Chapter I

The air was cold, brisk and dry.

The night sky was an inky black, the stars darkened by countless lights that decorated the earth, rising up with skyscrapers and streetlights and billboards. The moon but a sliver in the midst of it all, overshadowed by the splendor of the manmade metropolis.

Whatever beauty the city might hold for others was lost on me as I walked briskly down an endless grey sidewalk, past towering black monoliths and crowds of faceless men and women rushing towards unknown destinations. To me it all seemed ugly and displeasing, especially as dozens of cars of every make and colour sped past, creating unwelcome wind that caused my hair and coat to lift and flutter like injured birds.

Opting to ignore these short, irritatingly cold bursts of air, I continued to journey down the street towards the hotel in which I had chosen to stay the night. It wasn't too far now, and I looked forward to the rest that would be found there. The offer of rest in a warm bed after a long day spent walking was only a simple pleasure, but then, that was the greatest kind.

"Kiriko!"

I stopped, hearing the sound of my name. I turned to see who it was that had called for me, several new bursts of automobile-sourced wind whipping my hair over my face as I turned against the traffic.

Standing there was a tall young man, several years my junior, with an unmistakably marred appearance and eyes the colour of fresh blood. His messy, silken hair was half black and half white, a perfect match to the scarred, bi-coloured face below it.

He stood there watching me, the distinctively damaged face bent in a frown, his dark eyebrows furrowed and his plump lips pouted in irritation. He made no move to approach me, and I repaid him in kind, watching the surgeon from a distance.

He paused as if he didn't know what he wanted. "What… What are you doing all the way out here?"

Strange, he asked that question as if he didn't care about the answer.

"Right now?" I answered with a slight smirk, "Going back to my hotel room."

I turned and started back down the sidewalk, continuing onward towards my chosen destination. Even among the many sounds of the city and the innumerable crowds of people around us, I could hear him chasing after me. Singling out his footsteps was easy.

"Black Jack," I addressed, neither stopping nor turning to face my pursuer. "Do you need something from me?"

Without turning to look at him, I could only guess how he had reacted to my awareness that he was following me. I felt it likely that I had caught him off-guard, as he was silent for several moments before finally responding to my inquiry.

"So, you're not here about a patient?" Black Jack asked.

I liked the way his voice sounded. It was deep, with a smooth but commanding quality to it. It was a voice that easily brought respect and trust from his patients.

What bothered me was how hard he seemed to be breathing. Had he been running?

"Not this time," I answered. "Honestly, I have no interest in anything at the moment except a good night's sleep."

Black Jack apparently was not convinced by this, as he continued to follow me all the way to the towering marble hotel where I was staying, through the carved, illuminated white doors, and into the lobby.

The quiet within was a welcome contrast to the loud, bustling city outside the thick white-and-silver walls. I took a moment to enjoy this, and the enjoyable clean smell in the air.

The carpet was deep red and patterned with intricate gold designs. Lush emerald plants in silver containers decorated the room, while various paintings of all genre interrupted the wall at strategic intervals, combining with the carved, Romantic-styled pillars to give the lobby an interestingly aesthetic feel.

Having taken it in, I turned and looked at Black Jack, who seemed utterly uninterested in the extravagant appearance of the hotel lobby. No surprise; the surgeon was one used to comforts and luxury such as these, despite the humble appearance of his actual home.

"You must really want something." I commented, getting a bit irritated with my shadow. "What is it, Black Jack?"

A mocking smirk crossed my lips and I tilted my body, placing one white-gloved hand upon my hip and gesturing with the other towards the silver doors of one of the elevators.

"Did you wish to join me up in my room?" I teased.

Black Jack seemed taken aback by the comment, as could be seen in his widened eyes and the generous step back he took the moment the last word left my lips. I grinned at his stunned reaction; apparently I had said something so surprising that it had even managed to catch Black Jack off-guard.

"Er, no thank you." He responded, collecting himself. "I think that's one offer I'll have to pass up."

"Then," I said, ceasing to strike the faux inviting pose, "What exactly do you want, Black Jack?"

He hesitated uncharacteristically to reply, but it didn't seem like nervousness or anxiety was the cause. As I leaned closer to look at his face, I could see that there was a certain strange, glazed look in his crimson eyes, a look that immediately caused me, as a doctor, to become alerted.

"Hmm… That's strange," I muttered aloud, cutting Black Jack off before he had the chance to speak.

I reached out and took hold of his face, keeping him from turning away from me. He cried out in protest and tried to pull away, but I forcefully held him in place, reached into my pocket, and swiftly drew out a small torch, flicking it on as I brought it up to his eyes.

Shining the torch light in his eyes one after the other, I could easily see something was wrong with him. His eyes were dull and lacked their intense energy. His pupils were slow to shrink in response to the light assaulting them.

"Is this what you wanted from me?" I asked him simply.

"I don't think it's that bad," Black Jack replied in irritation, an insufferable amount of arrogance tingeing his voice.

Once again he tried to escape my grasp, and now succeeded in breaking my hold on him, but I was quick to reclaim him, this time finding a much firmer hold where his jaw connected to his neck, my fingers digging into his tanned skin. Unfazed by his attempt, I continued to examine him, right in the middle of the hotel lobby.

Pocketing the torch, I took Black Jack's wrist firmly in my newly-freed hand and wrapped my fingers securely around it, placing two of them upon the metacarpal artery to feel for his pulse.

"Black Jack, your eyes are glazed and you've got the beginnings of a fever," I hissed. "And your pulse is weak! How can you, as a doctor, possibly say that isn't much?"

He looked at me without saying a word, but I knew that in spite of his resistance, his dulled ruby eyes were crying for help. I knew that there was simply no possibility that a man who valued life as much as Black Jack could possibly want to lose it without even trying to see if he could be cured, especially after all the times he'd fought me so viciously to try and preserve a patient's life, even in cases when he knew it was useless. This was a man who loved and desired life. Why would he try to keep me from finding out?

"We've got to get you to a hospital," I said firmly. "Now."

"Kiriko," Black Jack started. "Okay, look. There's… something wrong."

"That's obvious enough," I snorted. What, was he not following or something?

"No, listen!" Black Jack exclaimed, "I think I've picked up a—"

Suddenly, he stopped speaking, closed his eyes tightly and gave a loud, painful cry.

His breathing accelerated and he grabbed fistfuls of his own black-and-white hair so hard that his knuckles went white. His muscles went tense and his body bent over partially as he tried to endure the pain. More cries were quick to follow the first, and I moved closer to him to try and get a handle on the situation.

"Shh!" I hushed him, putting my hands on his shoulders. "Calm down, Black Jack, you'll only make it worse!"

He ignored me, continuing to moan and cry out in anguish, throwing his head back. He began to thrash aimlessly, his arms swiping at the air, sometimes coming in contact with my face or torso. His chest rose and fell rapidly with heavy, irregular breaths. His face was now wet with glistening sweat, and his crow-black clothes were becoming damp with the salty fluid.

I was vaguely aware of other hotel patrons stopping and staring.

"Where does it hurt?" I cried, trying to take control of the situation. "Black Jack, calm down!"

Black Jack screamed, letting loose the most horrible, piercing cry I had ever heard. Blood trickled from his open mouth, dripping down his chin.

I stepped back in horror. I had never seen anything quite like this before in my life. Black Jack was in so much agony he couldn't bear it. He was bleeding internally, his pulse was thready and weak, his pupils were slow to change, his eyes were glazed over in sickness, and he was in excessive pain and I didn't even know where.

"Someone call an ambulance, for the love of God!" I roared, my eyes darting about the room at those who had stopped to stare.

Several of them went immediately for their cell phones as if from a broken trance as I lunged towards Black Jack and took him quickly into my arms, restraining him with a tight embrace.

The renegade surgeon looked at me with wide eyes, his pupils contracted, mouth gaping as he gasped for air, caught between moans and screams of pain. His hands found their way to my coat and his fingers began to dig in furiously as he tried desperately to lessen his pain in any way he could, barely able to think past a wild, animal instinct that drove him to madly seek relief.

I held him tightly against myself, whispering softly to him, all the while wishing I had some way to relieve his pain, some way to quell his suffering and silence his horrible screams.

I realized, bitterly, that I had one such device with me even now, but I absolutely refused to use it. Not yet, not when I didn't even know if Black Jack was really fated to die this way. Had he been anyone else I might already have done it, but…

There was something about Black Jack. Something that made me rue the idea of ever meeting the necessity to euthanize him, even the very thought of seeing the day of his death. Something that I couldn't explain, even as I stood there holding him like a child as he suffered this brutal internal assault.

Finally, the painful attack subsided, and Black Jack fell silent, his energy spent. The entire weight of his body fell suddenly upon me as he went limp, and I caught him quickly, lifting him up into my arms like a man carrying his swooned princess in an old, cheesy movie, my arms supporting his upper back and his legs at the knee as I held him before my chest.

Outside, I could hear the plaintive wail of sirens rapidly growing louder and louder. The paramedics would be here momentarily, I acknowledged with relief, and so I carefully took my "swooned princess" outside to meet them.

"What is wrong with you, Black Jack…?" I whispered softly, watching as red and blue lights filled the city night air.

As soon as they arrived, I helped them to carefully load Black Jack onto a stretcher and into the ambulance, stopping once he was inside to wipe the blood from his mouth with the edge of my scarf before stepping back to allow the paramedics to work.

I sat down within the ambulance and watched as the paramedics placed an oxygen mask over Black Jack's nose and mouth and connected him to the EKG machine beside him, listening to the slow, irregular beeps that began to sound with each beat of the unconscious surgeon's heart.

Outside and all around, the faceless crowds kept on walking.