Got back from holiday earlier than I thought, so since I wrote most of this while I was away, here's the third chapter!
Enjoy.
Fated: Act III
Kotoha heard a clanging noise on the bars of her prison. Gingerly she stood up as the door opened. For a brief, hopeful moment, she thought that Chiaki and the others had come to rescue her, but then she saw the outline of Dayu, or the Ayakashi that looked like her, she wasn't sure. She tried to take a step back, but couldn't. Directly behind her was only the wall. She had nowhere to go.
As the Gedoushuu got closer to her, Kotoha could hear a small squeaking sound, a sound she hadn't heard with the Ayakashi, but had with Dayu. She began to tremble. She heard the twanging of a shamisen string and light appeared all around her. The Gedoushuu took a step into the light and Kotoha could help but gasp.
"Dayu," she whispered.
Dayu walked up to Kotoha, keeping one hand on her shamisen. She grabbed her neck with the other, forcing her head back slightly, pinning her against the wall.
"What do you want?" Kotoha asked, struggling against Dayu's grip.
"You're the Earth Shinkenger?" Dayu said scornfully, ignoring Kotoha's question. "You're the one who has been causing me so much pain?"
"W-what?"
Dayu laughed, sending shivers down Kotoha's spine. "I'm going to have so much fun inflicting on you the pain you have caused me."
Kotoha was speechless. She stared at Dayu, confusion and terror visible on her face.
Dayu laughed again, but quickly stopped. "Hmm," she said, "I am now going to have to decide on the best form of torture to inflict on you. Should I destroy the Shinkengers first, then you, knowing that you will never be rescued, or should I torture and destroy you first, with the knowledge that no-one knows, and will never know, where you are?" She sighed. "Choices, choices." She then looked back at Kotoha. "Oh well," she continued, pulling Kotoha away from the wall and throwing her to the ground, "the outcome for you will never change." Dayu then swept out of the cell, closing the door behind her, leaving Kotoha in the darkness.
Kotoha slowly sat up. She felt a tear fall down her cheek as she thought about what she had just heard. She looked up at the blackness above her.
"Chiaki, Minna," she whispered, before letting the tears uncontrollably fall.
XxX
The sun had risen as Chiaki paced up and down the room, thinking. There has to be a way to rescue Kotoha. There has to be! I need a way to draw Dayu and that Ayakashi out, but how?
"Chiaki," Mako's voice broke through his thoughts, "maybe you should sit down and rest," she said.
He shook his head. "I can't," he replied. "I need to get her back."
"We need to get her back," Ryunosuke interjected. "This isn't just about you."
"I know," Chiaki replied, frustrated. "But I'm the one who lost her. It's my responsibility to get her back. I don't care what I have to do, but I will get her back," he said, staring defiantly at them.
Mako got to her feet and stood in front of him. "I know you will," she said, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him into a hug. "I know you will," she whispered.
Chiaki paused for a moment in Mako's arms before realising what she was doing. He didn't want to be comforted. He didn't want Mako comforting him. He shook his head, taking a step away from her.
"Chiaki," Mako began.
"I'm sorry," he said, continuing to take steps away from her. "I'm sorry, but I can't." He turned and ran out of the room as fast as he could.
"Chiaki," Ryunosuke scolded.
"Leave him," Takeru said, as Mako and Genta made to follow. They stared at him. "Kotoha's kidnap is affecting him more than he realises, more than he wants us to see. Leave him for now."
XxX
Chiaki came to stop in the garden. He gave a loud cry as he fell to ground. What is wrong with me? He thought, Why am I getting so worked up over this? I know that if any of the others were kidnapped or missing I'd want to find them, but this, this feels different. I don't just want to find her, I need to find her. I need her back.
He looked around the garden and realised that he was standing in the same place as a couple of nights ago, when he had been listening to Kotoha play her flute. He took out her shodophone, which he had kept in his pocket, and stared at it.
Why do I miss her so much? Even though she's only been gone for a day, I'm missing so much about her, the way she plays her flute, her smile, her eyes, her hair, the way she cares more about others than herself. He shook his head, trying to get her face out his head, although at the same time, he wanted to keep picturing her. Why do I miss her this much?
"Hey." Mako crouched in front of him.
Chiaki shook his head again, slowly. "I don't know," he replied, suddenly finding the need to blurt out all of his confused feelings. "Why do I want her back so badly? I mean I know that I want to get her back because she's my friend and that she's part of the team, but I feel like, I don't know, that there's more to this, like there's another reason I want her back."
Mako tilted her head and smiled slightly. "I think I may have an idea," she said, making him stare at her, eyes wide with surprise. "I've been watching you two lately, the way you've been acting with each other, the way in which you so desperately need her back," she continued, " and I've come to the conclusion that," she stared into his eyes, "you're in love with her."
Chiaki's eyes widened even more. He opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again as he thought about what Mako said. I can't be in love with Kotoha. I can't be, can I? He looked back at Kotoha's shodophone and his mind turned to the previous day, the moments just before everything got messed up. Those old ladies, they thought me and Kotoha were together. Did we really act like that? And now, missing everything about her, could Nee-san be right? He tried to think about it more, but found that his memories of Kotoha kept flooding his mind. She was all he could think about.
"I need to find her, not just because she's my friend, but because I love her," he said to himself, still looking at the shodophone. He looked at Mako. "I'm in love with Kotoha." He smiled and it felt like the first smile he'd had in a very long time.
Mako nodded once, smiling back at him.
"But what about Kotoha? Does she-?" he started to ask.
"I'll let Kotoha tell you that herself, when we find her," Mako replied. She touched his face gently. "I trust you," she said gently, "I know you'll find her and bring her back, no matter what."
Feeling as though a weight had been lifted off of him and with a slightly clearer mind, Chiaki looked at the shodophone once more before he put it back in his pocket as he stood up and began to head back to the mansion. He stopped and turned back to face Mako. He was about to say something, but she held up her hand, stopping him.
"Don't worry," she said. "I won't say anything."
"Thank you," Chiaki replied, "for everything."
Mako smiled, walked up to him and wrapped her arm around him. "Anytime," she said, as they walked back to the mansion together.
XxX
"- we don't even know where she's being kept. How are we supposed to find her?" Ryunosuke was saying as Chiaki and Mako quietly walked back into the room.
"Poor Koto-chan," Genta said sadly. "We need to find her as quickly as possible."
"Of course we do," Takeru said. "But we're not going to find her until Dayu shows up again. Anyway, we need to know why she was taken. Chiaki, now that you seem to have sorted yourself out, any ideas?"
Ryunosuke and Genta, who hadn't realised that Mako and Chiaki had come back, turned to face them.
"No," Chiaki replied. "I don't."
Takeru sighed.
"We can't just sit here and wait," Genta said. "Take-chan, there has to be something we can do."
"Like I said, we can't do anything until Dayu reappears," Takeru replied and they all fell into silence.
The ringing sound of the sukima sensor startled them and they all turned to see a slip fall out into the waiting Kuroko's hand. He handed it to Takeru, who read it.
"It's Dayu," he said, handing the slip back to the Kuroko. "Let's go."
A/N: I know that the whole revelation seems to be a bit early in the story, but when I was writing it, this is the direction in which it went. And anyway, this isn't going to be massively long and I couldn't really keep having Chiaki being majorly depressed, so the revelation has cleared his head for later chapters.
I know that there hasn't been much dialogue from Genta, but that's because I do find it hard to write his character, since he's so funny. The others are easier.
I'm also finding a lot of influences in this. It reminds me a bit of my Digimon story 'Black Symphony' (who knows when I'll finish that!) and the whole Kotoha-Dayu scenes remind me of the stuff between Jasmine and Succubus in Dekaranger (episode 21) and of course, Shinkenger episode 20.