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The stench of urine, obscurity and total silence: that was her new reality as she woke up on the hard floor of her confinement cell. Her swollen eyes slowly opened; never had she seen such complete darkness. Her hand reached for her throbbing forehead and met clean bandages on her wound.
"At least, I'm not going to bleed to death." She murmured to herself.
She painfully dragged herself to a wall, lifted her upper body to rest her back on the cold and moist stones. She inhaled slowly, her rib cage hurt; she doubted bones were broken, but it still hurt pretty badly. She sat there, focusing on her breathing, cutting the pain out from her world of perception. She gathered her strength and got up, only for her head to hit the ceiling. Her muzzled scream resonated in the small cell, which she soon discovered to be limited to just enough space for her to lie down, completely stretched, on the hard floor.
The following days were calculated by the number of meals that were passed through a small drawer build-in the door. As an only and somewhat "special" child, she had known to enjoy solitude. It had always been part of her life; better make a choice out of it. But in this claustrophobic environment, silence was filled with noises, echoes of memories she had carefully burrowed deep within herself. The voice of Gohan kept saying those things only he could tell; words of friendship, trust, kindness and comfort. She would hear her dad's voice booming in her head, repeating those lies, those containing orders that had always infuriated and humiliated her. And Gohan's voice would come back; reprimanding her as if she was only a child… leaving her confused about her feelings and previous decisions. Then her thoughts would shift towards her mission, and the eyes of that man. Those eyes that turned red for a second.
She developed ways to keep her mind free of the thoughts that would have driven her insane in her atrociously confined room. She found some sort of consolation, a sense of normality, in pushing her body as hard as she could, using her own weight to train on the hard ground of her cell. She slept only when she was at a point of utter exhaustion, she stopped performing her training routine only when her body could not take it anymore. As she sculpted her body, she steeped her soul in steel, hardening both to face in unison the task ahead.
When her twenty-first meal was served to her, she made a pleasant and a far less pleasant finding. First, her meals were now more than the proverbial dry bread and water; they were in fact better than those that would usually have been served at a prison's cafeteria and were in a fairly good size as well. Second, if her eyes were blinded by that fraction of daylight entering through the slit of the food drawer, they would not take easily coming out of this hole.
She stretched her arms in front of her and focused her energy in her palms. To her surprise, they were already faintly glowing. Pushing a bit more, she saw, in the complete darkness of her cell, the subtle ballet of the energy streams slowly dancing in the air and forming a perfect ki ball. Maintaining her attention on the ball, she poured some more energy into it; blinding light illuminated the small room and moving her arms to protect her face from it, the ball went hurling towards her.
The smell of burnt flesh and fabric filled the cell. Videl moaned, she was in pain and that atrocious smell was making it hard to breathe. Her sleeves were burnt, her forearms slightly injured and her back felt sore from hitting the wall behind her, but she was alive and quite proud of herself. Would she have directed that blast towards the door, she was certain it would have knocked the thick steel door off its hinges. She certainly wanted to catch the inmates' attention, but this move would definitely have attracted too much attention.
Around the fiftieth meal, she lost count of the days she had been in solitary confinement.
She was deep in effort to contain her small ki ball, buds of sweat pearled on her forehead. As she drained herself of her energy, she applied pressure to contain the orb. Small lightning bolts crackled spasmodically around the fast revolving sphere. She was flirting with danger as she poured a bit more energy into the blast. Losing control over it now could mean her end. Noises coming from outside the cell almost broke her concentration. Unlocking bolts, metal turning against metal, the door grating on its fringes; the sight that awaited the guards left them open mouthed in surprise.
Sitting on the ground, her legs crossed under her, her naked arms extended, her hands tightly squeezed together and still smoking, her eyes boring into their skulls and a mocking smile plastered on her lips, Katherine Kane was waiting for them.
"You can come out…" the guard's voice was uneasy and he unconsciously stepped back as Videl exited her cell, stretching fully for the first time in many days.
As she was escorted in the long corridors, she saw the guard's hands holding a bit too tightly their bludgeons; she could feel their fear and she liked it. She felt free, powerful, set towards a precise goal and each uncomfortable glance exchanged by the guards accentuated that feeling. Their march finally came to an end. A bar of soap and a small razor were given to the young fighter, she wondered where they had found a pink razor in a man's prison and decided she did not want to know, and entered the large bathroom. Guards were standing behind her, but she knew they would not dare to approach her. She undressed quickly and tossed the rags her clothing had become in a corner and, swaying her hips provokingly, moved under the shower. The hot water rolling down her skin was enough to send a nearly orgasmic wave of pleasure through her whole body. A soft moan escaped her lips as her hands wandered slowly on her skin, loosening her toned muscles. She heard one of the guards choke behind her and she smiled, enjoying the effect she was having on the man's …throat. She vigorously washed, then shaved her unwanted body hair. She washed her unruly pink short hair and put on the clean clothes that were waiting for her on a chair. Katherine Kane was about to make her second apparition in front of the other inmates.
The undercover agent was led into a large room. Men were talking amongst each other, some were lifting weights, some watching a television anchored into the wall and guards, spread at each corner of the room, surveyed the scene. She scanned the moving crowd; intense blue eyes were fixed on her. Wolf's hand gestured her to sit besides him.
"How did you like your stay?" he asked, good humour filtering in his voice.
"I've seen worse"
"Did you appreciate the food and the razor?" he asked, a glimmer of interest in his eyes.
It took Videl a second to understand the full meaning of the question, delay the imposing man in front of her seemed to find most charming. "I am most grateful…"
"Don't mention it" he said offhandedly; he had made it clear that he was a man of influence in this environment and yet he had spared the young woman's dignity and pride.
"I was quite impressed with your little display of fighting some time ago…" his deep voice was kept low, serene, sincere "I want to know more about you".
And so their conversation began. They talked in that crowded room as if no one else could listen, painted their lives to each other, both leaving areas of shadow unexplored and not pushing to know more than what the other told them. Strange that in one single conversation, Videl had learned more about that man than all the info the police could gather.
He had nourished in his teenage years projects and ambitions as large as the village he had been raised in was small. He had joined the military as soon as he had a chance, left his mother and father, to try to "change some things" as he put it. Finally, it had been that will of change that had driven him out of the army and, ultimately, into this place. He told her how, acting on his instinct, he had resisted his arrest, something he didn't regret, for as he said:
"I am who I am because of my past; therefore, on what grounds could I regret what is done: the man that is in peace with himself is in peace with his past."
As the dyed haired fighter became more involved into the conversation, she felt more and more willing to talk and, slowly, as she spoke of her fictive loneliness and life of violence, her speech began to hit closer to home, to become more personal. As Katherine Kane shared her doubts and fears with this perfect stranger, Videl Satan was talking through her mouth.
The whole time they spoke, his deep dark eyes never left hers and the pink haired inmate wondered when was the last time that someone had really listened to her soul, shown her sincere, genuine interest; an interest in her, not in whose daughter she was…her line of thought was interrupted by a loud turmoil amongst the inmates. Eyes were glued on the television screen on the wall, there, a special coverage was on. Live, a reporter was commenting on what had been, apparently, the big news over the last few weeks: Videl Satan was dead.
Again Cliffhanger ! Did you like the shower scene ? Should I include a lemon later on (I'm still not sure if I'll skip it or really write all that stuff that would explain the first chapters' first sentences!) REVIEW !
