Lockdown
Part II

XXX-Flashback-XXX

Kagari patted the fallen brunette's shoulders a few times after shaking her. "Dammit, it's no use, she's out cold!"

"Um, if I may inquire for but a moment…" Tsukiumi muttered through her cuff, pointing with her free hand. "I think I hath found our Ashikabi…"

Hunched into a ball in the corner of the living room facing the wall, the young man with grimy sprinkles of dirt in his dark hair wept.

The landlady reached for her sword. "Stay behind me." She instructed her tenants, approaching the crying Minato; she tapped his shoulder.

Nothing.

Another tap.

Still nothing.

She drew her face close.

The head rotated like the exorcist, the familiar visage of the Jigsaw puppet met her gaze with an infantile cackle and exploded into bits of white shrapnel. More nerve agent geysered outward through the exposed funnel in its trachea. The landlady, eyes filled with allergy drawn tears, sunk to her knees in a hacking fit.

Tsukiumi and Kazehana bolted over and dragged her away before she could inhale anymore of the noxious fumes or taint the air bubble. They crouched down to check her condition.

"I'm fine." she said, then vomited in her palm immediately after.

"Dammit, we have to get out of here!" Kagari's eyes began to glaze over. He stumbled over to the porch exit. "The wood here is the weakest. I may be able to burn a small hole for us to crawl through before it's too late..."

"Absolutely not!" Miya flailed her puke-slobbered hand in protest before heaving up more chunks of her cooking from earlier. Whatever was in that doll's neck must have been FAR more potent than what they were breathing in earlier. Miya never was one to get sick or deathly ill. One could only imagine what that miasma was doing to her insides. "I will not have you do ANY damage to this house!"

"Damn it, Miya!" Homura snapped. It was like the Higa ambush all over again. "You're choking up vomit, and all you care about is this damn house?! We can fix the hole later! Your stupid pride in this place nearly got us killed once! I'm not gonna let it happen again!"

"How dare you!" Miya snarled, her Hannya Mask emerging full blast in the wake of someone having the nerve to question her like that. "This house is my husband's legacy and I will have no one besmirch it in any way whatsoever! What if the gas is flammable?! The whole inn will go up in flames!"

"Calm thyself Miya, we're Sekirei! I have power over water, remember?! We'll survive!"

"Our clothes sure as hell won't…" Kazehana added softly.

"Your dead husband's legacy can kiss my ass!" Kagari shouted as he drank in the poisonous zephyrs. In any other situation he'd have held his tongue, but with Musubi and Matsu already out, he wasn't going to tolerate bullshit from anybody, including this 'goddess'. "I've had it up to here with your high and mighty attitude! If he were still alive, what do you believe Takehito would think of you putting our lives in jeopardy for the sake of this shithole inn of yours?! He would be ashamed of you!"

The embers in Miya's eyes raged like furies of ancient myth. Even the hannya mask itself cowered off in the distance. "I should kill you right now for saying that!"

"Then kill me." Homura looked at the abomination for a couple of seconds...then moved back toward the wall, a small ember coming to life at the end of his right index finger.

"With all due respect Miya, up yours." he said, his voice carrying not a hint of remorse, "I care more about saving lives than this inn or the tyrannical rules you set for it."

Flames cycloned from his arms and spiraled out towards the inn's fragile wooden paneling...

XXX-End Flashback-XXX

Kazehana continues on with her story…

"As his flames painted her wall, the landlady went to draw her blade, but thankfully she was weakened enough for me and Tsukiumi to hold her back. However, before Kagari could break through, lack of oxygen coupled with his outburst got to him. Collapsed right there in front of us. Then it was only me, Tsukiumi, and the landlady left standing. If it weren't for him wasting energy arguing with Miya, we'd probably have escaped right then and there."

"Poor Kagari…"

Kazehana hung her head. "I have to give him credit though, standing up to the landlady. Not even I'd have the nerve to do something that ballsy…"

"He is the guardian of Sekirei, afterall."

Kazehana sighed. "Even if we did escape, the landlady probably would have hunted him down for talking down to her. She was livid."

"Wait, hold on," Benitsu interrupted. "Is this the same killer landlady the pipsqueak mentioned before he took his little bath?"

Kazehana nodded. "I guess 'killer landlady' would suffice. She's the sole reason I or any of the other feisty tenants haven't pounced on him yet outside of just going to a hotel for the evening."

Minato's pupils shrunk. "Hold on, wait a sec-"

"So he IS a virgin, then?! And here I thought he was just bullshitting!"

"Unfortunately…"

Dammit, not this again… "Can we save this discussion for another time, please?!" Minato whimpered, begging to get back on topic. "Anyway, is there anything else you can recall after that?"

Kazehana held her head as if she just awoke from a drunken stupor. "It's a bit hazy…but Tsukiumi was the next to challenge Miya's assertion…"

XXX-Flashback-XXX

Tsukiumi wrenched at the garbs of her rival's fallen body and shook him by his collar furiously. "Homura?! Wakest up Homura!"

"It's no use," Kazehana said. "He's out just like Musubi and Matsu. You're just wasting energy."

"Silence!" she shouted, tears glazing over her moistened eyes. "Homura is our only chance of escaping! He must be awoken! He must!"

"If he knows what's best for him, he'd stay down," Miya choked words through her vomit-drenched esophagus.

"Hold thy tongue, wench!" she shot back. "You may have no regard for the lives of thy tenants, but I DO! Kazehana, leadest me to the kitchen at once! If we art lucky, we can break the water pipes and I can use the water to make us an exit!"

"Right!"

As they turned to rush away, Miya cropped her clean hand on Kazehana's shoulder. "Don't even think about it…"

Tsukiumi's browline curved downward as she snarled, not even allowing Kazehana to respond. "Fine! If that's the way thou wants it, I'll fare the miasma myself with or without your help!"

"Tsukiumi wait!" Kazehana said in horror as Tsukiumi backed into the kitchen...and into the grasp of the pighead who just emerged from the dark on the other side. She screamed as it pulled her in with its almighty strength.

Moments later, they heard her howl in pain.

"Stay here, Kazehana," Miya demanded.

"No! I'm not going to let her die!"

XXX-Flashback End-XXX

"After that, I guess instinct took over." Kazehana recollected. "I left Miya behind, and went into the kitchen to help Tsukiumi deal with…whatever was attacking her."

"Who attacked her?"

"You know, it's the strangest thing. There seems to be a gap in my memory right after I went inside. I saw a cloaked figure gripping her neck and next thing I remember after that is briefly opening my eyes, and seeing #09 lying in a heap by the sink motionless. I couldn't move anything but my head. I turned to look behind me, and Miya was being dragged away by people in shrouded hoods. Last thing I recall before waking up here and nearly becoming a Sekirei pincushion is a huge metal boot slamming down next to my face. I looked up and saw this lumbering giant wearing a pigmask. He reached at my face, and after that everything went black."

"So who do you think is behind all this, Kazehana?" the ronin asked. "Do you recall anyone who could have infiltrated the inn without anyone knowing?"

"In my honest opinion, Minato…" hanging her head the wind maiden sighed. "I think this was all Matsu's doing."

Minato took a step back in shock. The thought of one of his own Sekirei betraying them never crossed his mind. "What? Why would you say tha-"

"Think about it; Matsu is the only one who has the mind and means to accomplish something like this. Ever since you went missing, she was up in her room, refusing to come out or speak to anybody. For all we know, she could have secretly been contacting Jigsaw and putting together plans to capture us all."

"Don't say something like that, Kazehana! Matsu would never do something so deceptive! If she were the culprit, why would she just let herself be exposed to the gas like that?! I mean, someone had to have rigged it?"

"Perhaps Jigsaw didn't tell her. He did intend on capturing all of us in the end…"

Benitsu added her two cents. "Hate to break this to ya, pipsqueak but Miss cannon-tits has a point. You can't argue that the evidence points the bookworm's direction."

"But if that's true then…all of this…all of this is her fault…" He fell silent. "No- NO! I refuse to believe she would do such a thing!"

Kazehana spoke up. "Now now, Minato, it's all just speculation. Even if my fears are true, I doubt she had a choice in the matter."

"Yeah, r-right. Best just keep looking ahead."

The path diverged on the next impasse; one route blocked off by a fence webbed over in electricity, the other narrowed by debris of a collapsed ceiling. There was hardly enough room to squeeze even one person through at a time, more so for Kazehana than the other two of course.

Benitsu pulled some of the rubble aside and upon crouching looked through to the other side. In the distance was a column of steps caked over in rust-jizzed concrete ascending to lord knows what horror.

She pointed gesturing the two to look through the debris. "How much do you want to bet that our next test is just up those steps?"

"I'd bet my left arm." Minato joked.

"I'll go first." She said, blinking and flattening her frame to the wall, Benitsu crept into the crevice.. "There are a couple of heavy pipes in the way on the other side. You two won't be able to get through unless I move them."

"We'll be right behind you." Minato nodded.

"And I'll be behind you, Minato." Kazehana added with a wink.

"Oh I don't think so, Miss Jigglesworth." Benitsu argued. "The passage goes low at about half way, and I don't want your pervert Ashikabi's face all up in my goods while I'm crouching. You stay behind me, you got that?!"

Minato facepalmed at this. "Benitsu, we've been through this already with the lightbulb! How can I peek at anything if you're wearing shorts?!"

"I don't care! Cannon-tits goes second, virgin goes third! End of story!"

"Yeah, whatever…"

Spaced apart by mere inches, the three shimmied through the crack. As they approached the center, they dropped to their knees and entered one after the other. Benitsubasa was about to have a thought when a firm swat to her rear caught her off guard.

"Agh-!"

Crimson lines streaked over the Red Sekirei's cheeks as her face flushed. Did the wind slut let that pervert in front of her without looking? If so, there would be hell to pay! She lowered her head and peeked through her legs. Kazehana's mocking grin met her embarrassed blush. Sticking her tongue out, she gave her rear another love tap.

"Just what the fuck do you think you're doing you pervert?!" she screamed.

She giggled. "Giving you some encouragement, silly girl. Now hurry up!" *pat pat*

"Well knock it off!" Benitsu snarled. "You wanna spank somebody, then spank your Ashikabi."

Minato blushed and Kazehana smirked.

"I already have," the Wind Sekirei boasted sultrily. "A few times, actually. Would've gone further if Miya hadn't interrupted."

Minato's blush deepened as he remembered those 'sessions' with Kazehana. He was ill one day with bronchitis and hallucinating due to high temperature. Kazehana took advantage of this and had enticed him into crawling over her lap to help 'break the fever with her body heat'. He was groggy and not in his right mind at the time! He couldn't think with such a high temperature! She then removed his pants and underwear before proceeding to spank the hell out of him, calling him 'a naughty, sick little boy'. Miya had nearly skinned them both alive when she found them, but that didn't stop Kazehana from doing it at least two more times, leading to Miya banning her from alcohol until that fight with Higa's Sekirei.

"And I'll be giving him an extra hard spanking after we get out of this," Kazehana declared while wiggling her own rear sensually at her now atomically red-faced Ashikabi. "I'll paint your cute little ass red, Minato-kun."

"Enough with the pervy lovey-dovey crap! Can't you gag on your Ashikabi's flute another time?!"

Minato who'd had his head hung to keep his eyes from drifting where they shouldn't, came to an abrupt halt when the top of his cranium bumped into the skirt Kazehana was almost wearing. #03 gasped and lurched forward in shock, face pressing into Benitsu's clothed derriere.

There was an awkward silence. One could have sworn the three had been sucked out into the vaccum of space. But shortly thereafter, a boiling kettle began to whistle. Following the cherrying of her face, vortexes of steam burst from Benitsu's ears as the temperature reached critical.

Minato gulped. Oh shit…what have I done?!

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

A choir of marriages between the sole of Benitsu's boot and Kazehana's face jabbed her and Minato out of the tight crevice and back to the starting point.

"Ow!," *kick* "hey!" *kick* "Stop it!"

"GET BACK!" Beintisu demended. *kick* "GET BACK, I SAY!"

Emerging from the crack, Benitsu grasped the ronin's collar and dragged him behind her.

"Change of plans, twerp. You keep that wind slut as far from my crack as possible,"

She gripped at the knife tucked in her fabric belt, but didn't draw it. "YOU GOT IT?!"

"I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT!" He cried, holding his hands up.

Kazehana couldn't hold a laugh back any longer.

Growling, Benitsubasa shoved him off and dragged her way back through the rubble with Minato in tow. At the end of the tunnel, she slipped her arms beneath the bronze pipe and began hoisting it, squeezing her petit body under it little by little and relinquishing the work to her bent knees and legs once she was far enough. After rolling to the other side, she started to lift the pipe and began to hoist once more.

"C'mon, you two." She grunted, pulling upward. "My muscles are still tired from that sink or swim test. I can't keep it up for very long."

"I'm coming, Benitsubasa."

"Benitsu!" she loudly corrected him.

"Err, right. Sorry."

The ronin's messy hair soon emerged as his forearms pounded the ground whilst he dragged himself out from the debris.

"Thank you, Beni-" He paused his words as he looked up at the strained crimson bird, pupils shrinking to tiny pencil dots as his slight smile curved downward. Just a yards length in the distance beyond her shoulders, a pig headed deadbeat began to raise a crowbar high above its head.

Benitsu grimaced, unaware of the danger looming behind her. "Well what are you waiting for?! Get moving! I can't hold this thing up forev-!"

"Benitsu, look out!"

"Huh?!"

The Red Sekirei took a quick glance, but was incapable of preventing a forced marriage of skull and steel. Along with the pipe, she collapsed to the ground; Hard, bells and other loud noises ringing in her ears.

Kazehana lurched forward and yanked her Ashikabi's feet in hopes of pulling him away from the falling pipe, but she hadn't been quick enough. The young ronin howled in agony as the pipe's weight squashed and pinned him to the floor, air squeezing from his lungs like deflated balloons. All he could do was gag as the pressure on his upper back sank in.

"Minato!"

Minato struggled to crawl forward, but…

*Crick!

"oh, god!..." The ronin gritted his teeth to stifle a scream. "I-I c-can't..." he replied as he collapsed. "…breathe."

"Stop moving Minato, let me help you!"

She crawls over his back and curves her arms under the pipe, and hoists it up ever so lightly. It may have just been a few inches, but it meant a world of difference for her Ashikabi as he began taking light breaths.

Kazehana could feel her arms arching, but didn't dare try to use one of her limbs to push her beloved forward in fear of losing what little balance and control she had at the moment. She would need the washboard girl's help for this.

Benitsu's assailant inspected her body, and retrieved the pitch-black knife tucked in her belt.

He knelt down to Minato, pulling his hair back and putting the knife to his throat. "Our leader doesn't take kindly to those who take what isn't rightfully theirs…especially if said item happens to be a prized possession…"

The Red Sekirei was beginning to regain herself. The world around her was spinning slightly, but was slowly balancing itself. What had just happened?

She put her hand to her head only to find it slicked in a river of kool-aid. Hurt like a motherfucker, but most certainly not as bad as what she wanted to do to the guy that blindsided her.

He tilted his head to the side, knife edge aimed directly at Minato's jugular. He chuckled through his altered voice, drawing the knife closer. "Now what to do with you?..."

Kazehana's pleas for her Ashikabi's life fell deaf on the pighead...but not on Benitsubasa.

The downed Discipline Squad member lunged at his arm. He lost grip of the knife and tumbled to the ground. The two rolled about with Benitsu gaining the upper hand following a brief struggle of power.

"Think I'd go down that fucking easy, did you?!"

A duet of left hooks smashed into the pig mask's jawline.

He shoves her off with a boot to the gut and rolls over on his belly, scrambling on his hands and knees to get to the knife. Unfortunately for him, Minato pulled it away from reach.

"You should have gone down with that first punch," she said, a cruel grin spreading across her bloodied face.

She yanked at his garbs pulling the freak to his feet. She clasped her fingers around his thick, beefy neck. "Now I have to hurt you more."

The henchman shoved her away and a left hook sailed towards her.

Benitsubasa ducked the pig mask's barbed fist and buried her knee into its abdomen. The beast let out a shrill squeal is it riled in guttural agony, but she would have no mercy on this swine brute. She balled up her fist and jacked the boar's jaw with an uppercut, shattering its teeth and sending it crashing into the wall spine-first. Benitsubasa grabbed the garbed henchman's wrist and rallied her palm into its elbow, snapping the ligament in two and dragged the carcass down to the floor in an arm-crunching judo toss. As her gnashing molars showed through her expanding scowl, the Red Sekirei's left eye began to twitch. She had lost it.

She leapt onto the defeated henchman and began pounding his head into ruin. The helpless animal weakly reached for the crowbar he had clobbered her with earlier, only to be denied as Minato drove the tip of the ebony knife through his palm, pinning the limb to the floor with his bodyweight and ensuring his grim fate.

"End it, Benitsu! Please!" Minato weakly shouted.

Minato immediately clamped his eyes shut and turned away as she savagely beat the boar's face into a pulpy mass of fractured skull and meat. His heart sank and eyes tightened with every violent thumping contact her fist made. Even when it was clear he was dead, she just kept laying into him mass until she was finally satisfied.

When her anger finally subsided, the unknown man's head was almost completely flat and Benitsubasa was hypoventilating. Minato was thanking God the mask was still intact…he could only imagine what gory horror lay beneath it.

The seething snarls began to cool her temper. Benitsu let the man's collar go and pulled herself to her feet. With an amount of vigor that surprised even her, she lifted it off the young ronin, who crawled through the spacing with Kazehana close behind, the Wind Sekirei's arms falling almost limply to the ground around her Ashikabi.

Minato would have felt sick having aided in putting an end to a man's life, but the pain contacting in on his lungs kept him from caring much. He had been around enough death already since the loss of Kusano to dwell on the life of someone who had tried to end theirs.

Struggling to get up, he asked Benitsu out of concern, "Are you okay?"

She unceremoniously dropped the pipe on the dead pighead's carcass once they were out and safe. "That…felt…good."

She turned back towards the path and angled her eyes up the steps. As suspected, their next test was just ahead.

Lending a final kick to her fallen foe's abdomen and hawking a phlegmy loogie onto the body, she said, "Welp, let's get going."

Minato started to stand, but then collapsed to one knee, arm embracing his ribcage.

Kazehana knelt and rested her palms on his shoulders. "Are you alright, Minato?"

"I...I think some of my ribs are broken...and it hurts to breathe in too much." he coughed a bit while clutching his side.

"Let me see."

Kazehana pulled open his ripped shirt and caressed his chest gently. He winced a bit.

"I think they're just bruised and overstrained. Don't overdo yourself."

"Come on," Benitsubasa snapped. "We don't have time for this."

"I don't know if I can walk too far without hunching over…"

"Then I'll carry you," the Red Sekirei declared, scooping him into her arms bridal style after a brief moment of hesitation. He blushed as she lifted him, and she turned her head away presumably to hide her own. "Don't get the wrong idea about this, I'm the strongest here, and letting you walk will only serve to slow us down."

As the trio continued their journey down the path of the unknown, the pinkette could have sworn she heard the alcoholic say, "For what it's worth, thank you for saving him."

Why did those words mean more to her than she felt they should have?

As they climbed the steps, Minato couldn't help but think of the landlady. She was taken just like everyone else, and her game was separate from his. He couldn't do anything to help her like he could his other Sekirei.

He closed his eyes, and whispered inside, I hope Miya gets out of this alright…

3:24:21...3:24:20...3:24:19...

XXX-FLASHBACK-XXX

8 hours after Isumo abduction…

Enclosed by the holy walls etched in her sin, an orange haze bled through the many cracks peppered throughout the stony interior of the sealed chamber. Swathe between twin rows of ebony-shrouded hardwood seating, crimson carpeting unfurled over a dozen graphite steps which overflowed with the warm shadow of bronze candelabra. Stained glass wept multicolored beams as the sun began to rise. The gleaming light orbited the silhouette of a wagtail in the stain glass, cascading its umbra upon the church's crimson carpet below.

A single ivory throne laced in golden thread sat perched atop the steps, its height dominating the ground shared by the seated replicas of the fallen Sekirei. Dewy dandruff dripped from the greasy lavender strands dribbling down the landlady's violet crown and sleepy visage; lap collecting sweat droplets from her chin. As the rising sun grew more brilliant, the mystifying heat aiding her slumber loosened its grip on her consciousness; her eyes loosened from her glazed pupils. After many flickering relapses, they finally allowed her awareness to pass through.

The exhausted woman bobbed her head from left to right as her sight crinkled to focus, flame permeating from cinnamon-tinted candles making her eyes tear up. She shook her head and motioned to stand but was yanked back by the garrote looping her throat; her cranium ricocheting off the throne as it pulled her back as punishment. A startled gasp erupted from her stomach as she hacked up many of coughs. She was fully awake now.

She reached for her neck and pulled at the cable. The cable's material must have been made of some of the strongest steel in existence as she couldn't break it.

What sort of MBI trickery was this?

"Where am I?"

*Bzzzzztttt!

The landlady jerked her head towards the rippling static of a busted old television set. In moments she was staring into the eyes of the dreaded Jigsaw doll.

"Rise and shine, Asama Miya. I want to play a game…"

A/N: Figured I would give this a quick update since I just recently updated Veil a few nights ago. Not much changed from the original version so this one was more or less a touchup.

On that note the Sekirei fic discord I made is much more active now, so now would be a good a time to join as any. Just search for "Sekirei Fanfiction Enthusiasts" on the Disboard website and you'll be sure to find it.

Also, to any future reviewers, please refrain from posting spoilers in relation to occurrences of the original version of this fic in the review section. I noticed a few of you doing so in the last chapter, so for the sake of other readers coming into this with fresh eyes, even if you don't like the outcomes of the previous version, please stop. Thanks.