Four demons sat before her, each in their own chair within the white cell. Three were male and the last was female. Only one of the demons had put up any sort of real struggle when she'd sent her men to retrieve them.
Zentaro had been the first to arrive. His air of superiority, even in her presence, was obvious in the way he held himself. She'd had him thrown unceremoniously into the cell. Second to enter the cell was Inari, but she'd walked in of her own accord. Masaru and Tsuyoshi were delivered to her at the same time. Tsuyoshi had fought tooth-and-nail against her guards, but his lower B class powers barely managed to scratch either of the men he attacked. Masaru, much like Inari, did not resist.
Kirin stood at her back, awaiting her next order. Eying each of the demons before her, she decided that the most likely culprit was Inari- she was weaker than the others, but she had a talent for thievery and had amassed quite the fortune. She did not allow this bias to cloud her judgment.
"Why have you brought us here?" Masaru asked calmly. "I hadn't expected much hospitality from you, Mukuro, but is a prison cell really necessary?"
Inari's eyes narrowed at her. "A drink would have been nice," she quipped.
"You're asking the bitch who had us kidnapped for tea?" Zentaro snapped at Inari. She did not respond, only rolled her eyes and looked pointedly away.
"Silence," Mukuro barked. She was annoyed enough as it was- she did not need her prisoners arguing amongst themselves. "What do you know of the human woman called Choko?"
The reactions of each demon told a far greater story than Mukuro could have guessed at. Inari and Masaru exchanged quick, worried glances before fixing their faces into perfect, blank masks and staring back at her. Zentaro rolled his eyes and scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest and turning up his nose. Tsuyoshi fidgeted in his seat, his nervous eyes darting around the room to look at everything but Mukuro herself.
"That slime ball Toshi approached me years ago, quoting some fantastic story about a gifted human," Inari answered first. "I was curious, and I paid him handsomely for his story. I can see that he's made quite the fortune if he's told you four as well." Mukuro said nothing. That wasn't a true answer. She looked over to Masaru instead.
"I have much the same story," he replied with a light shrug. "What with Raizen's boy coming around, I figured that learning about other gifted humans might work to my own advantage. I remembered her, just for future reference, but never saw the need to track her down for myself. She's just a human, after all." Mukuro kept her thoughts to herself, but something told her that he was lying.
"Zentaro?" Mukuro inquired, turning her entire body to face the demon. His orange-tinted skin was the only remarkable feature about him. He looked like any other human. It would have been easy for him to wander the human world virtually unnoticed.
"An old partner of mine knew her," Zentaro answered at length. This piqued Mukuro's interest. "She was in with the Black Black Club for a short time. This former partner of mine spent a great deal of time in her company. Unfortunately for the both of them, he made several poor decisions and escaped to Living World. I heard the rat Toshi boasting about his knowledge a few years back and pried the information from him. I simply used her to get to the one who betrayed me."
This was an interesting development. She made a mental note to herself to question Choko about this situation. For the moment, she focused all of her cold attention onto Tsuyoshi. His deep blue skin had already broken into a sweat.
"That little bitch killed my brother." Mukuro raised one eyebrow in Tsuyoshi's direction. He still could not meet her gaze. "I was going to kill her for revenge. That bastard demon that protected the human nearly killed me and took her to safety. I was never able to find her again..." Rather than look at Mukuro, the blue demon narrowed his dark purple eyes in Zentaro's direction. They glared coldly at each other while Masaru and Inari looked on in amusement.
"Enough," Mukuro snapped. "Which of you hired the three demons who came to kidnap her earlier this morning?" Suddenly, Tsuyoshi's twitching became more violent. Eventually, he stood and tossed his chair to the far end of the room, fuming and stomping around. Kirin appeared behind him in a flash and struck him once on the back of the head, knocking him to the floor.
Disgust twisted Zentaro's features as he looked at the pile of blue skin and white cloth that littered the floor. He raked back his shaggy black hair back with one hand and turned to face Mukuro instead. "Is that why you've called us here?"
Inari could not suppress an exasperated sigh. "Of course it is, moron," she told him. "Mukuro does not like to share her toys. Anyone who tries to take her things away is met with severe punishment, right?" Inari's solid white eyes landed on Mukuro.
"I have no wish to steal away your little human," Masaru drawled, picking at one of the black scales on the back of his hand. He leveled all four of his luminous green eyes at Mukuro. "If I wanted her for myself, I would not send hired thugs to do the job." One of his eyes darted over to Inari, who pretended not to notice.
"My only use for the girl was to find the demon that protected her," Zentaro muttered. "I thought the little bitch was dead, but I suppose she's lucky as well as stupid."
"Lucky?" Inari laughed. "The woman avoids death at every turn." The female demon hissed, realizing she'd said too much. Mukuro waited, her arms crossed over her chest. She'd expected more resistance, but these demons were telling on themselves without much interference on her part. She'd known throwing them all together in one room would produce an effect, but she hadn't known it would make the entire process easier.
"Please, tell us what you know," Zentaro said with smirk. He looked down his long pointed nose at the pale white woman to his left. Masaru chuckled.
"I've had eyes on her in Living World for about a year now," Inari answered with a loose shrug. Mukuro could see that she was trying to downplay the situation, to deflect the attention away from herself. At her cold, demanding stare, Inari sighed. "I want the brat dead."
"Why?" Masaru asked incredulously. This was the first time he'd heard of this, Mukuro realized, but it wasn't the first time he'd spoken to Inari about Choko.
"Who ever would have guessed that you and Tsuyoshi would have something in common?" Zentaro asked, his inflection on Tsuyoshi's name turning the rhetorical question into an insult. Inari snapped, jumping from her chair and slicing her hand over Zenato's face. Her pure white skin did not show the razor blade-like scales she employed as her primary weapon. A thin streak of bright violet blood seeped from the orange cheek of the demon before her.
One of Masaru's hands on Inari's shoulder stopped her from attacking a second time. Tsuyoshi was beginning to stir on the floor. Bringing a hand up to his cheek, Zentaro stared at Inari, chilling the entire room. Tiny crystals of ice began to frost the floor around the orange-skinned demon. Managing at last to stand, Tsuyoshi noticed the tension in the room and threw himself at Masaru.
The human woman was an annoying thorn in his side. She was drunk once more, sprawled out on the floor. The cat she loved so dearly was running around the room, chasing a makai insect. Chain smoking and laughing, Choko goaded the cat to jump higher and run faster after the bug. She spoke to the creature as if it understood every word she said- and perhaps it did, but he could see no such intelligence in the cat's eyes.
"Get up," he snarled at her. She just giggled at him, rolling her eyes. He could sense Kirin as he walked down the hall to this room. He narrowed his eyes at her, part of him wishing the woman would die from all of the alcohol she insisted on ingesting.
"Dansei," the woman called, drawing out the beast's name in a sing-song voice. The sound grated on his nerves. Kirin was at the door now.
"Hiei," the demon greeted in his usual, less-than-friendly tone. "You and the woman have been summoned." Hiei stood and lept off of the edge of the balcony. He looked down at the woman with disgust. She was curled up on her side now, stroking the cat's fur and sending little bits of it soaring into the air. He nudged her with the toe of his boot, unwilling to touch her any more than he had to.
The woman groaned and rolled herself into a sitting position before clamoring to her feet. She was unsteady as she stood and even more unbalanced as she walked. Kirin rolled his eyes and turned to leave. Choko followed in her staggering gait while Hiei himself took the rear. The walk down to the prison was going to be a long one…
Choko held herself up using the wall as she waited for the guards to open the door. The ruckus from inside the prison filtered out into the hall. The world swam before her and the sounds were deafening. Once she was able to see inside the glaringly white prison cell, she shoved herself away from the wall to stagger inside.
There were five demons in this room. Mukuro stood off to the side, her arms crossed and watching in silent amusement as the other four demons continued to fight with each other. The white woman was so pale, it would have been impossible to tell her apart from the rest of the room if not for the pale pink Chinese dress she wore. One of the men had dark blue skin that clashed horribly with the white outfit he wore. The third demon had solid black skin and four green eyes. The slant of those four eyes shot a pang of painful memory through her brain. She shoved the thought away until her eyes rested on the fourth person mixed up in the tussle.
It was as if someone had dumped a bucketful of ice cold water over her. The orange-tinted skin, the black hair… She felt bile rise up in her throat. Turning and running from the room, she managed to make it to the hall before bending over and puking up nearly all of the Jager she'd been drinking this afternoon.
"What's wrong with you?" Mukuro demanded. Choko choked out another round of Jager, unable to answer. She gasped for breath and felt hot tears stinging her eyes. She managed to take two shaky steps back before collapsing against the wall. Her hands came up to cover her head as if she was avoiding blows, and her legs curled up beside her.
The choking, gasping sobs that wracked her entire body were painful. She could only see that face… Those all-too-human features and that horrible shade of orange… Her chest burned. Electric shocks jolted through her arms. Stabbing pains in her head blinded her.
Long, silver claws ripped through flesh, splattering blood all over her. A sickening, twisted grin altered the human-like features of the face above her. Her screams of terror and pain fell on deaf ears.
"Choko!"
Hukarishu was screaming her name, pleading for her life. His long fingers clutched her arm, smearing the dark blood that speckled her skin. With his final, gasping breaths, he whispered her name again and again. Those four black eyes were shining with unshed tears.
"Stop this nonsense!"
The man with the orange skin loomed over her, his smirk threatening enough without the four talons that glistened with blood. She was frozen solid- unable to move, unable to breathe. He knelt before her, staring into her eyes as he licked one of those claws. She was trembling when he reached for her, that same talon touching her face. He drew a thin line from her ear to her chin, exactly along her jawline. Caustic blood began to seep from the slender cut.
"Silence!"
Mukuro was screaming at her. She choked on her last sob, forcing it back down her throat. Her arms came down, but she kept her face hidden in them. Her chest still ached and her skin tingled. A line of fire traced its way down the left side of her jaw. She cradled her face in one hand, touching the skin to check for blood.
"What the hell was that all about?" Mukuro demanded, still shouting. Choko couldn't answer. She was staring at the wall, trying to remember how to breath normally.
"It was a memory," Hiei provided for her. "Zentaro murdered her lover in front of her." The way the fire apparition spat the words made Choko's blood boil. She wanted to jump up and hit him again and again until some of the pain that crippled her was worn away. Had he been human, she'd have taken the chance. But this was a demon, and she was weak.
"Fuck you," she whispered. Numbing ice replaced the blood in her veins. Her body relaxed, her arms dropping to her lap as her legs stretched out. Her head rested against the wall as she stared blankly down the corridor.
"This is pathetic," Mukuro grumbled from behind her. She didn't have it in her to get angry. She was blissfully hollow. "Get up and come do what I brought you here to do!"
The dead chuckle that Choko barked out startled the former demon lord. "Fuck you, too."
A/N:
A little short, but there you have it. Chapter 7.
Special shout out to GoodEnoughTheOpenDoor for her amazing picture! The link to it is on my profile- you should totally go give her a review on it!
Please review! (Even if it's something negative or not much at all- any and all reviews will help me out!)
