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Chapter 2: Demonic Whispers

Kaoru stood with her head high like a statue of a goddess in the middle of the room. The demon had not moved but to slide the door shut behind her, and she could feel his eyes moving over her back. Something frightening slipped into the pit of her stomach, and she swallowed over the bile. Angered by her anxiety, she ground her teeth and spoke into the silence. From what she understood about this demon he was possessive of his prey. If she coaxed him enough he might burn the village to the ground, or at the least kill her uncle.

"I have been instructed to inform you that I am unhurt and unspoiled. No man has touched me… at least since yesterday." The last few words spit from her mouth in disgust, and Kaoru's hands clenched. "Also, it seems my uncle feels it necessary to give you his express permission to do with me as you will. He does not need anything in return." The condescending tone she took was spoken over her shoulder mockingly, and then she leveled her chin once more and waited. She was not disappointed by his reaction.

Rage welled like a bubbling spring from the figure behind her, and she caught her weight with a small, lurching step as the force of his ki burst into life. She had guessed he would be easily offended by such brashness coming from one of his victims. By making it sound as if her uncle had presumed he needed to give the demon permission was a grave insult. Though her uncle had indeed said such things to her, he had only been trying to frighten her, and he had most certainly not asked her to repeat them.

Almost expectantly she waited for him to lash out. Soon he would strike her to the ground and press the last breath of life from her still warm lips. Braced for the fierceness of his blow, she jerked when his roughly calloused fingers yanked on the collar of her kimono. The silk cloth slid only a mere inch or two before it stilled, but the scrape of his skin on hers did not disappear. Instead his grip pinched her neck, and the dull sting of an old bite mark informed her of what his attention was focused on. Kaoru's brow furrowed, and she wondered about this creature's curiosity over such a trivial thing. She had received many bruises, though only a few from this type of torment, and she could scarcely imagine her body without them. At least, not anymore.

This particular one had been put on her by a man who had taken a rather obsessive interest in her within the last year. His attentions had been the first in such a way, and Kaoru knew it was because she had just then turned fifteen. At a woman's age she was now in fear of receiving special treatment from any man who wished. After spending so much of her life trying to make herself undesirable Kaoru had been angered by his increasing insistence to find her at odd hours of the day. Though she was now sixteen, she was able to say that he had only succeeded in his intentions a few times. During any other attempt she had either hidden herself away for days on end, uncaring of the beating she would acquire when she did reappear, or had simply fended him off with a well-aimed blow to the back of his head.

Four days earlier he had attacked her without warning, and she now wore the traces of his touch on her skin. Somewhere in her mind she had recognized the frantic and mad light in his eyes, and had known that it was the reason her own counterattacks had been unsuccessful. As always she had felt sickened and angry afterwards, and had curled up helplessly where he had left her. If she had known, though, that his attentions would bring about this kind of fury from her demon executioner then she would have instead felt relief that he had marked her in such an open place.

Swallowing again, Kaoru nervously grasped at the ends of her long sleeves. Revenge was almost within her grasp, even here at the end. Could she pull this off well enough to damn them all? "I promise you, my lord, that the actions that caused that bruise did not happened today, if that is what you are angered by." Kaoru indicated the mark of his scrutiny with a shaky hand, and bit her lip when her fingers brushed lightly against his. "I was raped four days ago… but I have not been touched in such a way since." Harshly her throat tightened, and she was suddenly aware of how hard it was to speak of such a thing aloud. With an aching heart her hand relaxed, and the tips of her fingers rested on top of his. "If you think that much too soon, and wish to wait for my body to be cleansed, then I will gladly stay with you until that time. Please… just do not make me go back."

Something in her actions must have affected him, because she could feel the change in his ki as it lessened from raging in full force to a simmer. Worried that her words had achieved the opposite result then what she wanted, Kaoru dropped her hand back to her side. Feeling desolate and robbed of her vengeance, her voice turned dead and lifeless. "If my lord does not wish to wait then I apologize that his sacrifice was sullied by another and beg that he kills me now."

The fingers at her neck relaxed to fan out slowly and wrap around her throat. It seemed her end was drawing near. There was so much strength in his touch, and she knew that with just the contraction of his hand he could crush her windpipe. The grate of his calluses made her shiver as she imagined the painful way he had decided upon her demise, and when his warm breath puffed against her ear she nearly whimpered in terror.

"You would wish for your death, little bluebird? Are you not frightened?" The dark, deep whisper pushed against her eardrum and thrummed against the cage of her ribs with its intensity. Startled by his voice, she gripped the material in her hands tighter.

"W-why should death frighten me?"

"Are you not aware of my identity? Do you not fear what I will do to you?"

"They say you are a demon… but I have seen the work of demons and they call themselves men."

"You don't think my characteristics as horrible as theirs? You don't think I have done worse than they?"

"I truly don't know. All that I know of you is what I have witnessed myself, and I am afraid I cannot feel anger or fear towards you as I do towards them. What you have done here will be seen by others as monstrous, but all I see is mercy. No woman or child should be made to live with these men. That is why I beg you to kill me rather than send me back."

"Then you think I am some savior, sent to you by the gods?"

"Maybe you are, good sir, maybe you are not. Why should I care what the gods do with their time? I have troubles of my own to deal with."

Soft chuckles entered her ear and she could feel his amusement through the vibrations of his touch. "You are a strange little bluebird. All of the women begged for their deaths, yes, but there is something different in you. You, I think, are not ready to leave this world." Slowly his hand slid from her neck to trail through her hair, and its length slipped through his fingers lingeringly. "Is there something left for you here? Some… unfinished business?"

Defensively her shoulders came up, and her head ducked as her scalp tingled. Her silence, however, was just as effective as any spoken words. Abruptly his hands gripped her by the arms and he jerked her so that she was flush against his chest. A sudden burst of red filled her vision as his hair spilled across her temple. "Would you like for me to kill them? I'll do it just for you, little bluebird."

His voice was a dangerous, tempting hiss in her ear, and it threw her heartbeat back into disarray. Her breathing turned to short, uneven bursts and blue eyes widened, but she was having a hard time deciding whether she should believe that he would be so willing to do what she wanted most in the world. Their deaths was what she had wished for since the death of her father. Just for me?

"Well? Is it not what you want, little Kaoru?" She jerked as her name slid off his tongue, and she was unable to keep from gasping. "Ah, you did not think I would know you? But how could I not when every woman I have taken has spoken your name? Every man in that putrid little village has mumbled curses of your defiance. I have saved you for last for a reason, little bluebird."

"You… you have? Why?"

"Because I can see the vengeance in your gaze. You are not broken and accepting like the others. You have fought them, to the end. Even now when you thought yourself walking to your death you did not truly give up. You stood before me, tall and unafraid. Your voice has spit blasphemies, but has not faltered or left you. You, my little Kaoru, have lived with these unworthy heathens and they have beat you… raped you… and killed others in front of you… and you would embrace death just to see them repaid.

"So I will give you that chance, and ask you again. Do you want me to kill them?"

Every one of her muscles shivered and trembled under his touch, and she lifted her eyes to glare at the wall opposite. When she answered, her tone was level. "Every last one of them."

She stumbled as his touch left her, but when she turned to look at the face of her champion, the demon who would claim her life, she found that he had already gone.