[zapdragon555]

The soft hum of some motor, perhaps an air conditioner, was a constant as their footsteps echoed softly against white walls. Jigen's hidden eyes darted every which way, his posture relatively slack for at least the feigned appearance of calm. The room was enormous, and seemed to stretch much further than what would make sense to be built into the wall of a cavern. As the immediate threat of physical danger seemed to ebb with each passing moment, Jigen lowered the arm that held his gun, clicking the safety on and letting it hang slightly at his side. He slowed for a moment as his eyes caught a desk covered in messily spread papers, noting the almost... frantic look of the writing on them. Handwritten, dark, scribbled over and over.

Jigen felt something creep at the edge of his vision, and he exhaled sharply, tossing his head over his shoulder and staring at the nothing behind him. Goemon appeared a few moments later, his hair looking a bit damp from the decontamination spray. Jigen managed a weary smile, waving for the samurai to catch up. His smile faltered as that humming noise wormed its way into his ear in a particularly unpleasant way, and he grimaced, sticking a finger in his ear in attempts to plug the sound out.

Lupin had gone on ahead. He, too, was feeling it—a strange, almost lightheaded feeling, while his body grew heavier. He began to slow as the feeling grew more and more noticeable, less easily explained-away with exhaustion or some newfound allergy to antiseptic. He scratched nails at the back of his head, weaving through short hair as he grit his teeth and furrowed his brow. Something about this place... about that sound...

Lupin drew in a sharp inhale, and seconds later, the sound of a gunshot rang out deafeningly in the small room. It ricocheted off the floor, embedding in a light overhead and blasting it to pieces, showering a piece of the room in sparks and darkness. Lupin whirled around to see Jigen and Goemon grappled together, with the latter's hand forming a deathgrip around Jigen's wrist, his pistol hanging from his fingers. "Lupin!" Goemon shouted, as the thief ran towards the two.

"What's going on," Lupin hissed, stopping short before he could decide which of the two to help. Jigen was yelling, near snarling, as Goemon tried to keep hold on him. "What happened?!"

"He doubled over. Fired a shot, and leapt for me."

"Did you hurt him?!" Lupin knew Goemon didn't—by some inherent trust, and too, that Zantetsuken was sheathed) but asked all the same in his brief moment of panic. He went for Jigen's vice-lock fingers, carefully peeling them away from metal as he eased the gun from Jigen's hand and set it on a nearby counter.

"Of course not," Goemon muttered, gritting his teeth with effort. Jigen was stronger than he looked.

Lupin dove down and gathered up Jigen's legs, trying to ignore that buzzing in his head that only seemed to be getting louder and louder. He pressed his weight into them to pin them to the ground, and reached past the tangle of Goemon and Jigen's limbs to grip the gunman's face in his hands. "Jigen," he breathed, more genuine worry than any real attempt—as Jigen thrashed in Goemon's hold and tried to bite down on Lupin's hand, Lupin jolted and reeled a hand back, clapping it hard against Jigen's face. "Fucking hell, Jigen!" Lupin cried, the high break in his voice betraying his shock.

The strike seemed to only make things worse. Jigen suddenly surged with adrenaline, wrenching his hand out of Goemon's grip to rake his nails down the inside of Goemon's arm, drawing red lines with them. Goemon snarled and let go, only to have Jigen lunge forward and grab Lupin, flipping the both of them onto the ground in a flurry of blows and spitting, wordless curses. Goemon stumbled back, a hand at his sword, eyes darting rapidly as he tried to see an opening, or a need, for him to unsheathe it.

[zapdragon555]

Lupin got a fistful of hair, knocking Jigen's hat off in the process as he tried to keep the other man's teeth away from him. Among his bewildered fight-or-flight, he could barely register the darkness creeping in on the edges of his vision, the ringing in his ears almost deafening, drowning out Jigen's pained snarls. From here, he could still see the flash of Jigen's eyes, something he rarely bore witness to, could see his pupils round and black and almost inhumanly large. A terror tore through him, as his grip in Jigen's hair grew iron-tight, the rest of him freezing as fear bloomed within him and overtook him from the inside.

"You'll disappear. You'll have to, of course. People like us simply can't exist in the light of day." The air around the intricate L-shaped brand shimmered with heat, as it swung around, deft in his grandfather's gnarled hands. "You'll have plenty of doppelgängers. Copycats, fakes. You'll barely even recognize yourself, after a time. So I'm giving you a gift. The highest honor that the Lupin family can receive."

Molten metal burned into his skin. Arsène Lupin III is sixteen years old, and he's never experienced such pain in his life. He can hear the hiss of metal on flesh, deafening in his ears, as he fights the scream in his throat.

"Now no matter what state your body is found in, when it all comes to an end... you won't be forgotten. My name won't fade into obscurity. You are an extension, you understand? A continuation. A comma. Be still, now. I don't want to do this to you more than once."

He hadn't been still. The L came out imperfect, its finer filigree details smudged by his shaking...

When Lupin came to, it was under the sharp tang of that antiseptic smell. He breathed in sharply, his fist unclenching where it lay frozen on his chest, nails tipped in red where they'd bitten into the palm of his hand. Fujiko looked up from where she leaned against the wall, a flicker of genuine relief in her eyes as she moved to kneel beside him. "Lupin," she breathed, drawing fingers against his forehead, dampened with cold sweat. He grunted softly, pain in his jaw, the back of his head. He tenderly reached up to touch his own cheek, feeling the telltale sting of a bruise.

They were inside of the decontamination chamber. Lupin tried to smile up at Fujiko on the way to lolling his head to the side, staring at Jigen where the gunman lay. His knuckles were bloodied, bruised, and Lupin imagined they'd made impact with his face once or twice while he'd been unconscious. Jigen sported a few wounds of his own, an ugly bruise right beneath the shadow of his hat, where his eye was. He felt a small pang of regret—a marksman wasn't much without good vision.

He flickered back to himself, trying to sit up with a labored groan as Fujiko helped him steady himself. "What... w-what the hell happened," he muttered, his brows knitted up as he gazed back over at Jigen, itching to move closer and see the damage.

"I don't know. Goemon said the both of you went stark raving mad. Started throwing punches at each other," Fujiko murmured, looking the slightest bit cautious herself, her touch lighter than it usually would be.

"Those his exact words?" Lupin grunted, gently touching the back of her hand and divesting himself of it, getting to his hands and knees and crawling closer to where Jigen lay.

"No. But I think 'finally lost it' was used."

"Ah," Lupin simply murmured, disturbed. He could feel the old, intricate burn scar on the back of his shoulderblade ache. It didn't usually do that. Softly, he reached out and moved Jigen's hat away from his head, brushing back messy black bangs to stare at the wicked shiner on his eye. "So this was me?"

Fujiko made a small sound, uncomfortable and noncommittal. "You're both alive."

"I didn't ask that," Lupin muttered, not liking how easily she'd seen him through, right down to the guilt stirring in his chest. He trailed his hand softly against Jigen's sharp jawline, sighing tense through his nose. "Where's Goemon?" he asked, putting it out of his mind for the time being. "And... where's Jigen's piece?"

"He went out, back into that room, after he dragged you two inside," she pointed towards the door where the apparent carnage had happened, and Lupin felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. "And... I don't know. It's not on him? No, I... guess it wouldn't be. You'd be dead if it was."

Lupin tried not to give her words too much weight. He stood up, feeling like he could, and managed it with only some wobbling. He took a steadying breath, tense and angry. "I don't understand it. I don't know what happened. I remember Jigen suddenly stumbling, and... snarling like some kind of animal. Like he thought... like he thought Goemon or I was trying to kill him. I remember hitting him in the face. And then..."

Silence blanketed the tiny room. Suddenly there was a soft, pained sound from Jigen, and Lupin immediately dropped into a crouch beside him, reaching beneath his head to lift him up slightly. "Hey, man," he whispered, forgetting caution in favor of tenderness. "Easy. You're okay now, right?"

"The fuck... are you talkin' about..." Jigen muttered, clearly not quite yet among the living. Lupin felt a small pit of anxiety in his stomach to feel wet on his palm, and as he carefully lowered Jigen's head back down, he pulled it back to find red. He must've slammed Jigen's head into the ground, somewhere along the line, or... a wall...

He... didn't like this. He didn't like not knowing what had happened, not remembering. It put a sickening thing in his stomach that he wasn't used to, his normally quiet conscience raging at this new development. Jigen and he had had spats before, tangles, wrestles, whatever they wanted to call them. Not this. Not... whatever this was. And moreover... it had been years since Lupin had last thought about that night, when his grandfather had...

His mouth twitched into a wince. "Fujiko—can you go find some bandage? There's gotta be something. Maybe check the desk back in that central room." Fujiko hesitated for a moment, opening her mouth, then shutting it softly. The both of them seemed in control, once again. She stood and nodded, silently leaving the room back the way they all came, plunging the two thieves into a silence far from comfortable.

Jigen's eyes were hooded, barely open against the harsh light of the tiny room. He groaned softly and reached up, gently swatting Lupin's hand away from his face. "Y'look like shit," he muttered, gravelly. Lupin hummed softly, cracking a smirk and nodding.

"Well you look gorgeous," he fired back, the strangest mix of sincere and insincere. He got a grunt of a laugh in response, so he took it as a win. Lupin knelt there beside him for a few more moments of quiet, before taking in a deep breath, his worry over Goemon eating away at him inside. "Jigen... what was that?"

[zapdragon555]

The silence afforded seemed to be enough for Jigen to come to, slightly. His mouth twitched into a deeper frown, his brow furrowed against the harsh light. "Gimme back my hat," he murmured, and Lupin laid it gently over his eyes, watching as Jigen relaxed as much as he could. "I don't know. Somethin' about that room... I can't explain it. Suddenly I started getting..." Jigen tilted his head, briefly glancing around the small room with his one good eye. They were alone. "Scared. Just... fucking terrified. And then I was..."

This time, that trailing off of words had no pickup. Lupin was silent for a few moments, just staring down at Jigen's covered face. When at last it felt unbearable, Lupin spoke up instead. "I didn't feel it until you were on me. But... I wasn't scared of you. I don't think I could ever be scared of you. When I..." Lupin hurried through his words, and then found himself hesitating, too. Of course Jigen had seen the mark on his shoulder, as much as Jigen had seen all pieces of him, in a myriad of contexts. "When I blacked out, I guess, I... I mean, I think I was throwing punches, still, but my mind was..."

"Elsewhere."

"Yeah, that... that. Elsewhere. Um."

There was a new discomfort, a new distance between them. It wasn't as though they weren't used to keeping a few secrets from one another (Lupin especially—Jigen was a bit more of an open book, rarely by choice, more by the fact that his past had a tendency of catching up with him loudly and openly). Moreover it wasn't as if they didn't have their own violent tangles from time to time. But it had never been so radically impersonal, without any regard or ability to have regard for where blows landed, or how painfully. "Fujiko's getting bandages. I'll patch you up," Lupin said softly, crouched still as a statue. Silently, Jigen shifted an arm to touch Lupin's ankle, running his thumb gently over the jut of bone there. It was so gentle that Lupin forgot to flinch. How easy it was to forget Jigen's face, the way it had been frozen in an expression of inhuman rage and fear, teeth gnashing and hands clawing. How ungodly easy it was to wipe that from his mind for only a few seconds, to feel such a familiar, gentle contact.

"How bad did I hurt you?" Jigen mumbled, a telltale tint of guilt in the back of his throat. Lupin reached down blindly to touch soft against the backs of Jigen's knuckles, his hand, his wrist, a small grin twitching onto his face.

"Gave me a good few bruises. Mostly on the face. Haven't looked around for more. But I can stand, at least, so that's better than what you've got going on. You owe me, considering my face is one of my best assets." Jigen grunted noncommittally, but Lupin could detect the relief in his voice. He smiled a little wider, fluttering his fingers soft at Jigen's forearm. "Kiss it better, later?"

"Maybe."

Lupin began to settle. They didn't... they didn't really need to talk about what had gone through their minds. If Lupin had experienced that, then he was sure Jigen had experienced... something similar. Some memory or vision that had him in such a panic that he'd lost control of himself. That was a frightening thing to think about—Jigen was a sturdy man, in both heart and body, though Lupin had seen how each of them could bend and break. They'd known each other long enough for that, to see each other wounded in all senses of the word. A soft ache of empathy tilted Lupin forward, reaching for the bush of hair that covered over Jigen's ear, tucking it lightly behind and trailing his fingers there at the shell.

"Quit being s'damn tender," Jigen murmured, without much fight in his voice at all, a halfhearted attempt to save face from the no-one that was in the room with them.

"Nah."

[zapdragon555]

[Ending starts here; just doing this for fun!]

Whatever had caused his two partners to suddenly lose their senses, Goemon was determined to transcend it. He gripped the hilt of his blade tight, pressing its familiar grooves into the skin of his palm as he walked briskly through the enormous, empty room. He spotted Jigen's pistol on the counter where Lupin had left it, realizing he'd forgotten to take it. He'd... grab it on the way back. After seeing the way those two acted, he didn't much care for leaving them with a gun.

The edges of his vision began to cloud, and Goemon set his jaw steadily. As he'd thought... there was something in this room that was causing this. Something that caused their outburst. He could only hope that the effects had worn off of them... that they'd survived through it, whatever it was. If nothing else, he'd get what they came here for.

Ah— Goemon grit his teeth and stumbled as pain exploded up the back of his head, filling his temples to the point where he felt like they would burst. The ringing in his ears was suddenly vengefully loud, and he unsheathed his sword carelessly, with a snarl, an act that would horrify him were he fully in control of his faculties. He whirled around and slashed at thin air, eyes watering as visions suddenly filled his gaze. He let out a whimper of sound and let his knees hit the floor, dropping Zantetsuken with a clatter and clutching his head in his hands as sound and light overtook him.

Laboriously, he dropped into a sit and attempted to cross his legs, blindly groping for the sword and snatching it back up. He held it close and pressed his forehead into the wooden scabbard, hissing air slow and harsh between his teeth as he forced his mind into the meditative mantras that he'd been practicing for years. Transcend it... transcend it...

He let the images flow over him without fighting. He remembered the torture chamber that he'd been locked in, and meditated on the sight of Lupin appearing, of him hugging Goemon's body close and swearing revenge on the man that had done it. He remembered a time when he'd suffered a similar fate as Lupin and Jigen both had just now, when he'd been lost in his own head, mocked by a shade of his distant past... remembered how he'd woken up from it with his sword stained in Lupin's blood. Of coursed he'd survived... but in spite of Goemon's promise that he would be the one to eventually take Lupin's life, at the end of everything, it had been too soon. Honorless. The guilt bit into him like a viper.

Though the waves crashed, the undertow of them didn't carry him away. Goemon breathed slowly, his brow knitted sharp in concentration, in pain, but over time that too began to soften. And with a quiet grunt he pushed himself to his feet, gripping Zantetsuken tightly and staring ahead, defying the shadows at the edge of his vision.

He walked forward. He reached the end of the room almost in a daze, but he was still standing, still moving, still in control... but the effect of the gas, or whatever this horrible feeling was that was washing over him, was starting to wear at his senses. He must have done well to drag Lupin and Jigen out of it... he only hoped that he himself wouldn't suffer too terribly being exposed for this long.

After awhile he had to support himself with a hand to the wall, breathing laboriously, halfway using Zantetsuken's scabbard as a support cane. And then something under his fingers clicked, and Goemon nearly jumped out of his skin as a hidden door swished open. He caught himself, heart beating rapidly, seemingly waking him up a bit from the trance that the contaminant had put him under... slowly, as he peered over his shoulder back at the decontamination room doors, he stepped inside.

[zapdragon555]

Lupin had been chatty at first when Fujiko had come in with the bandages, talking almost one-sidedly as he carefully cleaned Jigen's headwound with the cottonballs and antiseptic that Fujiko had brought. It was mostly to cover up the hisses of pain from the gunman. Lupin had known him long enough by now to understand that he didn't much like sharing evidence of his pain, more than he had to.

Over time, however, she pushed off the wall and stated she was going to wait out in the main room. Something about not liking cramped spaces, but Lupin had known her for long enough to realize that she was giving them some time alone. It wasn't often that she was so generous with it. When the door shut, and they were plunged once more into silence, Lupin slowly lowered the pink-red soaked cottonball and set it aside, resting his hand gently over Jigen's chest. His mouth twitched into a smile as the other man grunted, his voice soft. "Y'just gonna leave me unbandaged?"

"You're more handsome without a bandage wrapping your head. Give me a few more seconds to savor it," Lupin fired back, his voice gentle rather than snide. Even so, Jigen could recognize a joke... even one that held a lot of earnestness to it. So Jigen relaxed as best he could, sighing a groan out his nose and leaving his eyes half open, gazing up at Lupin from the safety of the shadow of his hat. Lupin's thumb drew gently over sternum through shirt, feeling over bones wrapped in thin skin and fabric. "I hate that I hurt you so bad," he finally murmured with such a genuine ache in his voice that Jigen had to shut his eyes against it. Just when the silence had started to get comfortable...

"Pretty sure I started it. Deserved it. S'whatever," Jigen muttered, not liking the sound of Lupin so guilty. He felt the hand on his chest twitch, and he took a breath, grumbling softly. "Okay, shut up. Didn't deserve it. Just... we were both out of sorts. It wasn't on purpose, so... quit looking like such a kicked puppy, man."

Lupin blinked, realizing his eyes had rimmed in dampness. He hurriedly exhaled a kind of sheepish laugh and raised his arm to scrub over his eyes, swallowing a pain in his throat. "Sure. Yeah, you're right," he breathed, patting Jigen's chest lightly and taking the moment to reach over for the bandages.  He unraveled some and glanced over at the gunman. "Gotta sit you up for this part."

Together they managed to work Jigen into a somewhat unsteady sitting position, and Lupin set to work on pressing the gauze to the back of his head, wrapping it secure with bandages that made the man's hair stick out rather humorously. But this way, Lupin could really see his eyes, and that was always something rare and lovely. He spared Jigen the worst of the embarrassment, paying more attention to the bandage in his hands than to his partner's naturally avoidant gaze. "Listen," Jigen murmured, as Lupin taped the bandage down. He caught Lupin's wrist before he could go to close up the first-aid kit, and held it tightly in his grip. "I'm good, y'understand? Yeah, it smarts. But I don't feel like you wanted to hurt me. Vice versa, I... Lupin... you know I wouldn't..."

Lupin blinked softly and slowly drew Jigen in closer by the hand at his back, until their foreheads could touch. He held that contact for a few moments, then felt as Jigen began to tilt his head, and Lupin understood the unspoken ask. He closed the gap, pressing his mouth on Jigen's with a stab of emotion in his chest, holding it soft for a few seconds before letting it break with a gentle breath against the other man's lips. "I know. You wouldn't. Neither would I."

The doors shucked open again, and Lupin jolted, but didn't untangle from their closeness. Instead he peered up at a rather bewildered-looking Goemon over Jigen's shoulder, the gunman grunting as he tried to turn to see. "Goemon. You okay?" he asked, knowing full well (or at least having a full well idea) of what lurked out there.

Goemon nodded and slowly sank to the floor, breathing with some difficulty, but it seemed to be getting easier for him now in this small room. "That thing you came for. I believe I found it." Lupin instantly brightened, interest sparking in his eyes as he clutched Jigen a little too tightly in his excitement. The gunman cursed in protest, lightly beating a fist on Lupin's back until he loosened his grip. "But..."

Lupin blinked, deflating slightly with an arched brow. "But?" Jigen shuffled backwards a bit, using Lupin as a brace until he could rest his back against the wall, in the sight of both of them.

"...but," Goemon continued, looking almost ashamed. "Well, I... someone suddenly appeared. I couldn't even hear her coming—it wasn't Fujiko," he felt he needed to clarify, though she'd only just left. She'd pulled craftier switcharounds before. "It was... someone in a dark cloak. Something about meeting on the surface... and... a security protocol. I think—" Goemon froze and leapt to his feet, adrenaline driving him. "We need to leave right now. She opened a staircase—I know where it is."

Lupin bristled and stood, a little wobbly on his feet, and then bent down to haul Jigen up, letting him put an arm around Lupin's shoulders. "Goemon, get his other side. Was it Nix?"

"I don't know. I haven't met her," Goemon muttered, nudging up under Jigen's other arm to help carry him out of there and into the main room. Lupin couldn't be sure, of course, but... he had a hunch, and his hunches were rarely wrong. It would seem that they'd been tricked. Or at the very least... Lupin's back-of-the-mind plans to trick Nix had been thoroughly dashed. Perhaps they would settle this on the surface. Maybe if they could just get out with some money, they could call it a job mediocrely done.