Tearer's goons had been surprisingly easy to take down. They'd gotten a little roughed up but between the five of them they'd cleared the way around them and had gotten to Kizuna. The rescue mission was a simple success, and as soon as he had some service around here, Date knew he could get Aiba to call Iris and let her know he'd be home soon, her friend in tow.
Still, he frowned. Something about all of this didn't feel right. Tearer had been surprisingly difficult to track down, and they had only found the chapel because he wanted them to. So why would he leave Kizuna so lightly defended...
"Date. Behind Kizuna."
There, he saw it immediately. "No! Wait, Lien!" Behind Kizuna, ready to take them down at a moment's notice. Explosive. High power by the thermal Aiba was showing him, and easily volatile. "Behind her..."
Lien stopped messing with the restraints, turning to face Date. But before he could question him.
"Ah, not a good idea to take that off."
"Aiba, zoom in for me."
"Understood." A window appeared in his left eye, revealing the masked form of the man the other Mizuki had Psynced with earlier that day, Tearer.
He threatened them immediately. Told them not to try anything, told them about the bombs, and to an extent, told them about his motives and plans, and why he was doing this.
The Nirvana Initiative, if they made it out alive, he would have to do more digging into this. He'd wanted to leave his friends out of his digging into Naix, the moment he learned they were real and might have had connections to this case he had to learn what he could about the mysterious organization that had haunted Iris's tumor driven paranoid delusions, but now it seemed like going it alone was no longer an option.
It wouldn't have been an option anyways. Even if the other Mizuki still needed Aiba for the compatibility tests until her own AI-Ball was ready, there was no chance in hell he'd ever let Aiba leave him again. She was his partner. Not hers.
For now, however, his research and planning for ways to make it up to Aiba would have to wait. Right now, there were more pressing issues. Tearer was here and needed to be dealt with.
"What did you hope to achieve from this? Why did you kidnap Kizuna?" Finally, Ryuki asked the question that had been lingering on everybody's mind. If Kizuna wasn't kidnapped because of the videos, then why was she here? Why would he be doing this?
"Ryuki, I thought you already knew. He's always been a nuisance," Tearer said. The way he treated Ryuki like an old friend bothered Date, but there was nothing more to be done. He already knew from the other Mizuki that Ryuki was working with Tearer, but he was doing it under threat, not because he wanted to. Still, it made Ryuki dangerous. Mizuki questioned him, and Tearer immediately clarified. "Kaname Date, of course. He's been trying his best to thwart my plans, so I brought him here to get rid of him using Kizuna as bait."
And wasn't that just what somebody wanted to hear. The reason why a good friend of both of his daughters was to lure him out. He knew being the guy that was poking into everything would probably place a target on his back, he'd just hadn't wanted it to affect people he cared about either.
(He should've known better, people always went after him through the people he loved. That was what Saito had done to him last November after all.)
"Date, do not blame yourself for this. Just like you are not to blame for Saito's actions, you're not to blame for Tearer's either."
"Yeah, well that's easier said than done." No, it was wrong of him to take his frustrations out on Aiba. She was trying to reassure him. Right now, he had to focus, he had to come up with a plan.
"Do we have any options?" he asked.
"I'll let you know as soon as an opportunity presents itself."
So Aiba was looking too. That was good. Between the two of them, one of them was going to come up with a plan to get all of them out of this alive. She'd never failed him before.
Especially since even with the offer to save themselves, it didn't seem like any of his friends were going anywhere.
"Aren't you curious? About why I'm talking to you like this...? I could kill you all by pressing this button..." As though to rub in how little options they had, Tearer had taken it upon himself to taunt them for their helplessness. To remind them of how screwed they were like the bastard he was. "This world is a game, and I just wanted to play with you."
Tearer turned, and despite the mask he knew exactly which one of the members of their rescue team he was looking at before he even said anything more. "You especially, Ryuki."
Ryuki stumbled backwards as though wounded. Despite the fact that he was aligned with Tearer to a degree, it appeared he still hadn't wanted this. "Me?"
"Why don't we do this? If you follow my instructions, I'll let the others go. If you decline, I'll blast them into pieces." It didn't matter, they were instructions that Ryuki was already obligated to take for Tama's safety.
Instructions that whatever Tearer asked for, Date knew immediately he was going to make sure Ryuki took. If it kept Mizuki, Lien, Gen, Kizuna, and Aiba safe, Date would make sure he followed the instructions to the letter.
"...what do you want me to do?" Ryuki asked.
"That gun you're holding. Use it to kill Date."
The silence rang out around them as everybody sat there in shock. It made sense, of course, knowing Tearer had brought him here to get rid of him, it only made sense that he would be the target. Date understood that immediately. In any other circumstance, Date might have tried to find any reason not to shoot him, to come up with a plan.
He glanced over at Mizuki. If he didn't die, he'd be putting her at risk, and he couldn't...
"Date, you can't really be considering!"
"Do you see any other option for everybody else to get out of here alive? I can't be the reason Mizuki gets hurt."
"You also can't just throw away your life like that!"
Tearer began his countdown, and Ryuki raised his gun aiming right at Date. Their friends protested around him, and he could feel Mizuki ready to jump in to save him if Ryuki even tried to shoot him.
Ryuki's hands were shaking, and with how skilled he was in using it, Date knew there was only one reason for it. Reluctance. A reluctance Date needed pushed to the side.
"You need to stop this now! I'll come up with something, just do not-"
"Shoot." Date ignored Aiba. His life couldn't be the reason his friends died.
"Date!"
"What!?"
"Just do it! Shoot Ryuki!"
"What about Iris? Hitomi? Mizuki? You're asking all of us to just lose you like this. You're asking me to..."
"2...1..."
Ryuki lowered his gun, bullet unfired. "It's impossible...I...I can't."
"I can't do it!" Ryuki looked to be on the verge of breakdown at the stress, and Date couldn't say he envied him.
Still, without Ryuki shooting him, then that meant...
"Why...? Why aren't you following through? You and Date..." Tearer seemed to contemplate it for a moment before resolving himself. "Time's up."
Date grimaced. There wasn't anything else they could do. Tearer taunted them, telling them a fake name that wouldn't matter because none of them had the time to research it or even tell ABIS any kind of clue to his identity.
"Be seeing you."
It felt as though time moved in slow motion after that. Date pulled out his Evolver, aiming trying to aim for Tearer, trying to do something.
"There isn't time, you have to move!"
"What?"
"To shoot him! The ceiling's going to collapse."
"So, if we let Tearer get away-"
"I don't care if Tearer gets away. Don't you get it Date, I care about you. I won't let you throw your life away just because you don't get that."
Date had known that, of course, he'd known it long before the case back in November and even with her abandoning him over his porn habits, he knew it now too, but...
The explosion went off behind them, and that's when the debris fell, crushing him beneath the rubble. He ducked his head, attempting to protect Aiba, but even he knew it was hopeless as he was crushed under the rocks.
"Aiba? Aiba!"
There was no response.
Date wasn't sure how long he was buried under the rocks before finally, somebody had found him, the light blinding his single, functioning eye. But the rubble still stuck on his legs, keeping him trapped.
Ryuki had found him, was trying to rescue him, but there wasn't a lot he could do. Ryuki wasn't Mizuki. He wouldn't have been strong enough to lift up the rock and get him out of there.
Date was going to die, but there was at least one person important to him that he could protect. He extended his hand. "Just take this with you."
He dropped Aiba into Ryuki's hands. "She's important."
The ceiling collapsed.
Date's vision went black.