They were close to the Northern district of Midorijima. It was one of those streets most people would avoid to set foot into because of how rundown everything was and due to the fact that there were junkies, thugs and occasionally even yakuza lurking in its dark corners and you never knew what was going to happen to you if you met one. Nobody around here cared what was done to other people here as long as it didn't concern themselves. Scream and cry all you want, nobody was going to help you or even cared for your corpse if you were dumb enough to enter this street full of garbage - junk and people respectively - in the first place. It wasn't a place where Ren or Aoba were meant to be and they didn't choose to come here out of their own free will either.

Earlier that day, they had run into trouble closer to the center of the Old Resident District on the busiest street in the Southern district, where they were just looking for new clothes for Ren to buy. Due to the mass of people there it was kind of a paradise for thieves who had no trouble disguising their acts when taking one's wallet out of one's pocket. Lots of people in the old parts of Midorijima still prefered hard money over making cashless payments with their coils so nearly every pocket was groped for money. And this time it was Aoba's turn to have a foreign hand inside of his jacket's pocket while looking at one of the shop windows with Ren. But the guy had bad luck since everything Aoba had in his pockets today were some sweets and pieces of fluff, plus Ren noticed him while he searched Aoba's pockets, even though he had been as careful as ever.

The usually gentle expression on Ren's face darkened immediately and he instinctively hit the guy's face with his elbow in a protective gesture before even Aoba took notice of Ren's movement.

"Ren...?", Aoba wondered after he heard a noise behind himself and turned his head just when the thief hit the ground hard, holding his bleeding nose and screaming in pain. "Ren, what happ-?!"

Before he could even ask anything, Ren grabbed Aoba by the arm and dragged him away, disappearing into the crowd. Ren didn't stop running before he was absolutely sure that they were not followed by the man he had just struck down. At the same time Aoba freed his arm from Rens clutch and barked at him in confusion.

"Ren, what the hell happened just now? Why did you hit that guy and why did we run around like crazy?"

Ren had trouble catching is breath, his body still not accustomed to too much exercise and he flinched a little at Aoba's angry tone even though he had meant well in acting the way he had.

"I am sorry, Aoba, but this man was a thief. He was rummaging in your pockets while you weren't looking."

"Eh?!", Aoba clearly hadn't noticed a thing and stood there baffled, his eyes shifting away from Ren while his mind tried to recall the scene. "He was...? And so you did...?"
Aoba absentmindedly checked his pockets before he remembered that there hadn't anything of importance been in them in the first place today. His gaze turned back to Ren with his brows furrowed in worry.
"I'm sorry for shouting at you, Ren, I just... couldn't take the whole picture in earlier."

Ren gave Aoba a reassuring smile. He was just glad that he had been able to protect Aoba. But his beloved person still had a frown on his face.
"Aoba? Is something wrong?"

Aoba seemed to ponder whether he should tell Ren his thoughts or not but decided to do so in the end.
"You know, I am thankful that you helped me but you didn't have to go so far as to hit that guy so hard that he would bleed. I can imagine his nose could have been broken from the impact and that's kinda over the top for just checking someone else's pockets for money."

Ren looked a bit perplexed at Aoba's remark. Was what he had done wrong then? But wasn't a thief considered a bad guy?
"...I shouldn't have intervened?"

He made the impression of a scolded puppy and Aoba instantly regretted making him feel this way and reached up to ruffle his hair to lighten the mood.
"No, I'm glad you did, you just overdid it, silly."
Aoba added a kiss to Ren's forehead and gave him an impish grin.
"Let's get back now, shall we? We still haven't found what we were looking for earlier."

Aoba took Ren by the hand and they started to walk towards Southern District again, but just as they took the last corner before entering the overall busy street of the shopping mile again, they were stopped by a group of people clearly belonging into the thuggish type category. Behind the group a nasally shrieking voice could be heard.

"That's them! The guy who hit me and the blue jacket guy!" It was the man Ren had sent flying earlier, pointing at them with one hand while holing some cloth to his bleeding face with the other one.

"So you are the guys who broke our friend's nose and knocked out his teeth, huh?"

Teeth, too, huh? How hard had Ren punched the guy exactly?

Aoba heard himself think that while he looked at Ren out of the corners of his eyes before continuing the headcount of the group of thugs and calculating whether they would be able to fight their way through them or if there was the chance to run away yet. Just as Aoba was about to try for the latter option he heard the sound of footsteps behind them as well. They were surrounded by half a dozen people now and the chances of getting out of this situation unharmed hit rockbottom. So they had to fight their way through, huh? It had been a while for Aoba to get into a fight with somebody but with Ren covering his back he felt strangely sure of winning even in this situation.

"Aoba, instructions."

He heard Ren speak those words like they were about to fight in a Rhyme Field, probably a force of habit of his former Allmate consciousness, but it wasn't like Aoba could just give him an order and expect Ren to blow their enemies away like in the game. This was reality after all.

"No limitations, Ren. Fight until they're all down or you see an opening for running away."
That was all Aoba could give Ren now while stealing himself for what was about to come.

"Understood.", was the last thing Aoba had heard from Ren before countless fists started flying at them.

They had lost the fight.
Of course they had lost it.
It had been an unfair fight from the beginning and even though Ren was able to land some good hits and Aoba was dealing kicks for his life they were still outnumbered considerably in the end.

Ren was still in his last phase of rehabilitation after the whole incident with Toue and accustoming his soul to Sei's body. He was not used to long-lasting moving around yet, tiring too easily from moving too much. And fighting in an open street was a novelty for his human form. Sei's body had always been fragile and even after remodeling itself somewhat to adapt to Ren's soul and Ren going through rehab and a slight bit of muscle training he was not stronger as an average person, rather a bit weaker stamina-wise.
In his online mode Ren might have been a fighting machine but as a human it was harder to land hits, even more so good ones against people who did nothing but fight all day long. And it was hard to concentrate on more than one enemy at the same time for him. If he tried to hit the guy infront of him, a punch came from the side or his back. In the end Ren was kicked in the knee and his stomach, unable to get up again fast enough and being surrounded by too many people.

The only thing on his mind had been to protect Aoba the whole time. He knew Aoba could handle a fight as he had proven to be able to in the past, but they just were too many and Aoba was a scrawny guy, not some brawny thug like the men hitting them with their fists. After he was thrown to the ground he heard a choking sound from Aboa and the words "Ah, he keeled over." coming from one of the strong-armed men. Ren was infuriated and wanted to kill the guy who had hurt Aoba, but the second he didn't cover himself properly, a kick to his face made him black out.

After he finally came to again Ren's head hurt like nothing he had ever experienced before. His whole body shook with pain and he was black and blue all over. Trying to grasp his situation he tried to look around but immediatley noticed that he was fixated by a hand on top of his head and lay there flat on his belly with his left cheek digging into dirt and his hands tied together behind his back. There was an unfamiliar weight on top of his body, too. The guy holding his face in place must have been sitting on his lower back as well. Aside from that there were a pair of boots in his field of view, probably belonging to another man. Just as he was trying to stir he heard the booted man shout over to another group.

"Hey! Hurry up! We want a turn, too!" There was just a bunch of answering shouts from a few meters across them, but Ren shivered by another sound he was hearing. There was a sound of gasping and gulped down cries and the voice they belonged to was so familiar to Ren that he would be able to pick out the person it belonged to amongst a hundred people - it was Aoba's voice.

"Aoba!"
A jolt of fear blazed through Ren's body and he frantically tried to turn his head in the direction of Aoba's cries. He just had to know what they were doing to him. He had to know!

"Hey, stop squirming, you runt! Or do you want to make me angry?", was the immediate reply of the guy sitting on top of him, followed by him ramming a knife in the ground right next to Ren's face. Ren could see his distorted image in the knife's sharp blade, but thinking about Aoba he didn't care what would happen to himself.
Trying to muster all the strength he could he strained himself into turning his head to look ahead of him.
The booted man next to him smirked and scoffed: "Oi, just let him see what's happening over there with his friend, it's more entertaining that way."
Ren heard the other guy click his tongue but his head was released and he was finally able to look over to Aoba.

He immediately wished he hadn't looked, though.

Over there was Aoba, half stripped and down to his hands and knees. He was surrounded by four guys who seemed to take turns in violating him. One guy had grabbed Aoba by his hair hard enough to make him cry and forced him to give him head while another man mercilessly drove his cock in and outside of Aoba's ass with some blood trickling down Aoba's thighs. The two others urged Aoba to give them a handjob or rubbed their cock against his face respectively. All the while the group of men sneered at and insulted Aoba to their heart's content, enjoying themselves. It was a gruesome sight for Ren and it must have felt beyond terrible for Aoba

Ren began to shiver with rage and snarled like a beast as he had taken in the scene, immediately gaining Aoba's attention and recognizing how his eyes widened in fear and shame to be seen doing this sort of thing by Ren. Ren got even more furious at the thought that these guys had made Aoba react that way and tried to get up again before receiving another hard punch in the face by the man sitting on top of him and being told to shut the fuck up.
Ren could taste blood in his mouth and felt his body ache from being beaten up earlier, but more than anything a blind fury took hold of him. He didn't care if he was hit even more, he didn't care if he was about to die in the act as long as he could save Aoba from this situation.

Something snapped inside of him and an unknown strength took hold of Ren while his body pumped out adrenaline like crazy. Roaring like a wild animal he forced his body off the ground, rolled over and headbutted the guy who had sat on him, making him fall unconscious in the struggle. The booted man next to them was about to kick him when Ren got to his knees and bit the guy's inner thigh as hard as he could, sinking in his canine teeth through fabric and skin until he hasted blood. The man shrieked in pain being bitten in a sensitive area and tried to get rid of Ren by hitting his head but Ren could muster enough strength in his legs by then to lurch forward and hit the other guy in the stomach using his head again, the impact strong enough to make him topple over as well. Finally completely back on his feet Ren didn't give the man a chance to get up again and stomped down on the other's crotch, forcing him to black out, too.

They would pay! They would pay! They would pay for doing this to Aoba!

Ren seethed with anger and was literally foaming with rage with some spit and blood gushing from his mouth as he clenched his teeth and growled like a mad dog launching head-on into the group of guys violating Aoba.

Ren having drawn the attention of his captors and being able to free himself proved to be a chance for Aoba to counterattack as well and he started with the asshole that had his weakest part exposed to him first by biting down the cock in his mouth hard enough to draw blood and an ear-splitting scream escaped the man's throat. He was about to hit Aoba with his fist but Aoba was resolved to bite this fuckers cock off if he had to and bit down evern harder until the man couldn't take the intense pain anymore and doubled over onto the floor. The sudden resistence of their formally obedient sex toy had downed the reaction time of the guy behind Aoba and he was elbowed into the stomach hard enough so Aoba could break free from his clutches, too. Four down, two still standing was the score and Ren had finally closed the distance between them and sent the next guy flying by ramming into him like a battering ram. The last one of the thugs even lost his nerves now after seeing Ren's state and fled the scene screaming like a girl.

Ren still panted with rage and was close to try killing the guys laying sprawled over the place for touching Aoba when his beloved reached out a hand and touched his knee softly.

"Ren... let's get out of here...!"

Aoba's voice was hoarse and his face and body looked equally beaten as he knelt there, still half undressed and trying to catch his breath. It hurt Ren to watch his most important person like this and he wanted nothing more than to undo all the things that had been done to Aoba, but he couldn't. He couldn't even embrace him and carry him away in his current state. All he could do was to swallow down his anger and nod frantically at Aoba. They had to leave this place as soon as possible. Due to the pain in his lower half Aoba had trouble getting up at first and Ren tried to support him, but his hands were still tightly bound behind his back. Unable to speak in view of the whole situation he let out a heartbreaking whimper and looked helplessly at Aoba.

Aoba raised his head and seemed to notice Ren's distraught face only then before reaching out a hand and weakly caressing Ren's cheek.

"Don't worry, Ren, we'll go home now."

Why was he reassuring him now? Wasn't Aoba the one suffering the most? And wasn't it Ren's fault that this whole thing happened just because he had went to far with the thief earlier? Wasn't it all his fault? How could Aoba act like that now? How could...
No, wait, this wasn't the time for self-loathing now. They were still not safely out of this situation, they had to leave first. Just as Ren was about to ask Aoba to do something about his bonds Aoba was already unfastening the belt that was used to tie his arms together and finally set him free. The first thing Ren did was to embrace Aoba even though he knew they had to escape as fast as possible. He just had to make sure Aoba was alright.

"Ouch, not... so hard, Ren... it hurts...!", Aoba protested to the arms wound around him too tightly and Ren immediately let go of him while blurting out an apology.
He hadn't meant to hurt Aoba, even though he should have known from his battered state that it was going to hurt to touch him, however softly he would try to do it. His mind was just too jumbled up from the whole situation and his body still rushed from the adrenaline. It was just too much.

By now Aoba had roughly put his clothes back in order including pulling his jeans and underwear up. He motioned for Ren to bent down and let him help him get back on his feet, staggering a bit at first, but being able to walk by holding on to Ren.
There was a chance that they would run into more of these guys as they made their way back but thankfully nobody directly crossed their path and when they saw someone suspicious once, there were enough backstreets to temporarily hide in, but it wasn't necessary for the most part on their way back to the East district where Aoba lived.

- to be continued -