Ashes to Ashes
CHAPTER 1: AND DUST TO DUST
AN: Dun. Duh duh dun. Duhn duhn duuuuun. Here, please accept the new story nobody asked for as a peace offering! (Please don't kill me?) So, yeah. I hit the dreaded writer's block and I am now stuck in an endless loop of wanting to just publish more and more stories until I go back and get inspiration for another chapter. I'm really sorry! So, this one is based off the popular Kaito song Ashes to Ashes, if that wasn't obvious, and there is major angst starting off, so be warned! Also, there's a small part involving threats and beating a wall to death, in case you'd rather not read that violent junk. Now that I (think) I've covered everything, please enjoy this story that sprouted from the darker corners of my writer's brain!
Disclaimer: Ashes to Ashes belongs to its respective owner(s) as do Kaito and the other Vocaloids. I only own this dark and twisted concoction of gibberish...
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Hai wa hai ni… chiri wa chiri ni…
The dark has become a friend, the night an ally. When shadows chase my lone form, moving under the moonlight, they become safe, a sweet comfort. Sometimes, however, just like the ever changing human will, even my safe haven becomes a boiling volcano ready to burst. My heart ached, not without reason, as the footsteps below approached. I had yet to identify why my chest hurt so whenever a human drew near, but I could not care less, especially when the men who screamed their curses and shouted their demeaning ramblings arrived, again, on my front porch. This was - what, the third visit this week? And from the same village, no less?
"Honestly, why tonight? Don't they have a care for the blizzard on the way?" I sighed, quirking one eyebrow upwards. I had heard it was a sign of sarcastic annoyance, and it quickly became a beloved habit of mine. I was often annoyed and sarcastic. Or so I've heard. The pounding intensified, fog rolling away like the traitor it was. How these stupid humans had found my castle, I had no idea, and I didn't care. Vampire hunts have become increasingly more popular, and whereas before I had free roam of the night, I risked being discovered should I venture out, and thus I was confined, chained indoors, careful to not leave my own home for weeks at a time. They'd never found me before as of twelve years ago, and I was quite skilled at hiding my home beneath the fog, but now that the winter winds had started arriving more frequently, it was difficult to manipulate it as I typically do during the humid summertime.
Several men were screaming at me from where they rammed my door five floors down, but I couldn't hear them from behind the safety of the thick stained glass I leaned against. I couldn't care less why they were here, what they were said to me, but they were disturbing my time of solitude with their insufferable banging against the door. I wasn't worried that they would break in, since my castle was heavily protected with a spell of my own design, but they certainly were annoying. It was difficult to practice my violin when the ramming booms kept throwing me off with their inconsistent beats. Finally, I'd had enough.
I pushed open the windows I was watching out of, instantly drawing their attention. The screaming died down to indecisive muttering. That usually meant they were ready to back down, as they, I'm sure, have never seen my face before now, but I didn't care either way. I drew in a deep breath and let my voice drift down to them in a song; it was an enchanted melody, and would send them away with no memory of where they had gone within the past three hours.
"Mu ~ ge ~ n, ka ~ga ~ mi, me ~ gu ~ ru," I sang, glaring them down. Though it had been quite some time since I'd seen myself in a mirror, I had been told that my blue eyes were bright, piercing, intimidating. The men from the village had long since fallen under my spell, their gazes blank and bodies drooping. The moment I reached the complex section of the song to sing alone, they turned and wandered away, back to the village. I continued on even after I lost sight of them; the spell would break if it wasn't finished. Once the last note faded away into the night I returned to the music room, but I no longer felt like continuing with the violin; perhaps the drain from using such a powerful spell had put me in a quiet mood.
"Sir? I - is everything all right?" A quiet voice squeaked from the doorway. The swelling waves of irritation that had been calmed once the men had left were back in full blast, crashing against the rocks of my conscience, grating on every nerve with their razor sharp pricks of agitation.
"Not now, Piko," I snarled. I wasn't in the mood for him and his timid, optimistic nature. If he broached that subject again…
"Um, sir, was there a female among the group tonight?" Piko ventured shyly. I knew he meant no harm, he was merely curious, but because I was already irritated, I couldn't stop the harsh flow of words that flowed forth, edged with the biting growl that was gnawing at my throat.
"Piko, you speak one more word on that matter, and I pledge to personally rip your tongue right out of your mouth and send you to dip candles for my castle with it dangling on a string before you for all eternity!" I thundered. The candles blew out as one, and as the snow from the predicted blizzard began pummeling down and swirling madly outside with a ferocious howl, the room fell into semi darkness, sending evil shadows dancing on the walls that rose high above us both. I had partially turned my head to scowl at the servant, and I witnessed the trembling wisp of a white haired white skinned boy flee the open doorway, his light footsteps hurriedly making for the stairs to his room. Left alone with nothing but a violin and my own bad temper, I sent my tightly curled fist into the stone wall nearest my location with a sharp agonized cry, focusing on venting every last ounce of frustration in that single action. It... Didn't quite work as well as I had hoped. I lowered my head, my chin resting on my chest, leaving my fist pinned to the cracked stone without hardly a passing thought to the shimmering trails of dark red blood seeping down the wall and dripping to the floor.
Piko was a good worker, and as of the last century, one of the only friends I had left in the world. He was timid but kind, depressing but hopeful. He didn't deserve to be treated in the way that I was prone to treating him, always snapping and screaming and occasionally throwing what happened to be nearby at him even as he ducked for cover or hid his almost always trembling form behind anything sturdy enough to block my commonly mindless raging attacks. I let another wrenching cry loose from my already sore throat, striking the stone again and relishing the jolting pain that pleaded with me to stop the harsh assault. I didn't give in so easily to mortality's demands and began striking the stone over and over, very pointedly ignoring the agony and the red splatters that continually crept up the walls. I deserved the pain - it could only repay a fraction of what Piko must have endured these hundred years with only I and the guard to speak of. I drew back for what had to be upwards of my fiftieth punch when a disturbingly warm hand gently reached out and clasped onto my wrist, drawing my attention away from the massacre I was inflicting on the beaten wall and stopping my needless inflictions.
"Kaito, it's okay, just breathe," the deep and rich tones of Gakupo soothed. I hadn't quite realized how heavily I was breathing, how horridly my knuckles ached, or even the chilling tears that had been streaming down my face for so long that a puddle had formed at my feet.
"G - Gakupo," I yelped, scrubbing furiously at my eyes, trying to erase the evidence of my temporary weakness. It was too late to pretend, and I knew it. Gakupo had the cursed ability to sense whenever I needed help, even if I didn't want it. "Do as I do. In, hold, out, repeat." I did as he said, internally grumbling the entire time. Gakupo was infuriatingly resilient to my temper and mood swings and rather indifferent to my pessimistic hopelessness, simply because he was too good at understanding where my anxiety stemmed from and the best way to go about fixing it. I hated him for it, but I'd be lost without him, swallowed by blind rage and fear and forever at the bottom in a sinking black abyss of nothingness.
"I heard Piko return to his room in tears again," Gakupo commented, soothingly pulling me close and wrapping me in his warm arms. I grabbed him back. Gakupo was my closest friend. He was the only one allowed to witness me in such a miserable state, and as I registered the words he'd said, I felt more tears welling in my eyes. It was okay to cry a tiny while longer... right? "What happened this time?" He asked. I immediately buried my face into the folds of his plum colored kimono, bursting into fresh sobbing.
"I - I don't understand!" I cried. "W - why?! W - why am I such a m - monster?! No woman will ever fall in love with me, t - the curse will n - never be broken, and all I ever do is d - drive the only f - friends I have left away! W - what's left for me in this world, Gakupo?! I'm becoming even m - more of a m - monster each passing day, a - and soon there won't be anything l - left of me!" Gakupo raised one hand to press my head closer to himself, and over the sounds of my wailing, I heard his sigh loud and clear.
"Oh, Kaito, you shouldn't despair so - there's a woman out there just waiting to fall in love with you. Wait a while longer."
"But how long?" I whimpered pathetically, sinking to my knees and dragging my long haired friend with. "I've been waiting for over a hundred years, how much longer?" His hold on me strengthened.
"Don't give it another thought," he reprimanded calmly. "If you can no longer leave this place out of fear of death, then as your loyal servant it is my duty to do what you cannot. I shall go and find a lady worthy of my master. Leave it to me, you will have your wife before the year of next has ended." I wasn't certain if he heard my last words to him before he leapt out the window and into the powdery snow below, but somehow I knew that he had heard me even if not with words.
"Thank you, Gakupo. I'm glad I have you - please, please help me, help our kingdom. You're our only hope."
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"Brr! Man, that blizzard came out of nowhere the other night, huh?" Hatsune Miku commented to her friend as they worked to clear their neighboring front walks of three feet of new snow, having fallen after the disastrous five feet from the blizzard. Hanako Meiko swept her short auburn bangs aside, feeling a pang of pity for Miku who was constantly wringing out her ground sweeping pigtails and blowing her longer bangs out of her eyes. Both were fruitless endeavours, however, as the sea colored tails would drag along the snow the moment she let go and the wooly hat covering her ears also kept her bangs trapped to keep hanging in her eyes.
The girl was in desperate need of a haircut, but she refused, claiming that if having long hair kept her warm in a place that was almost always chilly at all times of the year, then she'd put up with the inconvenience. So Meiko merely shrugged and returned to her shoveling, ignoring the huffs of irritation as Miku concentrated more on keeping her long hair dry and out of the way than her work, getting nothing done but aggravating herself in the process. They had been stuck inside since the blizzard due to the mass of thick frozen flakes, up until some of the snow melted that very morning, but there was still a fair amount left because of the low temperatures, and thus Miku was doomed to either suffer her wet hair or put a little back in her work to be finished and return indoors for some hot cocoa.
Meiko had just finished her tedious chore (while Miku tugged helplessly at her hair still with several more feet to shovel) and was setting her tool down when their good friend from further down the road, Megurine Luka, came hurrying towards them, waving her arms frantically above her head. She appeared distressed, and so Meiko instantly dropped her shovel and ran towards her, calling out "what's wrong?" Luka paused to catch her breath, her silky sakura hued locks draping over her shoulders in a waterfall of hair.
"T - there's a man, out by the woods, he needs help!" Luka gasped out, pointing back the way she'd come. That was serious...but the village doctors, Meiko's parents, were currently busy with another medical case... Meiko made a snap decision.
"Miku! Tell my mother and father that I've gone for a medical emergency!" She called to the other girl. She retrieved her family's first aid kit that hung above the inside of their front door and followed after Luka, leaving behind a confused Miku still standing in the mounds of snow. "What's wrong with him?" Meiko attempted sounding professional. She was still new to the medical field, preparing to take over the family business, but in truth she was scared. What if it was too serious for her to handle alone? What if she forgot what to do? What if she froze during the procedure and cost the man his life?
"I don't know, I only found him in the snow a few minutes ago when I was taking my morning walk and he was just lying there, a - and he was so cold!" Luka exclaimed, leaping through the piles of powdery fluff as elegantly as a gazelle while Meiko huffed and puffed and tramped behind her like a lumbering elephant. She was used to being skilled with her hands, not her feet, while the graceful blue eyed beauty was skilled all around. Meiko was infinitely relieved when Luka's flowing hair swept to a stop with her, and it was simple enough to discover the half buried purple streak at the start of a hiking trail. THE trail. As in the haunted, taboo, forbidden trail. Meiko cast a scathing look Luka's way, and those big blue eyes blinked in innocent confusion.
"Luka, whatever possessed you to take this path? Everybody knows that it's dangerous!" Meiko scolded. Honestly, did she have to play big sister to everyone in the village? It was off limits for a reason; the trees were rotted and ready to collapse, the animals were harmful, there were mysterious sinkholes, and some claimed it was such a deadly path because it was haunted by the ghosts of a small kingdom that had died out over two centuries ago. Meiko, however, didn't hold to such nonsense, but despite the ghost stories, the path was still unsafe, and Luka shouldn't have gone near it by herself to begin with. Meiko began running her hands over the man to find the problem while Luka crossed her arms and pouted.
"But if I hadn't, I wouldn't have found him!" Luka defended. "Besides, I was growing bored of all the other paths, I just wanted a change of scenery. That's all." Meiko swiftly discerned what the problem was - a textbook case of minor exhaustion and, consequently, slight frostbite.
"Luka, you're pretty strong, right? I need you to help me carry him back, he needs help!" Meiko insisted. Luka obligingly assisted her, grabbing the oddly dressed man in her arms, and slowly and steadily, they carried him back to the village.
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AN: Just so you know, the extra century tagged on at the end was very intentional. There is a point to that. So ...yes, the book does seem to be some mix of fluff and a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but trust me, neither of those are where I'm heading with this tale. It was named after Kaito's popular Ashes to Ashes song, and it will become my own interpretation of how the story for the video played out. Again, I'm sorry if I've left you all hanging on my other stories, but I'm working on them, and figured that until I completed a new chapter, I'd round out my five story count. Yeah, yeah, you've heard that excuse before, but writer's block is a miserable thing. Anyway, thank you for reading, and I should have a new chapter for one of my others soon! I hope you enjoyed, please review if you did!