manual lock, and
went inside.  A snappy inspection of the room revealed Benten's immaculate white
suit, folded methodically and hidden away in a cupboard.  His earrings were
there, too.  But that deadly little ring was apparently still on his finger.
That was bad; if he found her here....
           

~~~

The dressing room door opened, Benten came in, shut it, and then noticed the
destroyed lock.  He swore at his choice of footwear, but it couldn't hurt; he
was an expert at 'high-heeled combat'.
He readied himself for a fight, and waited.  Kusanagi realised she couldn't just
stay tucked under the dressing table all night, so she pushed the sliding chair
away as a gesture of surrender, and rolled out herself.  Benten froze.  Kusanagi
put up her hands.  "Now, just let me explain."  She waited for him to attack
her; he didn't.  He just stood like a block of ice in his spangles and diamante.
"Look, Benten, I realise this seems odd but...honestly...it wasn't deliberate.
I just came to the club and I...I saw you, I heard you singing....and..."  She
flapped her arms resignedly and stopped talking.  Benten didn't move.  "um...you
look....nice," Kusanagi offered.  It was true: he did.  Still he didn't shift.
"Whu - well, I'll be uh, going..... uh...right."  She shuddered nervously and
moved to the door.  As she reached it Benten flung out his arm and blocked off
her exit.  He stared down at her.  *Oh shit.* His eyes were ablaze.  
    "I am not...who you think I am."  He said softly, taking her by surprise.
She had been expecting a fight.
  "Oh, that's - that's nice, Benten.  Can I go now?"
      "Hmm.  No." He towered menacingly over her, and for the first time
Kusanagi felt fear. Her spine was tingling unpleasantly.  She was ashamed of
herself as she realised she was actually afraid of Benten.
   "Come...come on, Yanagawa...I won't say a word, you can trust...me..."
 "Really?  I think not, my dear.  But that wasn't the point I was making."
Kusanagi swallowed hard.  "N - no?"
"No.  My point is this: I am not who you think I am.  So when I have done what
I'm about to do, you won't hit me, because I'm not who you think I am.  Clear?"
He kissed her.  She slapped him. He sighed wearily. "Oh dear - no, you've missed
the point, haven't you?  You weren't supposed to do that."  He kissed her again.
She punched him in the face.  Benten stumbled back and fell into the wall.  "Ah
well," he said, almost laughing, "It was worth a try.  Excuse me, I'd like to
change now.  Believe it or not, dresses are actually rather chafing.  Oh - one
more thing: if this gets out, I'll take you to pieces."  Kusanagi stood staring
at him in disbelief.
   "You.....you...."
"I what?"
   "You little shit!"
"Why, thank you."

~~~

Hasegawa was already back at work.  He had refused to heed Okyo's insistences
that he go home, and when she had threatened to quit if he didn't, it hadn't
worked; he had told her to go ahead, if that was what she wanted.  She hadn't,
of course.  But he wasn't bothered, as long as she left him alone.  He was
plotting, and he didn't much fancy having little Okyo running about pestering
him.  He had enough problems just coping with the various pains in his body.
But the plotting made him feel very much better.  He was going to draw those
bastards out of hiding, wherever the hell they were, and he was going to bring
them right out into the open.  And woe betide them when he did.  He had been
thinking carefully about how to do it for some hours now, in the dark,
chain-smoking (against doctor's orders...his lungs had been full of blood and
had had to be scraped, so were in no state to cope with tobacco smoke),
brooding, and staring at the wall ahead of him.  He would find out just where
the Benten and Kusanagi were, if it took forever.  And he would winkle them out,
if need be with his bare hands...