Sequel to "The Samurai, the Witch and the Raven".
I still don't own Samurai Jack or Aku, however the other characters of this fic are still mine. Enjoy!
As the overlord Aku was sitting on his throne, he was spying on his mortal enemy and trying to think of new ways to torture or kill him. In other words, it was just a normal day in the life of the Shape-Shifting Master of Darkness.
One of his four-fingered hands was slowly taping the armrest of his seat while the other grabbed a nearby popcorn bowl which had his own shape printed on it and poured its entire content in the demon's mouth.
It didn't take long for Aku to remember why he hadn't eaten this particular kind of snacks in such a long time : the pieces of popcorn kernels stuck between his teeth were even more annoying than the samurai.
As he was about to get his new floss in order to solve the problem, the image on the wall in front of him abruptly turned into statics.
"Are you broken AGAIN?!" the Shogun of Sorrow shouted.
He was now standing up and hitting the wall with his fist.
He tried to view several other locations and the image worked just fine ; however, anytime he would attempt to get back to whatever troubles the samurai had gotten himself into, the statics would return.
The very first time this had occurred was some years ago when the very same human fool was walking through a jungle. Now Aku's prying eye was malfunctioning for the second time in thousands of years.
"SHOW ME THE FOOL!"
Shouting at it didn't seem to make it work any better.
Whatever was disturbing Aku's magic and getting on his nerves shall be destroyed.
A few hours earlier, the duchess was awoken by screaming coming from the woman lying next to her in bed ; she didn't waste any time and did her best to wake her up from her nightmare.
It didn't take long for the red-haired woman to open her eyes, see that her partner was here with her and realise what she just saw was happily not real. Pulling the covers away and sitting up, she wrapped her arms around the blonde and clutched her tightly.
"It's ok mon amour, I'm here", the duchess soothed the witch, hugging her back and giving her a reassuring kiss on her forehead. "It was just a nightmare. Everything's fine."
For the first time in what felt like forever, the love of her life was sobbing.
"You hadn't had a nightmare in a while… are you alright?"
"It… it was different this time", the redhead replied when she finally could speak again.
"How so?"
"He wanted to kill you… so I tried to defend you, but… he – he turned his hand into a giant spear and impaled us both. And he was laughing the whole time… That laugh just wouldn't stop…"
The blonde parted from the witch for one second to open the drawer of her bedside table and grab something inside it.
"Oh darling, you know me so well", the witch smiled as the duchess opened a box of her favourite chocolates and fed her a couple of them.
The witch's lover would never understand how or why, as she wasn't fond of chocolate herself, however it never failed to make the woman she loved feel better, no matter what. Therefore she had bought and hidden this box a while ago just in case.
"You're amazing" the duchess' partner stated after swallowing a mouthful of chocolaty goodness.
"What else is new?" Claire laughed.
The witch smiled and nodded in agreement, then took a look at the custom-made alarm clock on her own bedside table. The glowing numbers showed 04:04.
"Sleep not found", she mumbled.
"Chérie, the error 404 doesn't exist anymore", the duchess reminded her.
The redhead ran her hand through her partner's short blonde locks, happy to see her alive and well after the nightmare she just went through. As she was about to kiss her, a pale hand gently stopped her.
"Darling, what did I tell you about chocolaty kisses?" the blonde reminded her partner before reaching for the drawer once more in order to take a small unlabeled water bottle. She then opened it and gave it to the witch, who quickly emptied it before resuming what she was doing before the little interruption.
Here, in the duchess' embrace, she felt safe. They both had worked very hard over the last four years so she could feel safe again, and it was starting to pay off.
He couldn't see them here. He couldn't find her. Who knows, maybe he had even forgotten all about her by now. She wished she could forget too, but some scars never fully fade away.
Rumours of two duchesses working on time travel had led Samurai Jack to a village far away from any big cities in the region. He had missed so many opportunities to go back home over the years and yet he couldn't help but keep his hopes up, no matter how many times said hopes were crushed.
It wasn't like he could give up anyway : only him was able to accomplish the mission he was given centuries ago.
As he was walking through the empty street, the few stores there were in this village opened one by one. At the other end of the street, a tall woman with short blonde hair wearing a white shirt and cream trousers was standing in front of one of those stores, most likely waiting for it to open as well. The samurai couldn't see her face, as she had her back turned to him, and yet she looked familiar.
Out of boredom maybe, she started singing :
"Délivre-moi du temps, conduis-moi hors du temps
Délivre-moi, délivre-moi, conduis-moi hors du temps"
Jack was now certain of this woman's identity, as he had heard this voice sing in this language before.
She continued the song as the warrior approached her :
"Ramène-moi ailleurs, inverse le courant
Ramène-moi en arrière, je veux changer d'horizon"
She abruptly stopped when she heard footsteps behind her ; she turned around to see who was there.
"Jack? It's so good to see you again! It's been about four years!"
"It's always good to reunite with a friend."
The store opened, the duchess went inside and then came back with a large paper bag in her hands.
"Come with me", she told Jack, "my home is this way. You'll always be welcome here."
"Actually, I was looking for -"
"I know. We're also looking for it."
To be fair, everyone knew of the samurai's quest to go back to the past by now.
He followed the blonde to her castle. Even though the whole building was made of clear-coloured stone, some parts of it were worn out by centuries of exposition to the elements while other parts looked more recent ; the small castle must have been partially rebuilt at some point.
The duchess produced a rectangular device with a button on it from her pocket and pressed the button. Not even a second later, the door opened, allowing them to enter.
Inside, both living and breathing people and brooms animated by magic were making sure everything remained clean.
Claire stopped and then walked straight to one of the maids, a purple-skinned person wearing one these devices people in this future apparently used to listen to music.
"Excuse me?" she said.
The maid took the device off her head and asked :
"Is there something wrong, m'am?"
"You're new here, right?"
The employee nodded.
"They should have informed you we don't use Aku Corp products here", the duchess explained, pointing at the device.
The maid's three eyes blinked.
"But… what else do you want me to use?"
"Go to the second floor, you'll be given headphones that don't make you look like Aku."
The purple-skinned person looked down at the headphones in her hand.
"What do you m– Oh, wait, I see it now! I never noticed before!"
"Believe me, once you start noticing these things you just can't unsee them."
The maid nodded and left the room, examining the decorations on the headphones, most likely wondering how she didn't notice how much they looked like the horns of the Deliverer of Darkness.
"It's insane the number of things that look like him", the duchess explained to Jack once her employee was out of earshot. "We had to create our own brand of stuff. And sometimes I still have to buy Aku Corp products because nothing else is available, so I modify them to remove his image."
"I guess your friend doesn't want to see-", the warrior started.
"She's my wife now."
"I beg your pardon?"
"We're married", Claire told him, showing the gold ring on her finger. "We wanted to invite you to our wedding, we really did, but you don't have a location code or phone or any way to contact you, so…"
"I… I see. As I was saying, I understand why your, hum, wife and yourself would want to get rid of Aku's image."
"You're the only one who does…"
Note : The song the duchess sings is Délivre-moi by French band Atlantys. Turns out they are so obscure I couldn't find a decent studio version of it on youtube. If you want to hear it, ask me, I'll send it to you.