[Rilian's intro]

Hello again.

As promised, I present TimeRunner's Yen Town 4.  He apologizes for the
delay and hopes this will appease the masses. Comments and criticism craved
for, please send them to the list or this address. Previous parts of this
fic can be found on TimeRunner's page, address in the sig. 

Without further ado, here it is. 

[TimeRunner's fic]

=====
	It was a memory, locked deep within her, as if it was so important that it
should be stored away someplace safe , someplace hidden�

	The makeshift wooden bridge. The stream, branching out, water spreading
out in rivulets onto the whole field.
	The field. Green. Yellow. Orange.
	The sky. Blue. Unending blue.
	The sun. Yellow. Bright. At the center. The center of the sky.
	The path. The path between the flowers.
	The flowers. Sunflowers. Himawari.
	Himawari.
	Himawari.


	Nabiki awoke, startled, bolting upright on the futon. 
Why? Why did I dream of this now? What was this memory?
	She stood, grasping the collar of the shirt she was wearing, drawing the
neck closed further than the buttons themselves did. Did she do it to stave
off the cold? Did she do it as an unconscious attempt to protect herself
from something she could not place?
	"Mitsuru?" she called out. "Mitsuru? Where are you?"
	"Here."
	She turned around the hallway corner to find Mitsuru at the window,
peeking out every so often, grasping the .38 caliber pistol in his right
hand, pressing the butt of the gun against the side of his head, closing
his eyes and sighing, every so often.
	"What� What's going on?" she asked, uncertain.
	"Get ready to leave," he replied. "Tetsuo is on his way here."


TimeRunner presents:

Y E N   T O W N 

A Limited Fanfic Series

All characters and trademarks used within are properties of their
respective owners and are being used without consent for non-profit purposes.

Theme: In The Night - Key The Metal Idol Opening
Sequence 2
			
	[Kintaro walks the city streets at night]

Wish I could believe
That you care for me that way
Mirror, mirror speak to me 
In the night
 
	[Kintaro passes a shop window with a poster of Sakura, who moves as tries
to reach him as he walks past without noticing]

Don't you think I know
This grief can't be cried away
In the tears I cry I see
Rainy day

	[Camera pans to Hasukawa under a lamp post in the rain]

Why can't I love you so sleep would come to me

	[Mitsuru in the middle of the street looking up at a building]

With the eyes closed the mind has a perfect view

	[Zoom up to Nabiki on top of building, arms outstretched, eyes closed]	


It's

	[Sakura]

Just

	[Hasukawa]

We

	[Shinobu]

Do

	[Tetsuo]

Lost in your arms I float away

	[Yen bill carried by the wind away from Nabiki]

Don't you know

	[Yen passes by Kintaro who chases it]

Once daylight comes I'm searching for you

	[Shinobu watches, shrugs, then walks away]
 


=====
Chapter Four

	 The cold of the gun pressing against his head kept him sane. Anchor.
Anchor. The sensation was his anchor. Nothing else made sense to him right
now. Not the danger, not the yen, nothing. All he was sure of was the gun.
	Who was that? Who had called? Who had the audacity to go against Shima
Tetsuo's will and warn them about his arrival? 
Mitsuru shivered. He would never dare. No one would. No one would paint a
bull's eye telling the world that they had gone against the will of the
almighty Shima Tetsuo. No one in their right mind.
	Mitsuru chuckled, nervously. That excludes me, he thought to himself.
	The gun. The gun would solve everything. If Tetsuo arrived, he would
shoot, without hesitation. He would kill Tetsuo on the spot. And if he
missed, if Tetsuo managed to enter, and if he got near Nabiki� He would
shoot her. He would spare her from a fate worse than death. Then he would
shoot himself. There was no other way. There was no other way.
	"Mitsuru? Mitsuru? Where are you?"
	He opened his mouth to reply, and the staleness told him he had not
spoken, had not even opened his mouth for the past ten hours. "Here," he
managed to answer.
	She entered, wearing his shirt, wearing nothing but his shirt, and again
he felt the urge to simply take her, to lose himself in her completely, to
forget everything, forget Tetsuo, forget the yen� He shut his eyes, pressed
the butt of the gun against his head, and took a deep, shuddering breath.
Cold. Anchor. Focus. Focus.
	"What� What's going on?" she asked, and the quavering in her voice made
him grit his teeth. Damn it. Damn it all to hell. If he could save her from
all of this, in only he could save her from her fear, he would do anything.
He would say anything.
	He tried to form a lie, a comforting lie in his mind, but when he spoke
the plain truth escaped his lips. "Get ready to leave. Tetsuo is on his way
here."


	"What is TAKING him so long?" Sakura said impatiently as she sat at the
back seat of the Red GSR.
	"He needed to make a call," Kazuya replied, looking at her in the rearview
mirror..
	"Call? Call whom?"
	"Someone who needs it," Kazuya said. He was being careful not to say more
than was necessary. This was Chukawa Sakura he was speaking to! THE Sakura!
He felt like he was speaking to a deity. He felt that to volunteer more
than he was asked to would be sacrilege. He wasn't worthy to waste her time
like that. 
	Kazuya shook his head unconsciously.
	"Um� What's your name?" Sakura asked, and Kazuya's heart skipped a beat.
	"It's� It's Hasukawa, ma'am. Hasukawa Kazuya," he managed to blurt out.
	"Well, Kazuya," Sakura said, "do you mind telling me what this is all about?"
	"Ah, well, it concerns Shima-san and his, uh, wants."
	"Me being one of them," Sakura said dryly.
	"One of them is right, Chukawa-san," Kazuya replied. "Another being a yen."
	"Call me Sakura. A yen? What would he want another one for?" Sakura asked.
	"Not another one, ma'am."
	"Sakura."
	Kazuya cleared his throat and took a deep breath. "Not another one,
Sakura-san."
	"Sakura."
	Kazuya looked at Sakura pleadingly. She gave him a look that told him she
was waiting. "Sa� Sakura," he finally stammered.
	"Much better," she said with a satisfied smile. "Now, what was this about
another yen?"
	"Not another yen� Sakura," he forced out, "the only yen. And it's with
Ikeda Mitsuru."
	"Never heard of him," Sakura said. "A friend of yours?"
	"Not mine, Sakura," he managed to say with less fuss. "One of Kintaro-san's."
	"One of Kin-chan's, huh? Is that who he's calling, Kazuya?" She wrinkled
her nose at something; Kazuya could not tell what.
	"Yes� What is it, Sakura?" He felt so� forward, calling her Sakura without
any sort of honorific� he would have called her Sakura-sama if he could.
	"Calling you Kazuya sounds so dry. Tell you what," she said, leaning
forward to face Kazuya, "I'll give you a nickname. Let's see� Hasukawa
Kazuya, Hasukawa�"
	"No! I mean, no, it's not really necessary," Kazuya said, turning and
suddenly finding himself face to face with her. His tongue turned into a
barnacle in his mouth, and it latched onto his palate. He managed to make
an intelligible sound which he hoped communicated to her his sheepish protest.
	It didn't. "I've got it!" she exclaimed. "Suka-chan! It sounds so cute!
And it fits you, I think."
	It was all 'Suka-chan' could do just to weakly nod back.


	Kintaro replaced the receiver. He leaned back, took a deep breath, shut
his eyes, and exhaled.
	"Finally," he said.
	He pulled out his notebook from his back pocket, opened it, and uncapped
the pen with his teeth. He quickly flipped through the pages to the first
blank page and began to write.
	"Never overestimate your opponent," he wrote as he left the phone booth.
	"Kin-chan!" he heard Sakura call out. "Where to?"
	He reached into his pocket and tossed the keys into the car. "Hasukawa!
You're driving!"
	"Gotcha," Kazuya said as he caught the keys and hopped over the clutch
into the driver's seat.
	Kintaro got into the passenger's seat. "Go straight ahead," he said,
shutting his eyes to think.
	"Kin-chan�" Sakura began, but Kintaro raised his hand. 
"Let me think," he said, and Sakura leaned back uneasily.
	He shut his eyes again, flipping back his red cap so that its lip was over
his ponytail. He rubbed his brow in concentration. He snapped his fingers,
opened his eyes, and began to scribble a map of a small area of the city.
	He drew one rectangle, taking up a large portion of the block, and labeled
it 'Tendo Dojo'.
	

	Mitsuru opened the door slowly, sticking out the barrel of his gun. He
peeked out.
	"No one," he said. "Are you dressed?"
	"Yes," Nabiki replied.
	She was, sort of. She was wearing a pair of denim shorts and a coat, which
was over his shirt. The pleasant prospect of wearing that shirt again
briefly crossed his mind, and he wondered how long her scent would linger
on it.
	He shook his head. Not now, Mitsuru. "Good. Let's go," he said, pulling
her out into the street.
	"Go where?" she said. It wasn't a pleading 'Go where', like those women in
the movies would ask their boyfriend-heroes, where the hero would reply
with a reassuring 'Someplace safe'. Nabiki would never give him that
luxury. The question was firm and demanding and Mitsuru felt his
determination give way.
	"I don't know! Anywhere!" he snapped.
	"Anywhere?" Nabiki repeated in a tone of voice that made Mitsuru feel
foolish.
	"Anywhere! Anywhere but here!" he shouted. "Now let's go!"
	"Go where?" Mitsuru heard someone say�
	�and he spun around, drawing back the hammer of his gun with the thumb of
the right hand while pushing Nabiki away with his left, to face a black
limousine parked partly into the alley next to the dojo, where, in the back
seat, a man in an unmistakable red bandanna grinned back behind a closing
window.


	Kintaro drew in a small rectangle in the alleyway he had drawn in and
labeled it 'Tetsuo'. He looked up and snapped his fingers.
	He turned to Kazuya and shouted, "Right! Turn right!"


	Mitsuru dove to the ground, firing three shots at the closed window, one
after the other. One after the other, the bullets harmlessly ricocheted off
the bulletproof glass, giving off sparks before each one bounced off,
uselessly.
	The other doors opened. Mitsuru fired at the passenger door, causing the
henchman behind it to take cover, even as the others exited the limo from
behind.
	"Nabiki!" he cried out. "Get out of here! I'll hold them off!" he said as
he reached into his coat for his other gun. He plugged one guy in the head
as he foolishly raised it above car roof level, and another through the
chest, even as several others exited.
He was prepared for it, he thought as he reloaded the gun, the 'Not without
you'. He'd fire a shot near her feet, scare her off, for her sake� Or maybe
he'd simply grin, hand her the gun, and reassure her that 'he'd be all
right' and that she 'shouldn't worry'.
	"You can't," she simply said, reaching into her own coat.


	"Where are we going? To that friend of yours?" Sakura asked as she held
onto the back of Kintaro's seat.
	"I hope we can make it in time, sempai!" Kazuya said, cutting the corner
so thinly the car ran over the curb.
	Kintaro continued sketching on his notebook, glancing every so often at
the speedometer, until he suddenly shut the notebook and slammed it on the
dashboard. "We won't," he said. "Not in time to stop Tetsuo from picking up
Nabiki and the yen."
	"So do we�" Kazuya started.
	"No," Kintaro said. "Keep driving at this speed."


	Mitsuru watched in horrified realization as Nabiki pulled the yen out of
her coat and held it out in front of her, at the thugs who had their guns
aimed at Mitsuru. "This is what you're looking for, right?" she said in a
loud voice. "If you want it, take me and don't harm Mitsuru."
	"Hold your fire," he heard Tetsuo say, and the henchmen lowered their
guns. "Let her come closer."
	Mitsuru stared at Nabiki, frozen, as she approached him and knelt down
beside him. She wrapped her arms around him, under his jacket, and kissed
him; Mitsuru wished, selfishly, that she'd tremble like he did.
	The kiss ended, and she drew away. She began to stand up. "Go," she said
quietly.
	Mitsuru shook his head, unable to say or do anything else for the moment.
	Nabiki placed her hands in her pockets as she stood, facing directly
ahead. "Go," she repeated, not turning to look at Mitsuru. "I won't tell
you again. There's no sense in both of us dying."
	"No! I won't let you!" Mitsuru said, aiming his gun at her back and
drawing back the hammer with a click.
	She began to walk forward. "You won't shoot me. You can't."
	As he watched her make her way toward the limo, he raised the gun and
aimed at her head. His eyes stung as sweat and rage and panic blurred his
sight. Her first, then myself. Her first, then myself.
	"Drop the gun, Mitsuru," he heard her say. "Drop the gun and run."
	"Yes, Mitsuru," Tetsuo said, rolling down his window, "drop the gun. Drop
it or I'll deny you the privilege of killing her yourself." Tetsuo pointed
his own gun, a Desert Eagle, at Nabiki. "That .38 of yours would make a
nice, neat little hole through her head, wouldn't it, Ikeda?" He chuckled.
"Mine isn't as neat, you see. Why, the last time I used it�" Tetsuo
mock-grimaced. "Got that moron's brains all over my�"
	"That's enough!" Mitsuru said, standing up and releasing the hammer. He
threw his gun down on the sidewalk, making a pathetic little click as it
hit, adding insult to injury. "But I swear, if you touch one hair on her
I'll-"
	"---You'll what?" Tetsuo said. "Glare at me?" He chuckled. "Pathetic."
	Several of Tetsuo's goons approached Nabiki as she continued to walk
forward. One of them stood in front of her, grinning, salivating, reaching
his hands out to grab her, fingers twitching in anticipation.
	She stared ahead.
	Mitsuru began to inch his hand toward his inner coat pocket, the one that
had the spare gun. If he touched even one hair on her�
	"Stop that," Tetsuo said.
Nabiki calmly stopped walking.
	Mitsuru stopped for a moment, then edged his hand over the lip of his pocket�
	"Not you," Tetsuo said. "You."
	He's on to me!? Mitsuru thought, jerking his hand out. Helplessly, he
watched at the thug placed his hands on Nabiki's shoulders.
	"I said STOP!" Tetsuo said, as he fired.


	Sakura gave a start as the gunshot rang through the neighborhood, even
above the muffled roar of the modified V8 engine. "What was that?" she
asked, sticking her head out the window to find the source of the noise.
	"A .44 caliber pistol," Kintaro said, writing it down. "Probably a Desert
Eagle."
	"Trademark gun," Kazuya said, turning the car right. "That's�"
	"Tetsuo," Kintaro said.


	Nabiki watched with deadened shock as the black-suited thug's head
shattered, as the bullet punctured the back of the neck, and exited with a
crunch through the nasal cartilage. To her own inward surprise she did not
flinch, not even as the bullet whizzed past above her. She found herself
thinking about apologizing to Mitsuru about the stained shirt when blood
splattered onto it and coat she was wearing and onto her bare arms and legs.
	Amusedly she watched as the rest of Tetsuo's lackey hastily scuttled back,
behind the limo, as Tetsuo held out his gun for long moments, before
pulling it back and stepping out to the car.
	"Anyone ELSE who wants to help himself on MY spoils?" Tetsuo called out as
he cast aspersing glances at the remaining thugs. "Good. I didn't think
so." Tetsuo looked at her, and for an instant Nabiki saw his face darken,
his brows furrow. Then it passed, as quickly as it appeared. "Ah, Nabiki. I
told you I'd make you change your mind about me."
	Nabiki smirked. "Absolutely. You're an even bigger asshole now than you
were five years ago."
	Tetsuo glowered at her, and Nabiki watched amusedly as he forced a smile
back on his face. "That just means I'll have to keep trying, now doesn't
it?" She watched as an expression of lechery began to form on his face as
he eyed her from head to toe, eyes lingering in some places, more here,
less there, but most of all at the bulge her hand made tucked into her coat
pocket. All the lechery in the world couldn't mask the greed in his eyes.
"Besides, you have something I want," he said.
	Behind Tetsuo, some of the henchmen kept their guns trained on Mitsuru.
"Boss," they called to Tetsuo, "do we plug him now?"
	"No," Tetsuo said with a wave of his hand, "let him go. I've got what I
want. Mitsuru," he said as he held the door open for Nabiki, "consider this
an act of friendship." Then he laughed, and the tone of his laughter made
Nabiki fight the urge to slap him across his stupid face. 
Instead, she smiled as coyly as she could and asked Tetsuo, "Where to?"
"Right this way," Tetsuo said, motioning to the open door.
	She stepped in the limo and he followed in after her. Tetsuo closed the
door, locked it, and sat across from her, a small table with an ashtray and
a half-empty bottle of beer between them. He lifted the bottle and took a
long pull, and when he was through he said, "Now, about that thing we were
talking about�"
The hand in her pocket grasped the thing she placed her hopes on to save
her - her and Mitsuru. She took comfort in it, and as they began to drive
off, held it tightly as she said, "Well, you're going to have to search me,
won't you?"


	Mitsuru scrambled through his pocket to pull out the spare gun, in a
desperate attempt to maybe hit the tires or a weak spot in the glass -
anything! Where is it? he thought frantically as the limo turned the
corner. He ran after it, then stopped as his hand finally caught something,
and he stared forward in amazement and shock.
	A red GSR pulled up next to him and the door opened. A young man in a red
cap and a ponytail - Kintaro? - got out and pushed the passenger seat
forward. 
	"Mitsuru!" he heard Kintaro say. "Thank God you're all right! Come with us!"
	"You knew he was all right all this time," the red-haired youth in the
driver's seat said flatly. "Damn, he was right," he added, this time to
himself. "Amazing."
	"You heard the man," the brunette in the back seat called out, "get in!"
	"Mitsuru!" Kintaro said, pushing him into the car. "We've got to get
Nabiki and the yen back!"
	"Just Nabiki," Mitsuru said softly.
	"What?" Kintaro said, giving him a puzzled look.
	"Just Nabiki," Mitsuru repeated. He took his hand out of his pocket and
held it out in front of them. "I have the yen."


To be continued�


=====
TimeRunner's Page:
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/7482

icq: 7153134 (Keiichi)
=====

"The story grew in the most convoluted way, as many people will be
surprised to learn. Writing episodically meant that when I finished one
episode I had no idea about what the next one would contain. When, in the
twists and turns of the plot, some event suddenly seemed to illuminate
things that had gone before, I was as surprised as anyone else."

--- Douglas Adams, "A Guide to the Guide"