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writetomyheart2020-03-29 08:54 pm
kira-shadow.livejournal.com) wrote in writetomyheart2020-03-29 08:54 pm
[Team One] Years After
Yeah idk but I stumbled over BBJ stuff again and re-read some of my old fics and I thought I would revisit this pairing. Some of this was inspired by High&Low, which is kind of lik BBJ for adults XD really, if you think about it, it makes sense.
An adventure, a conquest, even a trophy. Danno had heard many guys around him describe their relationships with women. And he had found himself disagreeing with the majority of them. He let those guys ‘live and learn’, though, instead of meddling actively. Unless of course, the behaviour went overboard. Even though Danno was a man who very much spoke with his fist a lot of the time, he was strictly against violence that targeted the weak and vulnerable. He had banished a few guys from BEAST for domestic violence and other offenses.
Hiroshima’s teams had matured over time and so had their activities.
NIGHTS were still in the nightlife and entertainment business. There were a few clubs around the city that sported the NIGHTS banner now and a few other establishments such as karaoke bars and host and hostess clubs. They had also dipped into more ‘mature’ areas and made sure that there was no exploitation and blackmailing for those working there.
Gokurakucho had not quite dissolved but most members had gone their own separate ways in life after Tsukasa and Kumi had moved to Tokyo after Kumi’s graduation and her finding a job there but they still hung out together whenever possible.
Yoji had opened his own restaurant and apart from becoming a hit with the local people, it had also become the hangout for Gokurakucho’s members. The team’s flag was proudly displayed at the restaurant along with pictures and other memorabilia.
Eiji and Mika had moved in together after tying the knot and they were expecting a child in the not so distant future. They weren’t the only couple expecting, though. To people’s surprise, Erika and Hiro would also be parents soon. And Erika’s pregnancy had changed Hiro, which might have been the bigger surprise to everyone around them.
Hisa had actually found a job as a caregiver at an elderly home his father had moved into and he was pretty popular with the other staff members there, both male and female alike.
BEAST had spread out even more, thanks to what Danno and his inner circle had been doing and were still doing to this day. They had made it their goal to get people settled down and back into ‘normal lives’. Part of it had been inspired by what had happened to Yutaka. A large number of BEAST members had been youths who had given up on their future and with nowhere else to go, had joined teams, had joined BEAST. But now that the city was relatively peaceful, there was no need to have all these people around anymore.
And for the sake of the city’s future, Danno had made it his job to get people into jobs, into apprenticeships and sometimes, back into school.
The local authorities supported them, albeit unofficially, because the existence of the teams had kept criminal organisations out of the city. At least until now. Apparently someone was getting cocky, thinking that the teams had disappeared and things were ‘fair game’ now.
“What’s the status, Kazu?”
“I had Kenjo do some digging and it appears that it is indeed the work of a black organisation,” the slang term used by the other had the corner of Danno’s mouth twitch slightly. “The recent disappearances of young men and women seems to be their doing.”
Danno sighed. “For what purpose?”
“It’s like you suspected, Danno-san. They are to be ‘sold off’,” Kazu replied.
“I trust you have a date and time for a transport?” Danno looked at his right-hand man.
Kazu nodded. “We will be intercepting?”
“Yeah.” Danno answered simply.
“We would be picking a fight with them,” Kazu pointed out.
“They have picked a fight with our city first,” Danno replied.
A smile tugged up Kazu’s lips and he put down a few more papers onto the table in front of them. “I will check with Kaori-san whether these people all match the list of missing ones. Then here are the date and time for the transport and other information regarding it.”
Danno skimmed everything Kazu had just laid out in front of him. “That pet of yours sure is useful. I guess it paid off to keep him around?”
“I haven’t regretted it so far,” Kazu smirked. “He did surprise me this time, though.”
The two strategized and came up with a tentative plan. Danno said he wanted to think about things a bit more and of course consult with the person he trusted the most.
Kaori came home from her visit to Erika and found Danno deep in thought outside on the balcony of their apartment. She had caught a glimpse of some of the papers and pictures spread out on the dining room table, so she knew what this was about.
“Kazu brought in more information?” She joined Danno on the balcony, placing her hand onto his, which rested on the rail. “It’s like you thought, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Danno said simply. “We’re going to intercept the transport and will get the people out again. I’d like you to come with me.” Danno turned to look at Kaori.
Smiling, Kaori nodded. “I’ll be there. What’s the plan?”
A few days later, Danno and Kaori were getting ready for the raid on the transport when Kazu barged in. “Danno-san, Kaori-san. There’s some trouble.”
“What happened?” Kaori asked.
“NIGHTS are also planning to intercept the transport,” Kazu reported.
Kaori frowned. “Not surprisingly. It had a lot of their people on it. I was surprised they hadn’t gotten hold of any information. So...” She looked at Danno, asking a silent question.
“We go as planned. It’ll be fine,” Danno looked at Kazu. “We’re going ahead. Get ready.”
Kazu bowed and then went back outside. Once he was out of earshot, Danno turned to look at Kaori. “There’s no way NIGHTS will move without ‘him’. Kaori, I need you to keep that idiot out of trouble. We need to haul his ass back to his wife and child in one piece,” if Danno had been a more emotional person he would have sounded annoyed.
Kaori looked at him. “Hide?”
“A man who fights to protect something might be strong but he will also be rash. Needless to say in my way,” Danno sighed. “Please? I know I can trust you with this.”
Laughing softly, Kaori nodded. “Got it.” Then she mused, “You’re mean, Hide.”
“Nh?”
“You know he’ll be mortified when he gets rescued by a lady,” Kaori put her hands on her hips.
“You’re not just any lady,” Danno pointed out but then smirked. “But that might be part of it.”
“You know I like your sense of humor.” Kaori laughed again. And well, she was mayb the only person who ever really got to know Danno’s sense of humor.
Danno and Kaori shared a brief kiss before they went outside and joined the rest of the handpicked group of BEAST members. They were going by motorcycle, as they were faster and easier to maneuver as they would be up against a number of trucks.
Kaori and Danno led the pack, each of them on their own motorcycles.
It was a little nostalgic to Kaori. In her ‘delinquent’ days and when she had led her own team, she had also ridden a motorcycle. But she hadn’t ridden one during her time in BEAST, at least not for any ‘Team Business’. That is, until now. The sound of the engine got her blood boiling and she felt a little excited about what was about to happen.
She felt playful, too, so she mock-challenged Danno to a little race. So for a bit, they broke away from the rest of the ‘pack’, trusting Kazu to lead the group.
Kaori basked in the sense of freedom she felt when she raced down the dark highway. And even when Danno showed up next to her, she did not feel any less free. It was one of the things she loved about their relationship. They could be themselves when they were with each other. They respected each other’s decisions and opinions, although more often than not, they had the same opinion on things. Kaori was glad they did. It saved them from having to talk about many complicated matters, or worse, it saved them from fighting about those things.
Their earlier conversation had reminded her of one of those potentially explosive topics. Danno had asked her to protect Hiro for the sake of the other’s family. If Danno were like either of the two other tops of Hiroshima, he would have asked Kaori to stay behind (the one time Danno HAD asked her to stay behind had been because he had been worried about an attack on the ‘ladies’, so Kaori had gone to ‘hold the fort’ with her Gokurakucho and NIGHTS counterparts). But he hadn’t. He had done the opposite. Not because he didn’t care about Kaori. It was because he cared for Kaori a lot that he had made that decision.
Danno, unlike the other two, did not simply fight to protect his beloved. He fought for more than that and yet he didn’t. Of course he fought for Hiroshima and all that but deep inside, Kaori knew that Danno still fought for enjoyment. He sought a challenge and he sought pleasure and satisfaction from it. And Kaori was the same. They both lived their lives for themselves. And sometimes for each other. And because of that, they had made a decision together. They had chosen not to have children. Both of them were happy with just having each other. Always had, always would be.
Their little race ended and the rest of the group appeared behind them as well. They were nearing the rendezvous point. Danno signed his instructions and the others moved.
Kaori met Danno’s eyes through the visors of their helmets and they gave each other a nod before they, too, went to their respective positions.
Just as Danno had predicted, NIGHTS had gotten to the warehouse before they had and a fight was already in full swing. Unfortunately, the other team had planned poorly and the transport with the kidnapped boys and girls looked ready to leave. But Kaori knew she didn’t have to worry about that. The others would take care of that.
Her goal was the focal point of the fight.
A quick check told her that none of the top brass seemed to be around, meaning that these ‘foot soldiers’ would not be heavily armed. She spotted some knives as the most dangerous weapons in their ranks, most were armed with baseball bats or crossbars.
Moving in from the fringe, Kaori quickly got her hand on an iron baseball bat and ten mowed her way through the ranks, eventually arriving just in time to save the asses of two guys in white suits and one in a black one. “Need some help, boys?”
“Kaori-san?” Jun looked at her, eyes wide.
She slammed another guy with the baseball bat who was sneaking up on Hiro and then fixed the NIGHTS top with a stern look. “You should pay more attention to your surroundings, daddy.”
“I- what?”
Kenjiro looked grim. “I think she’s right, Hiro-san. You have a place to return to.”
Shouts and gunshots could be heard from somewhere outside, along with the sound of squeaking tyres and howling engines. “Well, if you would like to go where the action is, you should clean up in here quickly.” Kaori delivered another well aimed kick, sending a knife flying and then followed with another swing with the baseball bat, which hit home. “Hide usually doesn’t leave leftovers, though. So you might want to be fast.”
“Looks like we’ll be indebted to BEAST twice,” Jun commented.
“Don’t write us off yet, idiot!” Kenjiro bristled.
Ah, some things never changed, Kaori mused.
Outside, things were getting heated up quickly. Thanks to Kazu’s intel, BEAST had been able to plan for the more heavily armed guards accompanying the transport. They had successfully taken out the wheels of the entire transport - one truck and two cars - with a grid of iron spikes pulled by one of their motorcycles. With their modes of transport stopped, the goons had come out to fight. They had made short work of them, even without weapons of their own.
Having weapons didn’t help you if you were too slow or didn’t know how to use it properly.
None of the top brass or higher level executives were with this transport. It wasn’t lucrative or valuable enough. Plus, their network was underdeveloped in this part of the country.
Disarming the potential shooters happened faster and more efficiently than Danno would have thought but then again, they had received training in it prior to this whole operation. It meant that these goons were textbook gunmen, which meant, untrained.
Once that had been taken care of, Danno was in his element. The guy who looked like he was the leader of this merry band of gangsters stepped up. Contrary to his armed henchmen, he seemed to rely on his bare hands. So Danno went to confront him. And he wasn’t completely ‘disappointed’ either. While he hated the guys guts, he didn’t hate the strength that laid behind the other’s punches. A guy driven by his ambitions and greed was one thing but a guy who had worked to be where he was now was another.
It had been a while since he’d had a good brawl. So Danno found himself falling back onto a bit of a bad habit. Playing and baiting. He let the guy get a hit in to make him think he stood a chance. Only to crush all hopes with his next move.
His ‘reward’ for the good effort was a clean hit that knocked the other out. Danno didn’t drag things out. He knew he shouldn’t. The police would be here soon. And until then, he wanted to have cleaned things up and gotten people out of the ‘organization’s’ hands.
His team had also finished up around him by the looks of things. Harada was giving him a signal from the back of the truck, signaling that the rescue had also gone smoothly.
The sound of movement behind him alerted him and he turned around to face one of the henchmen, who had scrambled up again and gotten a hand on a gun. The guy was obviously panicking and desperate, aiming the guy at Danno. Unfazed, Danno walked towards him.
“I’m gonna blow out your brains! Stay away now!”
Danno kept walking.
A shot rang through the air and momentarily, all movement around him froze. Then, a trickle of blood ran down his cheek. The bullet had grazed him.
He didn’t move a muscle and merely stared down the guy in front of him. The guy was fumbling with the gun again, trying to deal with the recoil and also with the pressure Danno was putting on him. He was so fixated on Danno that he didn’t see Kazu approaching and then he went down once more, out cold.
“Danno-san?”
“It’s just a scratch. Let’s clean up here.” Danno barked and his men got moving.
When things were well underway, Danno looked over towards the entrance of the warehouse just in time to see Kaori walking out. He quite enjoyed the sight. A strong lady walking out from a battle victoriously, brimming with confidence and still with a lingering hint of adrenaline. Also the form fitting black outfit with the customary leopard print jacket really complimented her slender figure but that was secondary.
“I see you’re done out here.”
“So are you.”
Kaori then noticed the graze wound on his cheek and produced a tissue from her pocket to wipe the blood off gently. “Were you careless?”
“Maybe.”
“Were you playing around? “Kaori raised an eyebrow, almost accusingly.
“Maybe.”
“I’ll properly clean it at home,” she clicked her tongue. “Can we leave?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
They left the handover to the police to some of the others, Danno and Kaori preferred not to be in too much direct contact with the police. It didn’t sit quite right with them, with their past. And their team understood. So the two of them got back onto their motorcycles and made their way back downtown. They had just stepped back into their apartment when Kaori’s phone rang.
“It’s Erika.” Kaori looked at Danno and then put the call on speaker.
“Hello Erika, what can I do for you?” Kaori chirped which caused Danno to blink at her. She just shot him a look and he raised his hands in a ‘ok, no questions’ gesture.
“Thank you.” Was the simple reply that came from the other end. “And Danno. It was his idea, wasn’t it? You wouldn’t go out of your way just for my sorry excuse for a husband.”
“We just wanted your child to grow up with a father,” Kaori didn’t directly answer the question but she knew Erika already knew the answer anyway. “And we were going to do the raid anyway.”
“I’ll need to put the idiot on a leash until after I give birth or else,” Erika sighed dramatically.
Kaori grinned, “Send pictures! We’d like to see that.”
That got a laugh from the other end of the line. “I’ll see what I can do.” The call ended there and Kaori set her phone aside. When she did, she found herself in an embrace from behind.
She smiled to herself. “I take it you had fun tonight. Despite all.”
“It’s been a while,” Danno hummed and nuzzled the back of Kaori’s neck. “It was good to let loose. It wasn’t a challenge but it was...exercise.”
“You can say that,” Kaori stretched a bit. “Let’s take a bath and then...go to bed?” She smiled.
Danno hummed, affirmative.
There wasn’t any sleeping done in bed until later that night, though.
A few days later, Kaori and Danno were sitting at their dining room table and enjoying a simple breakfast when Kaori received a message on her phone. When she opened it, she couldn’t contain her laughter. She handed her phone to Danno to show him the picture she had received.
‘Theme Party at the NIGHTS Club’ read the message above it.
The picture itself showed the top three members of NIGHTS in their usual outfits but also sporting collars and dog ears. Hiro’s collar was attached to a leash and Erika, sitting on the plush red couch at the club, was holding onto it.
And if one looked closely, Hisa could be seen in the background. He appeared to be laughing so hard he was probably crying.
“She kept her word,” Danno mused.
Kaori smiled, “I had no doubts about it.”
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alchemicink
An adventure, a conquest, even a trophy. Danno had heard many guys around him describe their relationships with women. And he had found himself disagreeing with the majority of them. He let those guys ‘live and learn’, though, instead of meddling actively. Unless of course, the behaviour went overboard. Even though Danno was a man who very much spoke with his fist a lot of the time, he was strictly against violence that targeted the weak and vulnerable. He had banished a few guys from BEAST for domestic violence and other offenses.
Hiroshima’s teams had matured over time and so had their activities.
NIGHTS were still in the nightlife and entertainment business. There were a few clubs around the city that sported the NIGHTS banner now and a few other establishments such as karaoke bars and host and hostess clubs. They had also dipped into more ‘mature’ areas and made sure that there was no exploitation and blackmailing for those working there.
Gokurakucho had not quite dissolved but most members had gone their own separate ways in life after Tsukasa and Kumi had moved to Tokyo after Kumi’s graduation and her finding a job there but they still hung out together whenever possible.
Yoji had opened his own restaurant and apart from becoming a hit with the local people, it had also become the hangout for Gokurakucho’s members. The team’s flag was proudly displayed at the restaurant along with pictures and other memorabilia.
Eiji and Mika had moved in together after tying the knot and they were expecting a child in the not so distant future. They weren’t the only couple expecting, though. To people’s surprise, Erika and Hiro would also be parents soon. And Erika’s pregnancy had changed Hiro, which might have been the bigger surprise to everyone around them.
Hisa had actually found a job as a caregiver at an elderly home his father had moved into and he was pretty popular with the other staff members there, both male and female alike.
BEAST had spread out even more, thanks to what Danno and his inner circle had been doing and were still doing to this day. They had made it their goal to get people settled down and back into ‘normal lives’. Part of it had been inspired by what had happened to Yutaka. A large number of BEAST members had been youths who had given up on their future and with nowhere else to go, had joined teams, had joined BEAST. But now that the city was relatively peaceful, there was no need to have all these people around anymore.
And for the sake of the city’s future, Danno had made it his job to get people into jobs, into apprenticeships and sometimes, back into school.
The local authorities supported them, albeit unofficially, because the existence of the teams had kept criminal organisations out of the city. At least until now. Apparently someone was getting cocky, thinking that the teams had disappeared and things were ‘fair game’ now.
“What’s the status, Kazu?”
“I had Kenjo do some digging and it appears that it is indeed the work of a black organisation,” the slang term used by the other had the corner of Danno’s mouth twitch slightly. “The recent disappearances of young men and women seems to be their doing.”
Danno sighed. “For what purpose?”
“It’s like you suspected, Danno-san. They are to be ‘sold off’,” Kazu replied.
“I trust you have a date and time for a transport?” Danno looked at his right-hand man.
Kazu nodded. “We will be intercepting?”
“Yeah.” Danno answered simply.
“We would be picking a fight with them,” Kazu pointed out.
“They have picked a fight with our city first,” Danno replied.
A smile tugged up Kazu’s lips and he put down a few more papers onto the table in front of them. “I will check with Kaori-san whether these people all match the list of missing ones. Then here are the date and time for the transport and other information regarding it.”
Danno skimmed everything Kazu had just laid out in front of him. “That pet of yours sure is useful. I guess it paid off to keep him around?”
“I haven’t regretted it so far,” Kazu smirked. “He did surprise me this time, though.”
The two strategized and came up with a tentative plan. Danno said he wanted to think about things a bit more and of course consult with the person he trusted the most.
Kaori came home from her visit to Erika and found Danno deep in thought outside on the balcony of their apartment. She had caught a glimpse of some of the papers and pictures spread out on the dining room table, so she knew what this was about.
“Kazu brought in more information?” She joined Danno on the balcony, placing her hand onto his, which rested on the rail. “It’s like you thought, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Danno said simply. “We’re going to intercept the transport and will get the people out again. I’d like you to come with me.” Danno turned to look at Kaori.
Smiling, Kaori nodded. “I’ll be there. What’s the plan?”
A few days later, Danno and Kaori were getting ready for the raid on the transport when Kazu barged in. “Danno-san, Kaori-san. There’s some trouble.”
“What happened?” Kaori asked.
“NIGHTS are also planning to intercept the transport,” Kazu reported.
Kaori frowned. “Not surprisingly. It had a lot of their people on it. I was surprised they hadn’t gotten hold of any information. So...” She looked at Danno, asking a silent question.
“We go as planned. It’ll be fine,” Danno looked at Kazu. “We’re going ahead. Get ready.”
Kazu bowed and then went back outside. Once he was out of earshot, Danno turned to look at Kaori. “There’s no way NIGHTS will move without ‘him’. Kaori, I need you to keep that idiot out of trouble. We need to haul his ass back to his wife and child in one piece,” if Danno had been a more emotional person he would have sounded annoyed.
Kaori looked at him. “Hide?”
“A man who fights to protect something might be strong but he will also be rash. Needless to say in my way,” Danno sighed. “Please? I know I can trust you with this.”
Laughing softly, Kaori nodded. “Got it.” Then she mused, “You’re mean, Hide.”
“Nh?”
“You know he’ll be mortified when he gets rescued by a lady,” Kaori put her hands on her hips.
“You’re not just any lady,” Danno pointed out but then smirked. “But that might be part of it.”
“You know I like your sense of humor.” Kaori laughed again. And well, she was mayb the only person who ever really got to know Danno’s sense of humor.
Danno and Kaori shared a brief kiss before they went outside and joined the rest of the handpicked group of BEAST members. They were going by motorcycle, as they were faster and easier to maneuver as they would be up against a number of trucks.
Kaori and Danno led the pack, each of them on their own motorcycles.
It was a little nostalgic to Kaori. In her ‘delinquent’ days and when she had led her own team, she had also ridden a motorcycle. But she hadn’t ridden one during her time in BEAST, at least not for any ‘Team Business’. That is, until now. The sound of the engine got her blood boiling and she felt a little excited about what was about to happen.
She felt playful, too, so she mock-challenged Danno to a little race. So for a bit, they broke away from the rest of the ‘pack’, trusting Kazu to lead the group.
Kaori basked in the sense of freedom she felt when she raced down the dark highway. And even when Danno showed up next to her, she did not feel any less free. It was one of the things she loved about their relationship. They could be themselves when they were with each other. They respected each other’s decisions and opinions, although more often than not, they had the same opinion on things. Kaori was glad they did. It saved them from having to talk about many complicated matters, or worse, it saved them from fighting about those things.
Their earlier conversation had reminded her of one of those potentially explosive topics. Danno had asked her to protect Hiro for the sake of the other’s family. If Danno were like either of the two other tops of Hiroshima, he would have asked Kaori to stay behind (the one time Danno HAD asked her to stay behind had been because he had been worried about an attack on the ‘ladies’, so Kaori had gone to ‘hold the fort’ with her Gokurakucho and NIGHTS counterparts). But he hadn’t. He had done the opposite. Not because he didn’t care about Kaori. It was because he cared for Kaori a lot that he had made that decision.
Danno, unlike the other two, did not simply fight to protect his beloved. He fought for more than that and yet he didn’t. Of course he fought for Hiroshima and all that but deep inside, Kaori knew that Danno still fought for enjoyment. He sought a challenge and he sought pleasure and satisfaction from it. And Kaori was the same. They both lived their lives for themselves. And sometimes for each other. And because of that, they had made a decision together. They had chosen not to have children. Both of them were happy with just having each other. Always had, always would be.
Their little race ended and the rest of the group appeared behind them as well. They were nearing the rendezvous point. Danno signed his instructions and the others moved.
Kaori met Danno’s eyes through the visors of their helmets and they gave each other a nod before they, too, went to their respective positions.
Just as Danno had predicted, NIGHTS had gotten to the warehouse before they had and a fight was already in full swing. Unfortunately, the other team had planned poorly and the transport with the kidnapped boys and girls looked ready to leave. But Kaori knew she didn’t have to worry about that. The others would take care of that.
Her goal was the focal point of the fight.
A quick check told her that none of the top brass seemed to be around, meaning that these ‘foot soldiers’ would not be heavily armed. She spotted some knives as the most dangerous weapons in their ranks, most were armed with baseball bats or crossbars.
Moving in from the fringe, Kaori quickly got her hand on an iron baseball bat and ten mowed her way through the ranks, eventually arriving just in time to save the asses of two guys in white suits and one in a black one. “Need some help, boys?”
“Kaori-san?” Jun looked at her, eyes wide.
She slammed another guy with the baseball bat who was sneaking up on Hiro and then fixed the NIGHTS top with a stern look. “You should pay more attention to your surroundings, daddy.”
“I- what?”
Kenjiro looked grim. “I think she’s right, Hiro-san. You have a place to return to.”
Shouts and gunshots could be heard from somewhere outside, along with the sound of squeaking tyres and howling engines. “Well, if you would like to go where the action is, you should clean up in here quickly.” Kaori delivered another well aimed kick, sending a knife flying and then followed with another swing with the baseball bat, which hit home. “Hide usually doesn’t leave leftovers, though. So you might want to be fast.”
“Looks like we’ll be indebted to BEAST twice,” Jun commented.
“Don’t write us off yet, idiot!” Kenjiro bristled.
Ah, some things never changed, Kaori mused.
Outside, things were getting heated up quickly. Thanks to Kazu’s intel, BEAST had been able to plan for the more heavily armed guards accompanying the transport. They had successfully taken out the wheels of the entire transport - one truck and two cars - with a grid of iron spikes pulled by one of their motorcycles. With their modes of transport stopped, the goons had come out to fight. They had made short work of them, even without weapons of their own.
Having weapons didn’t help you if you were too slow or didn’t know how to use it properly.
None of the top brass or higher level executives were with this transport. It wasn’t lucrative or valuable enough. Plus, their network was underdeveloped in this part of the country.
Disarming the potential shooters happened faster and more efficiently than Danno would have thought but then again, they had received training in it prior to this whole operation. It meant that these goons were textbook gunmen, which meant, untrained.
Once that had been taken care of, Danno was in his element. The guy who looked like he was the leader of this merry band of gangsters stepped up. Contrary to his armed henchmen, he seemed to rely on his bare hands. So Danno went to confront him. And he wasn’t completely ‘disappointed’ either. While he hated the guys guts, he didn’t hate the strength that laid behind the other’s punches. A guy driven by his ambitions and greed was one thing but a guy who had worked to be where he was now was another.
It had been a while since he’d had a good brawl. So Danno found himself falling back onto a bit of a bad habit. Playing and baiting. He let the guy get a hit in to make him think he stood a chance. Only to crush all hopes with his next move.
His ‘reward’ for the good effort was a clean hit that knocked the other out. Danno didn’t drag things out. He knew he shouldn’t. The police would be here soon. And until then, he wanted to have cleaned things up and gotten people out of the ‘organization’s’ hands.
His team had also finished up around him by the looks of things. Harada was giving him a signal from the back of the truck, signaling that the rescue had also gone smoothly.
The sound of movement behind him alerted him and he turned around to face one of the henchmen, who had scrambled up again and gotten a hand on a gun. The guy was obviously panicking and desperate, aiming the guy at Danno. Unfazed, Danno walked towards him.
“I’m gonna blow out your brains! Stay away now!”
Danno kept walking.
A shot rang through the air and momentarily, all movement around him froze. Then, a trickle of blood ran down his cheek. The bullet had grazed him.
He didn’t move a muscle and merely stared down the guy in front of him. The guy was fumbling with the gun again, trying to deal with the recoil and also with the pressure Danno was putting on him. He was so fixated on Danno that he didn’t see Kazu approaching and then he went down once more, out cold.
“Danno-san?”
“It’s just a scratch. Let’s clean up here.” Danno barked and his men got moving.
When things were well underway, Danno looked over towards the entrance of the warehouse just in time to see Kaori walking out. He quite enjoyed the sight. A strong lady walking out from a battle victoriously, brimming with confidence and still with a lingering hint of adrenaline. Also the form fitting black outfit with the customary leopard print jacket really complimented her slender figure but that was secondary.
“I see you’re done out here.”
“So are you.”
Kaori then noticed the graze wound on his cheek and produced a tissue from her pocket to wipe the blood off gently. “Were you careless?”
“Maybe.”
“Were you playing around? “Kaori raised an eyebrow, almost accusingly.
“Maybe.”
“I’ll properly clean it at home,” she clicked her tongue. “Can we leave?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
They left the handover to the police to some of the others, Danno and Kaori preferred not to be in too much direct contact with the police. It didn’t sit quite right with them, with their past. And their team understood. So the two of them got back onto their motorcycles and made their way back downtown. They had just stepped back into their apartment when Kaori’s phone rang.
“It’s Erika.” Kaori looked at Danno and then put the call on speaker.
“Hello Erika, what can I do for you?” Kaori chirped which caused Danno to blink at her. She just shot him a look and he raised his hands in a ‘ok, no questions’ gesture.
“Thank you.” Was the simple reply that came from the other end. “And Danno. It was his idea, wasn’t it? You wouldn’t go out of your way just for my sorry excuse for a husband.”
“We just wanted your child to grow up with a father,” Kaori didn’t directly answer the question but she knew Erika already knew the answer anyway. “And we were going to do the raid anyway.”
“I’ll need to put the idiot on a leash until after I give birth or else,” Erika sighed dramatically.
Kaori grinned, “Send pictures! We’d like to see that.”
That got a laugh from the other end of the line. “I’ll see what I can do.” The call ended there and Kaori set her phone aside. When she did, she found herself in an embrace from behind.
She smiled to herself. “I take it you had fun tonight. Despite all.”
“It’s been a while,” Danno hummed and nuzzled the back of Kaori’s neck. “It was good to let loose. It wasn’t a challenge but it was...exercise.”
“You can say that,” Kaori stretched a bit. “Let’s take a bath and then...go to bed?” She smiled.
Danno hummed, affirmative.
There wasn’t any sleeping done in bed until later that night, though.
A few days later, Kaori and Danno were sitting at their dining room table and enjoying a simple breakfast when Kaori received a message on her phone. When she opened it, she couldn’t contain her laughter. She handed her phone to Danno to show him the picture she had received.
‘Theme Party at the NIGHTS Club’ read the message above it.
The picture itself showed the top three members of NIGHTS in their usual outfits but also sporting collars and dog ears. Hiro’s collar was attached to a leash and Erika, sitting on the plush red couch at the club, was holding onto it.
And if one looked closely, Hisa could be seen in the background. He appeared to be laughing so hard he was probably crying.
“She kept her word,” Danno mused.
Kaori smiled, “I had no doubts about it.”
You're up
alchemicink
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Kaori's so damn badass and perfect, and I love how she and Danno just have this great respect for each other. And Hiro on a leash, PFFT. GOOD JOB, ERIKA.
They're good people. I can definitely see this being the way the story progressed into the future for each of them.
♥