Serious with mild Ryo angst (because he's got a talent for that). A second experiment unrelated to my first. This one, however, has no guaranteed continuation or finish. Those who have read "Monkey See, Monkey Do" will notice wildly different characterizations, most specifically Kayura. I like this Kayura better, but she's harder to write.
The plot is also completely mad.
Kayura's Fail-Safe, All-Purpose Tiger Trap for Troubled Tiger Men
I.
Ryo wandered aimlessly through the drifting confetti. It fell slowly, brushing against his face and his arms in feather-light touches and catching in his hair and the folds of his clothes. He could see the bright colors of the paper whenever the dying lights flickered.
His shoes didn't make a sound on the hardwood as he shuffled through the falling paper pieces. Neither did the silent, nameless people he pushed past. Everything was all deadened and dark. It seemed foggy too, with the misty corners of his vision showing white with each erratic flash of light.
Even so there was something roaring in his ears. Like a waterfall, the almost sound drowned out anything he might have heard, anything life-like or real. Numbly, he moved his feet, legs like lead weights, through the ghostly crowd.
There was no wind or breeze, the air hanging dead and heavy around him, but still the confetti drifted, held aloft and pushed about by something unfelt. It hadn't always been confetti, he remembered dimly. An overtired mind struggled to push the thoughts through the fog to the surface.
It had been snow. The ground had been grass just beginning to be covered by the icy flakes. And the crowd wrapped in coats and scarves, unlike the glimpses of glittering formal wear that now showed in the lightning flashes.
But it wasn't lightning.
It had been lightning in the snow. Lightning and drifting snowflakes, but no cold felt against his skin. The people dressed in black. It was the cemetery and he'd been attending a funeral with these silent mourners. Funny that he didn't change as his surroundings did. He'd still been wearing an old t-shirt and ratty jeans at someone's wintry last farewell. His cheeks and arms still bore the traceries of blood from before the snow...
...from the glass.
That was the beginning. Something shattering above him, falling down on him in tiny knives that cut into the bare skin along his arms and face, something in the normal dream breaking into what had lead him here, where it could snow broken glass.
He pushed through the phantom people more urgently now, more aware. The light also changed, seeming more regular. A disco ball? There were tables scattered through the misty gloom, an open space in the middle of them. A dance. A school dance.
He headed quickly towards that center but never seemed to approach it. The lack of progress stung, but he didn't despair. This place didn't enthrall him anymore. He couldn't break free, but he knew at least that he was caged.
The confetti hurt.
For one terrifying moment he thought he had fallen back, to the glass. Until he realized the confetti didn't cut; it burned.
There was fire all around him and for the first time he felt the temperature of the place as scorching heat pressed all around him, stealing his air, trying to suffocate him. He panicked.
Then he noticed the cool water that tickled his face. The confetti had not become the fire, it was there in the water spraying from the ceiling sprinklers onto the desks and computers and wall-to-wall carpeting.
An office building. On fire. He turned and raced down the hall away from it, feet pounding on the carpeting as the roaring that blocked his ears and his mind evaporated with a sudden, painful shock. The confusion that had trapped him was gone.
He stumbled and the fire threatened to engulf him, not at all comforting in its embrace, but he caught himself just in time to be hit with a second, more painful realization.
This wasn't a dream. It was real. And he was looking for someone.
He couldn't remember just yet whom it was he sought, but he knew with utmost certainty that it was a matter of life and death.
It could only be one of his friends for him to be so terrified of the outcome. So he ran despite not knowing because he would never – not in a million mind-scrambling confetti-dreams – allow harm to come to one of his own just because of some stupid, momentary confusion – whether it was produced by a mysterious, unknown power or no.
He ripped open the door in front of him violently and stumbled again as his feet hit thick, waist-high grasses instead of carpet and the heat disappeared from his back. His flight no less urgent now, he regained himself and hurried through the field, long, ground-eating strides hindered by the grass.
It was bright now, and both the mist and the confetti – in any form – were gone.
No – a lone green leaf fluttered past, spinning on a wind he could feel. A tree leaf in the middle of a prairie.
He whirled, panicky, to see a single mammoth tree, green and thick with leaves, in the distance to his right. He quickened his pace, dread pressing strongly on him. He was stumbling often now as he struggled to sprint through yellow-green grass that reached his waist.
He fell once. The tree had seemed closer and he had spared one foolish, too-long glance at it instead of his feet. He tripped and tumbled head first into the grass. His vision went gray and dizziness overcame him.
He lay there mindlessly for what seemed an eternity before he came back to himself by sheer force of will. And fear. Fear for his friend who must surely be lying, injured beneath those branches or perhaps trapped in them by some fell creature lying in wait on the ground.
He gave no thought to how he would vanquish such a beast, only trembled with a need to hurry. Would it be Rowen lying injured there? Or Cye? Or Kento or Sage slung across the branches above? He forced himself into a pitiful crawl through the thick, coarse plants until he could manage to stand. Doing so caused a rush of disorienting vertigo and he was momentarily certain he would be gone for a second time.
But it passed and the tree was mercifully close, a mere few yards. He lurched onto the bare dirt underneath its leaves, only to stop in shock and hurt confusion.
Sprawled across the tree roots was Kayura, eyes closed in sleep, clutching the long, winged staff of the Ancients to her chest.
But the rings of the staff were silent and her body was broken, gore splattered across the tree and dirt.
The last of the Ancients' clan was dead.
He woke up with the blood cleaned from his arms and face and missing his shirt. Soft silk sheets wrapped around him, luxurious against bare skin and a pillow propped up his head.
At first, he almost thought he was in a bed, at home safe, but the ground was hard beneath him and the leafy tree branches swayed softly in the breeze above. It was daylight and clear weather, with warm sunlight streaming in shifting tree shadows through the leaves.
He was too sore and tired and thirsty to move, but he tried anyway. As soon as he lifted his head he was hit with dizziness and a pain in his arm that made him gasp. He fell back against the cloth-covered ground, eyes shut tight against the tears that leaked out.
Immediately, there was movement near him. He cracked open reluctant eyes. Kayura's concerned face appeared above him, very much alive and unhurt.
"No, don't move!" she urged, busying herself messing with his pillow, which he now realized was his bunched up shirt, and with the sheets, which must have been a finer, silk robe she had been wearing over the thin, plain robe she wore now. The ancient's staff was nowhere to be seen.
He flushed with embarrassment but couldn't do anything about it. He was completely helpless. How could he be any good to anyone like this? How had he gotten like this? And Kayura –
"No, don't speak either." She pulled her hands from messing with his bed to watch him thoughtfully and with a milder version of the paralyzing confusion he felt. " I don't – How – just how did you get here?" she asked finally. She looked less happy to see her would-be rescuer and more resigned to the new problem he presented.
He flushed red again and suspected that he was crying still. But he was incapable of answering, whether because of his health, his poor understanding of recent events, or her order against it. He turned his head quickly away, regardless of the dizziness and the pain. The dizziness was not as bad as the first time, he noticed, but the pain was exquisite. He flung out his left arm to grip his afflicted right. He could not, no matter how hard he tried, even begin to imagine what had happened to make him feel like this.
Kayura sighed. "You found me didn't you?" she demanded. He didn't have the faintest idea what she meant. And he'd been so worried for someone last night – what if one of his friends was in danger still? He wanted to forget about Kayura and brood about how little he could do to help anyone. Kayura spoke again, more quietly, "That would explain more than it doesn't I suppose..."
She stood and moved away from him trailing a hand against the – clean and bloodless – bark. As she was about to disappear behind the gargantuan trunk, she turned. Frowning at him, she asked again, rhetorically, "How _did_ you get here?" Then she walked out of sight and left him there in misery.
The first sign Cye had that anything was wrong was when he opened Ryo's door that morning and the bed wasn't made. Aggressively wasn't made. The pillow was ripped, spilling stuffing, and flung across the room. The sheets were twisted half on the bed, half off with the comforter crumpled up on the floor, interfering with the movement of the door as Cye sought to open it.
In the midst of this, White Blaze was sleeping a peaceful sleep that from which Cye could not wake him. As he gave up, and stood to survey the room once more, Cye felt a cold shiver of dread travel the length of his spine. Unprovoked, fear hit and he broke out into a cold sweat.
Feeling shamefully paranoid, Cye fled to the safety of his room and the comforting company of a surprised, but immediately concerned Kento.
The tiger was gone by the time Kento was able to convince the smaller ronin to show him what was amiss. Nor did Kento experience the same cold shiver or any similar sense of foreboding, but the state of the room and Cye's anxiety were real enough that he suggested they conduct a search of the house.
Ryo was not there.
However, Kento counseled, this was not enough cause to scream bloody murder just yet. After all, Sage was not home either, Rowen was presently sleeping in a manner much like the tiger's unbreakable slumber, and Mia's whereabouts were anyone's guess.
Still, he admitted, the circumstances _were_ curious, indeed.
When that evening Sage had returned from his kendo practice, Rowen had at length awoken, and Mia had called to report she'd be home from her research excursion the day after next, Kento was forced to admit that all had been explained except for Ryo's absence, the tiger's disappearance, and the disreputable state of his bed.
"I don't understand. Was he supposed to be going somewhere today?" Sage asked calmly.
"It's not exactly unheard of for him to react to stress with property damage. Has he been upset lately?" Rowen observed thoughtfully.
"White Blaze didn't mind it. And he did wake up from his sleeping the sleep of the dead jaunt, didn't he? How else could he have left?" Kento reasoned.
Cye listened and felt guilty and ashamed to have worried them. The danger was over, what could have happened now when they were so certain this time that Talpa was gone, gone, _gone_?
"No, I'm – I'm sorry. Just paranoid I guess," Cye admitted. And he turned back towards the cabinets, intending to hide his embarrassment in the fervor of dinner preparations.
Behind him a shocked silence reigned.
"But he _didn't_ have anyplace to go today. I'm certain. There's no reason for him to have left without so much as a note." Sage confided anxiously.
"The last time he was so stressed as to rip stuff up like that was after Saranbo _tortured_ him. When he ran off to a fight without us!" Rowen cried, horrified.
"This is just too freaking weird! Whether or not it's nothing, let's find him. Who knows what's happened to him?" Kento fretted, shifting from foot to foot as his imagination conjured up the countless horrors his friend and leader could be suffering at the hands of an unknown enemy.
Cye turned slowly, eyes wide with surprise, but also with a heady rush of relief and renewed trust in his magnificent, steady allies. He took a step towards them in eagerness. "Yes!" he cried.
And so the search began.
Ryo woke the second time at night and able to move his head without dizziness or overwhelming pain, though he still cradled the injured arm to his chest. It was very cold outside and the silk kimono offered little warmth. Still, he tugged it up to his neck, which left his feet uncovered, but he noticed gratefully that he had managed to hold on to his shoes.
A flash of apprehension shot out from his hazy memories of yesterday – was it yesterday? – And he was frightened for a moment that it would snow.
Then that thought gave way to confusion. Why would he be afraid of snow? Yesterday, the dream-like snow had caused no harm; so it should _not_ fill him with this unreasoning fear.
But it did.
Willing himself to forget, Ryo studied his resting place as best he could lying down. It must not have been late night or the moon was very bright because his eyes were hardly hampered by the darkness. It was the tree he'd seen, he was reasonably certain of that. The branches dipped nearly to the ground on all sides, thick with emerald leaves, and forming a strange shelter from the yellow grasses. The trunk was gigantic with a base thicker, he thought, than Mia's little red jeep. He stared at the rough bark in awe, following it's darkened silhouette up and up and up, for a moment forgetting anything but the swish of the wind through the leaves.
There was no one under the tree but himself. He was startled that his eyesight was such that he could be certain that shadow there did not conceal a figure, albeit motionless. Kayura was gone, though now that he thought of it, he remembered her disappearing behind the trunk before he'd fallen asleep – at this size it wouldn't be difficult to hide completely behind it.
A snapping twig heralded her approach from the direction opposite the one he'd been looking. He twisted his head around quickly. She had not been under the tree at all, he saw, as she entered from outside, parting the branches as she walked. As she entered the shelter of the tree, she paused, regarding him thoughtfully for a moment, and then moved towards the back of the tree, dismissing him. Perhaps the darkness made it too difficult to see his face easily, eyes open and watching her, or perhaps she just didn't care.
"Wait - " he managed to croak. He wasn't even sure he'd made a sound until she stopped and turned back to him. After a silence, she came and kneeled on the ground by his head. Wordlessly, she offered him water from a plastic Evian bottle, whose presence he was too tired to question. Lying flat out on his back with only one usable arm and wracked with pain at the slightest movement made drinking difficult, but he was glad that Kayura did not offer to help. She took the bottle back when he had drunk his fill after allowing a generous amount to escape, trickling down his neck and making him colder.
Screwing the bottle cap on, she sighed and watched the gently swaying branches and the glimpses of the dark prairie beyond. Ryo cleared his throat painfully.
"W-what happened?" he asked softly.
Kayura jumped as if she'd forgotten him. Catching his eyes with her own intense gaze, she considered her answer carefully.
"Six days ago, I was attacked. Lacking an adequate defense, I fled. Through various means and several strange happenings, lucky or unlucky, I came here. You followed four days ago. I don't know how. Not easily, I gather."
"Four days!" Ryo shot upright, or tried. Pain threw him back to the ground with a pitiful moan. Kayura reached out a comforting hand to his shoulder. Her expression was mildly sympathetic but Ryo was not mollified.
"Four days – I can't – nobody knows where I am! _I_ don't know where I am! If – they could be in trouble or hurt or...!" His protests died away as the hopelessness of it overwhelmed him. He was too tired to cope with this.
Kayura sighed. Again. "I doubt your friends are hurt. You, however, are. Neither you nor your Ronins were attacked were they? Have you also encountered a new enemy?"
Ryo shook his head. "I don't remember."
"Then I don't understand how you have become so frantic. Only I am threatened. Not even the other warlords noticed a danger."
Ryo was struck again with a sudden urgency, this time brought on by her obvious dismissal of his anxiety as groundless worry. "No!" he cried. "I _know_ there's something wrong."
She frowned. "You 'know'? Ryo, this danger is mine alone! Your friends are not a part of it. _You_ are not a part of it. Go home." The order was ridiculous, of course. He couldn't even stand much less find his way home from a place he didn't even know.
Ryo insisted helplessly. "No, they are. I know they are." To give in would leave his friends unprotected. So he could not do it, even though he was much too tired to argue with her any longer. It was to hard to even _think_.
Kayura shook her long, free hair irritably. "Fine. It is true that I still do not know how you came to be here or how you were injured. So – as you say. When you can walk, we will both seek this enemy out."
As Ryo relaxed in the wash of welcome relief, he barely noticed as he once again slipped away from conscious thought.