INVERTED by Kondoru
Standard Disclaimers
Thanks to JP for betaing
Today I was in the Japanese store buying sweets, and I said `Arigato` to the shopkeeper...He gave such a big wide grin...
Lets see if you can make someone grin that wide tomorrow...
But for tonight, I'll make someone miserable...Ah, there you are, Karasu....
Karasu had been forcibly transported back to Lacryma.
Unfortunately, he was holding Haruka at the time.
He had catapulted out of the chute, and come to rest against the pipeline winch with a back jarring thump.
The impact had jarred his umbilical plug free; something he had always been warned would end in his death, even if in his own reality.
But Karasu had remained alive, though rather sore. He had fallen to the floor, blood spouting everywhere. (And where had `that` come from? He always thought his veins were now filled with pure reizu.)
But he had not relinquished his grip upon a very surprised Haruka.
Dragon soldiers beat upon him with their staffs, and Karasu shielded her with his body.
It had taken half a dozen of his inferiors grabbing at limbs and jabbing hard at sensitive places to get him to give her up.
But Haruka was not struck, merely picked up like a puppy by her T-shirt, (now covered in his blood)
That was the last of her he saw before someone brought a quarterstaff down smartly upon his head.
Karasu was woken up by someone urinating in his face.
But there was no one there; he realised it was his own piss.
He was upside down.
Not that this mattered much to Karasu, who tended to regard traditional physics as guidelines rather than unbreakable laws.
But it boded ill for his future.
It meant the Rulers of Lacryma were really, really unhappy with him.
He tried to move, but could not. Karasu cast about with his senses. He was held in an inverted position by a force field. He couldn't move, nor could he teleport himself upright. Karasu groaned. He felt drained. Evidently he was not connected to the reizu pipeline. (And by the ache and smell of blood from his right umbilical, needed medical attention there.)
"Haruka" he muttered. He wasn't so worried for himself. (In spite of his indignified position.)
But fate had played right into the hands of the plotting Rulers of Lacryma.
He had brought them the Dragon Torc.
The outer door slid back; he was treated to an upside down view of his commander's boots.
"Where is she?" Groaned Karasu.
"That girl who is an illusion?"
"You know. Haruka."
"Illusion that she is, she's been handed over to the Lady Amamiku."
Karasu cursed inwardly. He knew what that would mean.
Now Amamiku would have `another Haruka for her `collection` Amamiku was such a manipulating bitch. He idly wondered why he had played along with her games for so many years.
Karasu groaned again, "if she's an illusion, why are you all so interested in her?"
"She's a projection of the Dragon Torc …This is what it does in order to look harmless."
"She's Haruka!" Shouted Karasu.
Kuina sadistically thumbed the neural pain inducer. Karasu screamed.
"You're not in a position to argue with me. Enough of fussing over an illusion."
"She's no illusion." Karasu found his voice again.
Pain coursed though his body again.
Kuina shook his bereted head "No, I have a few questions and I want answers…like right now."
"Fire away." Replied Karasu "I'm just hanging around."
Kuina shook his head. "Joke in your own time, Karasu. I trusted you with this mission…But you kept on kicking off on your own."
"You told me to go find the Dragon Torc. I did land a little off coordinates too."
"You were born off coordinates, Karasu," Kuina told him.
"I found the Dragon Torc." Karasu reminded his leader quite unnecessarily.
"Yes, it's now safe in Lady Amanmikus custody."
Karasu shook his head angrily, safe, he was sure; right up to the minute Amamiku decided to use it.
He hoped this Haruka would not be as easily strung along as his own would.
"I'm also interested in Isuka." Kuina changed tack.
"Isuka?"
"Your memory's failing you. Karasu. You know, Isuka, big burly guy with piggy eyes and cornrowed hair? Your fellow Dragon Knight? The guy you trained with and swore to protect as if he was your brother? Do `you` know what became of him?"
Karasu was lost in thought.
"Well, anyway, according to our records (Yes, Karasu, we `do` keep an eye on the antics of you chumps. I know all about your fights with Atori. I do) He's dead." Kuina paused for effect. "Dead, not due to pipeline failure or incompatibility with the destination Reality, nor even randomly flung into some remote dimension." Kuina shook his head sadly. "He's dead due to a massive energy blast."
Karasu remained silent.
"The sort of blast that only a Dragon Knight could deliver…And it has your Reizu prints all over it."
Tears fell from Karasus eyes, "I...I killed him."
"Yes. You. Killed. Him." Kuina punctuated every word with taps on the neural pain inducer.
"Why? Karasu? Why?"
Karasu had nothing to say to that. Kuina cheered him up with the neural pain inducer.
When his victim had stopped screaming Kuina said "Have you anything to say for yourself?"
"He attacked first."
"No good Defence, my friend."
"Atori told him to."
"Don't you bring Atori into it" Kuina paused. "And `just` what has happened to Tobi and Atori?"
"I don't know." Replied Karasu miserably.
"I don't know either." Kuina kicked his heels. "What I `do` know is that their pipelines have been disconnected…. Both of them."
"Disconnected?" Said Karasu, unbelievingly.
"Yes, disconnected. You know, when I give you a lecture on proper conduct of a Dragon Knight when visiting another Reality? (Did you bother to even listen, you idiot, or were you sleeping with your eyes open?) What do I say?" He paused, fiddling with the controls of the device, but not giving Karasu another jolt.
Karasu took the hint. "Don't cause a Paradox and Don't disconnect your pipeline."
"Good! Perhaps that's enough to let me reduce your punishment just a teeny little bit..." Kuina agreed. "Then that means `Both` Atori and Tobi have Disobeyed Orders and Betrayed Lacryma. I mean Atori's got the sanity of a raccoon…when you catch him without his mask, and Tobi…I wonder about Tobi, he's been implanted with so much computer junk he's practically a machine himself, though I admit, your average PC doesn't skive off for a rat-on-a-stick or fill the bathroom with half empty bottles of purple hair dye."
Karasu, upside down as he was, nodded in agreement. Sometimes he wondered about Tobi, though sometimes he wondered about `everyone`.
"I suppose its `possible` for a Dragon knight to disconnect his comrade's plug…leave them stranded in a hostile dimension?" Speculated Kuina. "Atori might slip his leash; heaven knows he's unstable enough…But Tobi, dear little Tobi, who is the Knights quantum expert and general hair-braiding freak? I somehow can't see him turning traitor."
Karasu nodded.
"So which of you black hearted bastards unplugged Tobi?"
Karasu said nothing. Protestations of Innocence would do him no good here.
Kuina gave him another jolt, the biggest yet. Karasu writhed in spite of the restraining force field. "You filthy degenerate! Do you realise how important Tobi was? He was the one who could be sent in to get a fix and assess the quantum state of a Reality!!! The rest of you were just louts sent to protect him while he did his job!" He whacked Karasu again, hitting his free fist against the force field door to the cell, which exploded in a flare up of energy.
"What's going to become of Tobi now? You know what you were told."
"He will fade away if he cannot become compatible with the Reality he is in." Karasu told Kuina, earning himself another hefty dose of pain.
"Exactly. Millions of credits down the pan."
"Is that all he means to you?" Asked Karasu harshly. "Cold hard cash?"
"Tobi is my `friend` Atori is my `friend` Isuka was my `friend`" Kuina thumbed the button every time he used the word friend. "I am no longer `friends` with `you` You're an ugly hostile faced dickhead who has no friends."
"I have Haruka." Karasu was adamant.
Kuina was practically hopping in rage; he thumbed the neural pain inducer several times before he could talk. "I keep on `telling` you, that Haruka is not your Haruka. She's just an illusion, cant you get that into your thick head?"
"I know what's real." Karasu braced himself for the next jolt.
A big one. "No, I think you're delusional." Kuina growled. "But, you can stay that way. Its Tobi and Atori whom I'm worried about. Now the both of them are cut off in a Hostile Reality."
"It's not a bad place." Karasu was a little sorry for Kuina.
"It will be the death of them."
"Oh, I think Tobi will adapt." There was no humour in Karasus laugh, "and Atori too, he's the hardest son of a bitch I know."
"Yes, they will end up scavenging in dustbins for food." Griped Kuina, wincing a little at the dishonourable mental image.
"Then they will get a square meal for once in their miserable lives. You've been there…I don't think it's a bad place, to live…or die in."
"So you think that Tobi and Atori are just skiving off. Do you?"
Karasu sneered. "Yes. I think Atoris playing truant…He certainly messed me about a lot these past few missions. Now there's someone who isn't on the ball."
Kuina paused. He nodded. "Yes, Atoris the one to fly the coop if any one of you is."
"And as for Tobi…"
They all knew of the two mismatched Dragon Knights deep friendship.
"Tobis out playing with his pal Atori. When Atori loses interest or tires…. If you really wanted them back, you have the ability to retrieve them, don't you?"
Kuina scowled, he gave his erring Knight a series of hefty jolts with the inducer. "Don't you dare say that!"
"I'm not saying anything to that!"
"Bastard!" Snarled Kuina, not liking this train of thought at all.
"If it's anything to you, yes, I think Tobi could compute a route back! He's done so in simulations!" Karasu nodded.
"But he doesn't have the energy in him to jump back."
"What about a Reizu Convergence Point?" Karasu couldn't see his tormentor's face, but he could just visualise him going pale.
"I was thinking, if that particular Reality is as unstable as Tobi said…We all heard him, didn't we? There will be a way of getting Reizu."
"Who told you this?" Kuina was fuming.
"Can you guess?"
"Yes, I can guess. Some small, dark skinned squab with a perchant for purple hair dye and probably the biggest computer implanted into a living body, Quantum altered or no?"
"Yes, It was Tobi." Karasu smiled wryly. "And Yes, I think Tobi knows how to survive for as long as he pleases in that Reality, he can keep others alive too, And not only that, he can return to Lacryma whenever he fancies."
Kuina was silent, lost in thought. He knew that Tobi spoke a lot in private to Lacrymas mainframe, but hadn't realised just the nature of what was going on.
Karasu gave a slight giggle. "You thought you had your birds nicely hooded and leashed? Didn't you? Its not so. We can fly free. We can travel the dimensions as we please."
"And reduce the multiverse to complete entropy. Tobi isn't responsible…And to think it was Atori I feared…" Kuina growled.
Karasu gave a fey smile. "It's the quiet one you have to watch out for. Atoris a convenient screen for Tobis plots."
Kuina tried another tack. "The Rulers say it takes just one, bird to retrieve the Dragon Torc, just one."
"And that's yours truly." Karasu was carefree…at least for himself.
He was desperately worried for Haruka
"So what is my reward? Mmmm? A Big, tasty, Squig??"
"You're a squig, Karasu, the sort that you step upon." Kuina told him bluntly "No, there will be no reward for you." He brought up his computer and began to read from a document. "The Rulers have charged you with disobeying orders, murder, disconnecting another's pipeline and high treason."
"And I take it my punishment involves being hung upside down. That's very degrading, you know." Karasu shook his head in sadness.
"No, this is just the beginning; you're under sentence of death."
Karasu laughed, he would have spat, but his mouth was so dry. "I thought you were going to exile me."
"Don't be an ass!" Laughed Kuina.
"To Shangrila, I mean."
"I decided to be lenient."
"Why thank you, boss." Said Karasu modestly.
"No, it's going to be a long painful death."
"That's better than putting up with Noeins jokes…Man, that maniac has a warped sense of humour!"
"Not as warped as yours…Id see to it you would be exiled to Shangrila…. If I thought you could trash the place." Kuina gave a spiteful little jab. "But I think your too incompetent…and untrustworthy."
"Humph" was all Karasu could say to that.
"Fukuro and Kosagi are taking bets on just how many days you will live."
Of course it would be like his best friends to play such a game. Kosagi had some sort of feelings for him, that Karasu knew, but he had always rebuffed them. Haruka was his first and last love. Fukuro, well, the smiling dude was his best friend…Once.
"I think you will find I'm made of stern stuff."
Kuina gave a bitter smile. "I hope so, for my bets on the longest time." He gave a barking laugh "I'll have you begging for mercy at the end."
"Nothing doing."
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"I'm sooo weakkk…."
There is a clatter of a dustbin and a rummaging sound.
"Quit it, Atori."