Disclaimer: I don't own GetBackers.

A/N: It's probably a little OOC, I haven't watched GetBackers in a while. However, I do think Emishi can be this serious.

Shorn

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"There. Now, you are a woman." The serious tone of his voice – and the formality of the situation – was somewhat marred by the wide grin on his face. Stamping her foot, the new 'woman' rose, making sure that before stamping away and out of the doors, into her new life, she stamped hard on the foot of the Rouran man.

"Ow!" He stared at her, annoyed. "Oy! I'm doing you a favour, you know, doing more than my familial duty! You could have had to wait until some poor sod courted you and dared to ask for your hand before cutting your hair! Who knows how dirty it would have become by then…!"

But he was talking to empty air. His sister had long since stomped out of sight. Sighing, Haruki Emishi sank down onto the ground. Running a hand through the twist of hair, he pulled out the beginnings of his whip. He had made the leather himself, in memory of his lost father, who had done the same thing. Unlike many other Rouran families, Emishi's always made their own leather grip.

Emishi closed his eyes. If he did, he could remember the scent of his gone father, remember the sound of his voice, look out with his mind's eye at the faraway gardens and know that somewhere, his father was still walking.

A drizzle began.

Haruki Emishi closed his eyes to remember his family, like he had done years ago, letting his tears soak in with the raindrops, leaking out under the beautifully flamboyant glasses he had procured. He coiled his hand around his whip, the last of the Rourans', the last Dragon's Whiskers. Stroking his hand along the hair, he remembered his mother, his sisters, his cousins and beloveds and future wives all sinking and crying and dying and he, younger then, was trying so hard along with all the other children to keep the 'bad men' away because all of their fathers had gone…

He sank to his knees as the rain increased. Lowering his head, the wet hair fell over his eyes, obscuring his vision, not that he'd wanted to anyway. He would deal with any low-life thugs that came his way in this Lower Town of the Infinite Fortress, because he was the best of the Rouran, and the best of the Rouran did not give way to anyone!

Best, maybe. Also the last.

Rouran blood. Very flammable. As his consciousness faded in and out, being carried as gently as possible over his old comrade and friend Fuyuki Shido's shoulder, Emishi regretted the path he'd taken away from Raitei. Why, just the other day he'd…

Dark fade in.

…met Raitei, for the first time, after protecting his new family, and Fuyuki dropped by for a visit. Emishi was so determined to protect the urchins that he'd staked out for his own – he hadn't done enough for the Rourans, and he wouldn't fail those he protected now…

Blackness.

…Except that Fuyuki hadn't wanted to fight. After he left, and Emishi heard tell that he had gone to join Raitei, Emishi went along as well. And that encounter…it changed him.

Raitei – he was leaning up against the corner of a ruined building when Emishi approached him. He radiated a sort of ready alertness and dignity, like a king, which was why he was called the Emperor, of course. Emishi bowed low, and Raitei spoke two words…

Dizzy light and pretty patterns…

"Ginji's here! Everyone hide!" Emishi hissed from his hiding place behind the storeroom door. As three of the ex-Four Kings of the VOLTs dove for cover, Amano Ginji entered the Honky Tonk under a jingle of the bell.

"Guys?" To his trusting eyes, all he could see was Natsumi, washing dishes in the corner. He shrugged and sat down at the counter (under which was hiding a very embarrassed Shido), only to rise in shock as Natsumi walked up to him, rose pinned to her apron.

"Where did you get that?"

"Oh, a friend gave it to me," Natsumi smiled at him.

"Who's that friend? Is he good looking?" Ginji sounded slightly worried.

Bursting out from behind the storeroom door, Emishi grinned. "I knew it! You like Natsumi!" He did a little dance, only to be tripped as Ban came out behind him.

"Waa, what's going on?"

Sidling up next to Natsumi and Ginji, Emishi slammed their heads together. Of course, he missed and they hit each others' noses.

"What was that for, Emishi?"

Ban sighed. Emishi looked up. "What, it was working!"

The sun was setting now, white-gold hemisphere lowering itself over the western horizon, tinging the sky a reddish orange. The light cast itself over a lanky form, draped over a stack of stone and iron bars. A spiralled, thick whip curled around his leg, and the figure leaned back, thinking.

The GetBackers were making good business; for backup they used Shido, and Himiko, and Kazuki and Junbei, and MakubeX and Sakura sometimes for information – they didn't need him. Not Haruki Emishi, the Bloody Joker. Emishi adjusted his glasses, looking up from his vantage above the reunited Lower Town. Soon, soon, Ginji and Ban might enter the Belt Line, and then they might need him; but they were busy with the subject of survival, and they wouldn't go, not yet. So…he guessed it was his time to go, then. His time to go off, and maybe, maybe he would find his father. The Last of the Rouran, maybe he would not be.

Maybe.

Coiling his hand around his whip, he ran his hand up and down the hair. His mothers, sisters, friends, cousins, lovers – for them he would go find the Rouran again; and if he had to, he would repopulate the Rouran himself. He laughed at the thought. His jokes hadn't gotten any better, it seemed. He leapt gently down from the rock pile and set off towards the outside world.

He paused once, outside Ren's house. Nipping in one last time to see Junbei and Kazuki resting, Kazuki next to Ren – next to Ren? Gah…! Emishi reached out for a pair of scissors, exiting quietly.

He stopped several more times, to look in on his friends, now become family. Sakura, MakubeX, Himiko, Ban and Ginji, and then Shido and Madoka (although their, erm, 'sleeping arrangements' left him very uncomfortable). Pausing outside the outskirts of Shinjuku, Emishi raised the scissors.

He would go and restart the Rouran as a symbol of both genders of the Rouran.

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