Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters presented here and am not making any profit off of this whatsoever.
Title: Just A Doll
Word Count: 2,170
Rated: PG-13
Focus: Marufuji Ryou, Camula
Notes: I wrote this for the gx_100 Livejournal challenge. It takes place sort of between episodes 32 and 33 of season one of GX and involves vampirism and some implied potential things that Camula never had a chance to do.
Summary: Doll or human, Ryou can do nothing at all after he loses his duel to the vampire of the Seven Stars.
Oddly enough, there was no pain involved. There was a sense of pressure that grew more and more intense, and then a wave of shadows. When that passed, everything was different. Everything around him was somewhat fuzzy and indistinct, and he couldn't move at all. There was no need to move, however, as he was being held by someone. The hand was cool and the touch somehow possessive. At first, he wasn't entirely certain of what was going on, then everything snapped together in his mind.
Camula! Kaiser Ryou would have done something, even if it were something as small as clench a fist, if he could have. But that was impossible at the moment. He was a doll, a little toy, nothing more now.
He didn't regret what he'd done. It had been by his own decision, after all. For Shou's safety, even being a doll was acceptable. Shou had already proven that he was worth it, having grown up so much over the last few months. He did wish that he could be there to see Shou going even farther than he had. Would he get promoted to Ra? To Obelisk one day?
But at the moment, just seeing himself graduate looked to be the next thing to impossible. He had never met a duelist like Camula before. If she was what the rest of the Seven Stars were like, then could even someone like Juudai, with all of his skill and potential, beat them?
Ryou could not be certain.
He thought he could hear voices of some kind, but exactly who they were or what was being said was too difficult to figure out. Were they too faint or was it because his soul was trapped in a doll? He thought that possibly one of them sounded the faintest bit familiar. Camula must not have left the dueling area just yet, because he could have sworn what he was hearing was Daitoukuji-sensei.
They were somewhere else a breath later, or so it appeared to be to him. He wondered if it were possible for him to communicate with anyone when he was like this. Not that he would especially care to speak to Camula, of all people.
He was set down on something that was soft and pliable. He assumed it was a cushion or pillow of some kind. He was aware of Camula's presence, though not exactly what she was doing or what else was going on around himself. He could not say he was enjoying this at all. He had lost very few duels over his three years at the Academy, but it wasn't the loss that made him want to scream and hit something.
It was how it had happened.
He thought about that more than he thought about Camula herself, or the fact she was near him doing something. Thinking of how he'd been pushed into a corner and given a choice that he could never have made sent fury boiling through whatever he had at the moment that passed for veins.
"My little doll." Camula's voice was suddenly loud and clear in his ears. He still couldn't move, and would not have shown how startled he was even if he could have. "I think it's time that we had a talk."
She couldn't be addressing him. But with a sudden pass of darkened light, he was seeing and feeling again, and more, he was able to move!
No, he couldn't move very much. A quick attempt to get up proved that, when his body would scarcely lift itself an inch off of what he discovered to be a bed of some kind. It was wide and comfortable, more than large enough for two, and covered in black silk and satin, with a half a dozen or so pillows all scattered about.
He could turn his head enough to look at Camula, and he did so, his gaze as icy and remote as he could make it. "I have nothing to say to you."
"As you wish." Camula slid onto the bed next to him, a faint smirk on her lips. He couldn't move far enough away from her to avoid her fingers as they began to caress through his hair, but he turned his head away at least. "I have such plans for you."
He was not interested, and he refused to give her so much as another word. With every scrap of body language that he could muster, he indicated his complete and utter disinterest in any 'plans' she might have.
"You belong to me now, Ryou." There were only two people who had ever had permission to call him that, short of his parents, and she was neither Asuka nor Fubuki. But he still would not give her the pleasure of an answer. That much power he still had. "With you at my side, my people will live again."
He couldn't argue that what she said caught at his attention. Until he had met her, he had never known that vampires even existed save in myths and legends. He was not entirely certain that she wasn't some kind of Duel Spirit herself. He'd heard of such things, though he'd never been able to see or hear one for himself.
Ryou's eyes widened a touch as he felt her fingers touch the side of his neck, just where the pulse fluttered. "Such a strong fighter you were," she murmured. "You'll make an excellent vampire." She was leaning in more closely, and he could feel her icy breath against his skin as well now. "And more."
He wanted to get up and leave, to find a place to be that was as far from her as possible. Or to find a way to destroy her completely. He was not that particular. But he couldn't move more than an inch or so in any direction, and that wasn't enough to stop whatever she was doing.
Her fingers and her breath weren't all that he felt there, either. Ryou had never been fond of horror movies, considering them useless and boring. But he was not so uneducated that he didn't know what he was feeling next: teeth. Two very sharp teeth. Blinding white flash across his vision, pain that shot from his neck down to his heart, and then a sound such as he'd never heard in his life, not this close to him, not coming effectively from him!
Slurps.
Shou hadn't appeared to hurt this much when he'd been bitten. If there was a reason, Ryou didn't know and didn't at the moment care. He could feel the blood flowing out of the wounds in his neck, going into her, some of it trickling down him. He gasped briefly as she removed her fangs, then licked up all the blood neatly, even from where it had begun to soak into his uniform. He didn't know what was keeping him from moving, but if whatever it was hadn't been there, he didn't think that he could have moved just then anyway. He had no strength at all. At the moment, the only difference between him now and he as he had been when he was a doll was size.
He fell back against the pillows, trying hard to breathe. The air was beyond cold all around him, and he thought it was because of her. She hadn't moved away from him either. The tip of her finger brushed across the wounds in his neck, then she shifted so she was looking down at him. The look in her eyes was a kind of hunger he had never seen before. Then she lifted that finger to her mouth and bit it hard. He had no idea of why she'd do something like that, until she moved the bitten finger so it was over his lips. From it there dropped a single round drop of blood, falling right into his open mouth.
Swallowing it was inevitable, as was swallowing the ones that came after. He lost track of how much of her blood came burning down his throat, and burn it did indeed. After several drops, she placed the cut part of her finger in his mouth, and without even thinking about it, he began to lick at the blood. Hunger for it tore into him and as much as it repulsed him, he wanted more and more of it. He didn't think that he could ever be satisfied, and he wanted her to die because of it. For a brief moment, he wished with all of his soul that Shou had never come to Duel Academia. If it weren't for that, then he would have won that duel against her, and he wouldn't be here, with her sick poison frothing in his veins.
When she removed her finger, she leaned over, staring down into his eyes, a sick and twisted smirk on her lips. "You're going to be mine. I will rebuild my race, starting with you, once you're one of my people." Her hand traced loosely across his chest. "It won't take long. I only have to wait until I've finished the rest of your pathetic friends off. It shouldn't be too difficult. Until then, you're going to rest and wait for me to finish changing you."
There were no words to be said. Not that he had the strength to say them at the moment. He wanted to tell her exactly what she could do with her desire to rebuild her race, at least so far as he was concerned. As for the threat to the others, that meant nothing. He could do nothing more to help them, even if he were freed.
She didn't appear to be in any great hurry to change him back into that doll form, and Ryou appreciated it just a little. Not being able to breathe was a bit unusual, even though he hadn't needed to. Not to mention that just being a doll was extraordinarily humiliating. He supposed that was why she did it in the first place. Destroying someone's pride was a good way to destroy them altogether. He smiled briefly to himself at that. It might, it did hurt a great deal for all this to have happened, but he would not let it get to him. That was what she wanted, and he would deny her anything that he could.
She played briefly with his hair again, and he thought that she looked somewhat lost in thought. What she might have to think about did not interest him. Who would be the next one she challenged? Or who challenged her? Misawa was a possibility. He had been rather annoyed by her refusal to duel him earlier.
Or perhaps it would be Asuka? No, he thought she was still too stunned by the discovery of her brother. And while she was a fine duelist, he was not entirely certain that she was capable of handling Camula. For that matter, he doubted that Camula would be interested in her in the first place. The vampire's words about rebuilding a race made that somewhat unlikely. Of course, it would take more than one female, so there was always a chance.
Whoever she dueled next, Ryou hoped that the could somehow get past that Phantom Gate. Even he, with all of his skill and talent, couldn't quite figure out how to do that. Her dark power made it difficult, if not the next thing to impossible. Could anyone break through that darkness? At least, any of those five keyholders who were left?
"I think you've had enough freedom for the moment, my little doll," she said, placing one hand over his forehead. "You'll be freed from that doll all in due time."
Given that leaving the doll shape, should she defeat all the others, would mean quite likely an eternity of being like her, and being with her, Ryou would have preferred staying like that if he had the option. But he said nothing, and in moments, he was once again small enough to hold in the palm of one's hand.
He hated this. There were no words for how much he hated it. He didn't want to be a doll, helpless and immobile. He did not want to have the vile taste of her blood within him, and the one thing he was grateful for at the moment was that he had no more sense of taste. That filth was gone for now.
If he could have, he would have slept. But dolls did nothing of the sort. Dolls neither lived nor died. Dolls did not eat or drink. Dolls stayed only where they were put, chained to the whim of the doll maker.
Dolls, in the end, were powerless.
The End