Alright my lovelies! Here is the next intsallment in When Blood Calls.
Per usual, disclaimer: I do NOT own Kaze No Stigma, but I DO own this plot, so, enjoy!
How did you ever see me broken?
Well, you forced me to find out everyday.
Did you ever see me open?
Well, you forced me to find out everyday.
Nobody could,
Couldn't help this, no
The depths that I was brought up
The depths that I was brought up
Brought up
Oh, is it any wonder?
Shallow is the way that I was born,
Shallow is the way that I was born.
The way that I was brought up, up,
Tonight.
- Broken Vs The Way We Were by Emarosa
Panic.
The panic building up inside of Ayano's heart was overwhelming. She didn't know what to do; she didn't know what she could do. There were so many questions swimming in her head, so many things she couldn't put together, but there was one thing she could put together, and that was the fact that she couldn't stand there like a blubbering idiot. No, she needed to call an ambulance, the principal she needed to do something useful! There was no way in hell she could just stand there like a defenseless little child because she wasn't a child anymore, she wasn't!
Ayano blinked and started towards Mrs. Claton's phone. For a moment it took her a while to get her limbs to respond to what her mind was telling her to do, but once she got her feet moving she didn't stop. Her hand reached over the blood that had splattered over almost all of her belongings while holding her breath. She hadn't been aware that her heart was beating so hard she felt it would burst out of her chest at any minute, just like she hadn't been aware of the pain that was shooting up and down her veins from terror. At the back of her neck she felt the hairs prick to life, standing at their tips but why? She already saw the worst of it, she was inches away from her murdered counselor, how could she possible feel even more afraid than she already did?
Stop thinking and start moving! The loud voice in her head shouted; she complied.
Her fingers brushed the freezing plastic of Mrs. Claton's black school phone and she wrapped her slim digits around it, lifting it to her ear while her eyes scanned the piece of paper that had been tapped onto the base of the phone with all the school numbers. Finally, when she found the extension to the main office, Ayano shakily punched in the numbers, listening to the sound of the phone ringing inside of her ear. The sound lasted for only a few seconds, but those seconds were enough to cause the shaking from her hands to vibrate throughout her body until her entire framework was trembling. But then, the ringing stopped.
Someone answered.
"Hello, Mr. Iriede's office." Mr. Iriede answered, his raspy voice tinged with exhaustion, "How may I help you?"
"Mr. Iriede, this is Ayano Travis-"
"Ah, yes, should you not be in class, Miss Travis?" from the tone of voice he used, Ayano could imagine the disappointed look on his face followed by a head shake, but she didn't have time for that, or for any formalities.
"Mrs. Claton's dead. I came into her office because she sent me a call slip and when I came in I-I found-" Ayano hiccupped loudly, noting the dampness that singed her cheeks.
Silence.
"If this is some sort of joke, Miss Travis, I assure you that it is not-"
"This isn't a joke!" Ayano shouted, her voice raising a few octaves, "I'm completely seri-"
The line went dead.
"What the-"
"I told you not to come to school."
The street was immensely quiet, and although he appreciated the silence, he felt the muscles in his body tightening. No one could be spotted out of their homes, not even an animal roamed the yards. Everything was simply dead. Naturally, this caused a red flag to rise above Kazuma's head which kept him on high alert. It was out of the ordinary for any neighborhood in the middle of the day to be dead. Usually there were people walking down the street or in their cars or even small children running around with their mascots, and yet, this wasn't the case here.
Why?
Kazuma walked down the sidewalk slowly, taking in every house's aspect from their grass to their front porch. Every single house seemed to have gates or fences with what appeared to be a security system. Not one house was unprotected, which again brought up the question of why? Obviously they were scared but what were they scared of?
As he continued his walk down the street he found the one house with no fence, gate, or high-tech security system.
"Found it." Kazuma muttered to himself, walking up the steps to the disastrous house in front of him.
The nice way to put it was saying that the house wasn't maintained, but it was so much worse than unmaintained. The grass was dead and brown, more like twigs and dirt than grass, he would say. All around the yard were alcohol bottles sprawled all over the place. On the drive way were grease and oil stains meaning there was a car occupying that spot since the marks seemed to be fresh, but no one was home at the moment.
Once reaching the door, Kazuma knocked loudly against the stained brown door. His face was twisted into a scowl. He hated places like this, no, actually, he hated most places period. If it were up to him, he'd spend his time alone with all of his money and not have to worry about anything or anyone, but, of course, he couldn't do that. He became the Contractor for a reason, and he would keep moving on that no matter what.
"You-You did this?!" Ayano shouted, fear ringing in ever last nerve that resided in her body.
Her father leaned against the doorway, his hair sleeked back while his shirt was tucked into neat slacks. He had the look of a decent man, but he was the farthest from one, "I have to teach you that you listen to what I say, not what you want." He growled, locking his eyes on Ayano's.
"You can't just go around killing people!" Ayano screamed.
She kept her eyes on her father's as she calculated the ways to get out of here, but frankly, those odds were slim. The only way she could make it out without getting close to her father would be the window, but then what? Where would she go? There wasn't a single person who would take her in knowing the kind of man her father is. Not a single soul would inhabit the daughter of a maniac so the only choice would be to run home and just like here, she wouldn't be safe.
Ayano wasn't safe anywhere.
The realization of this must have been apparent on her face because her father smirked, shrugging away from the wall and towards Ayano, "There's nowhere for you to go and hide, little girl." His voice resembled the sounds of knives been scraped against each other.
Anger flared within Ayano's heart.
It was one thing to torture her, to hurt her in every way humanely possible, but to make her feel bad for herself? To bring up the fact she already knows just to get her to see that she was useless? That no matter what she might tell herself, no matter what she might want to use as alleviation she couldn't because she was so damn worthless? No. No! Ayano wouldn't accept that, not from him, not from anyone!
"And that's your fault!" Ayano shouted, her amber eyes igniting with fury, "It's your fault that I don't have a single friend, that I everyone runs from me and keeps their distance, that not a single person would be willing to help me! You're the cause of every disaster in my life!"
Not a second passed after the words left her mouth when she found herself sprawled against the floor. Pain shot down her spine after landing on the broken hilt of the blade her father had used to jam into Mrs. Claton's heart. Ayano placed her palm against the blood soaked carpet to lift herself up when her father clamped his elegant shoes against her stomach.
"I'll teach you to hold your tongue from now on!" He snarled at her.
Tendrils of black waves slithered around his form causing Ayano to scream.
What is that?! She thought to herself.
Her father added pressure to her stomach and she coughed, writing in pain under his weight. Ayano searched for anything close that she could use as a weapon, but before she got the change to grab anything she was being lifted off of the ground and thrown out the door and into the hall. Her head slammed against the glass windows that composed the walls of the hallways. Glass shattered all around her while she hung halfway out of the building.
Ayano's school was a new building, and so they decided to have window walls in every hall no matter what level they were on, and it just so happened that Ayano was on the third level of her school. A scream tore its way up her chest. Her hands lashed out to grab onto the poles that were closet to her to lift herself from but her father was there again, gripping her wrist. He lifted her off of the floor and had her handing over the edge of the hallway, outside of the building.
"This is why you should listen to me!" His eyes were fully consumed with black, his hair was thrashing wild in a wind formed by the dark aura emanating from his body.
Ayano didn't know what to do so she kicked forward, her foot connecting with her father's prize package; he let her go and she fell.
The fall was peaceful, fast and steady.
She closed her eyes, feeling the wind rush around her while a small smile played on her lips.
This was it, it was finally over.
Kazuma wasn't sure how long he had been standing in front of that door, debating whether to knock it down or not because it didn't seem like the owner would be home or not but he knew it wasn't more than a minute before he kicked the door in, walking into the dirty ass house. Just like the front lawn, the house was a disaster. Bottles were thrown all over the carpet; liquor stains matted the floor with no way of recuperation. As he walked down the hallways, he saw blood stains splattered among the walls and he wasn't all too surprised. Everything he saw simply backed up his theory.
The article Kazuma had taken from Kikira's laptop stated that on the day of Ayano's mother's car accident, a man had been chasing her down this street until she got into a taxi and drove off, carrying a small child with her, and when the car crashed, she used her body to protect the child. In the picture displayed by the article there was a man who claimed to be the father of the child, and with the travesty at hand they hadn't done their research to find that the man wasn't the father but her kidnapper, along with her mother's. Which all came down to this: Morgen Travis was the man responsible for Ayano's disappearance.
Regardless of what he read and saw, it still wasn't proof enough, which was why he had hoped to see the man, not only that, he was so frustrated he could do with some ass kicking right now. Kazuma simply couldn't understand the need to cause so much damage. But that didn't mean he felt sorry for the sick bastards, even when they were supposedly 'sick in the head'. Bullshit. Anyone could claim to be mentally challenged and they'd get away with whatever it is that they did.
No matter what was wrong with them, everyone had a will, and nothing was stronger than your will.
Kazuma sighed.
He finally reached up stairs, which was even more hazardous than the living room and kitchen; he crinkled his nose and kicked the room doors open, one by one. There were three doors, and so far the first two seemed to belong to the man, Morgen, because there were liquor bottles and used protection on the floor – disgusting.
The last door, however, seemed to have various locks bolted to it causing Kazuma to smirk as he lifted his leg and kicked the door in. The wood split in half and concaved into the room. This room was relatively small compared to the rest of the house, but it's definitely a female's room. Although, it was only by sheer change that the girl had left her undergarments out that he was able to distinguish it as so because other than that nothing indicated that there was a girl here. All of the walls were bare, the bed stripped of anything other than a thin blanket and a pillow. There were school books and paper scattered around the corner of the room where a desk could have been but obviously wasn't.
This must be Ayano's room.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Kazuma blinked, reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone, annoyance written all over his face, "What the hell do you want, Kikira? I'm busy."
"There was a youma spotted at a nearby high school, get over here quick." Kikira hung up immediately after.
Kazuma rubbed his face and sighed, "Well, Ayano Kannagi, seems like you're going to have to wait."
With that, Kazuma took off into the air, racing towards the school nearest to this compound as he followed the youma's energy, landing himself in a nice and pristine school. His feet touched the pavement where a group of what appeared to be students formed around one of the buildings. There, the students shouting and pointing into the air saying things like "She's going to die," or "Someone call 911!" This, of course, focused Kazuma's attention to the area above him where he saw a girl falling from the third level of the building. Her black hair was flapping wildly around her figure, her sweater was blowing in the opposite direction that she was falling, and her arms were outstretched. She looked almost peaceful falling down like that, which caused an odd emotion to pass through him.
Naturally, though, he pushed it aside and took off upward. He was with the girl in a heartbeat, wrapping his arms around the girl. Her lips were turned upward into a smile until she felt his arms around her and she opened her eyes. They were amber, darker than the color of her hair, but they burned a thousand times brighter.
"Tell me, do you enjoy falling?"