Chapter 8
Haruhi awoke in the morning to the sounds of Tamaki's screams and staff running to his quarters. She leapt out of bed and sprinted to the door of his room to see what was causing the bloodcurdling cries. Servants already crowded the entrance and prevented her from entering. Normally she would have slipped past easily, but Honey and several servants were assigned specifically to keep any palace guests back.
"Honey, what's going on?" she asked.
"The doctors are looking at the prince right now," he answered. "He doesn't like shots."
"What's wrong with him?" She didn't believe that was the full story. She had never heard of a shot that painful.
"Nothing," he said, "He's okay."
She heard another horrible scream that made her hair stand on end. It sounded like his limbs were being sawed off one by one. When Kyoya arrived, Honey went to him to bring him up to speed on the actual situation. She seized her chance and weaved through the servants and into the room.
As soon as she walked into the room, she heard a loud crash and saw a mass of blankets float to the ground as Tamaki crashed to the floor from his bed. To add to the crash, Mori had been trying to restrain the prince. On the floor, Mori's legs now pinned Tamaki's. The blonde was on his back with arms forced into a T, pinned at the wrists by his bodyguard. Since her gaze was in that area, she noticed the blood on Tamaki's hands. When she stepped farther in the room, she saw where the blood had come from: Tamaki's neck.
No one in the room was speaking, but the prince screamed, "Quiet! I don't want to hear any more!"
Haruhi looked to his tear-stained face and saw his eyes were tightly shut and his head tossed side-to-side like trying to escape listening to whatever it was. In moments, his eyes flew open with a gasp. They were red from the tears, but that was hardly the focus. He was thrashing wildly against Mori's restraints.
Tamaki tried to catch his breath and cringe away from the living corpse that he believed was pinning him down. The rotten stench from his deceased mother's breath disgusted him. Her rotted teeth smiled sweetly at him. He did his best to keep his head turned to the side to not look at her. He heard the familiar sound of the echoing voices that mimicked the sound of his own. It filled the room from all directions, but somehow felt to be whispering in his ears at the same time.
"Get off me! Let me go," Tamaki demanded.
"We're going to kill you--"
"No!"
"—and then that piece of street garbage--"
"Leave me alone!" he begged.
"—and there's nothing you can do about it!" the voices sneered.
Over the course of the yelling, Haruhi couldn't believe no one dared to try to console the prince. She surrendered and moved to him, herself. She knelt above his head and placed her hands on either side of his face firmly to reduce his thrashing and in order to attempt to guide his gaze to her face.
"Tamaki, it's okay," she insisted, "No one is trying to hurt you. Calm down, we're trying to help you."
His struggles soon slowed, and his eyes clenched tightly shut to avoid the sights that plagued him. His breathing was heavy due to the excessive movement, but he appeared to be listening. Haruhi felt slightly relieved.
Tears sparkled in the corners of his eyes. "Please, don't strangle me again," he whimpered quietly.
"No one is going to hurt you," she assured. She used one hand to stroke his hair to the side soothingly. "It's all right, Tamaki," she comfortingly muttered, "It's all right."
His eyes opened slowly to stare into space in her direction. He appeared very tired and worn-down. His tensed muscles relaxed under Mori's grip so much that, if he never blinked or ceased breathing, he would appear dead. He was silent and did not move other than the occasional tear that streamed back to his ears unless caught by Haruhi's hands.
To the far side of the room, two doctors stared skeptically at the scene with the royal mage. "Nekozawa," the more-experienced doctor ordered, "explain this." Nothing they had done could console him. Why could she?
The cloaked man crept an inch forward in interest. "Every being on this planet possesses a unique energy unlike anyone else's. Even in identical twins, their energies are not the same. Somehow this girl has identical energy to the late queen, the prince's mother. Though they are not the same, it still has many likenesses. One less experienced than I might mistake them as one and the same."
"What about it? Why does it matter?"
"The queen had a very magnetic energy that drew people in. It was increased with Prince Tamaki naturally because he was her son and then even more so because he has opposing energy. It's just like a pair of magnets in that they draw each other in subconsciously," Nekozawa explained. "It is hypnotic to his subconscious in a calming way and balances him out. Fire and water… earth and wind… sun and moon… day and night… They're opposite but cannot exist properly without the other."
The doctor thought a moment in silence. He ordered his colleague, "Let's give him a light sedative since he's not moving about so he can sleep it off."
Both moved very quickly in case the prince returned to his destructive behavior. When they knelt by Tamaki's arm, Haruhi put her arm in their path and demanded, "What are you doing?"
"We're going to sedate him," the doctor said, angry he was being questioned about his profession by someone who shouldn't be in the room in the first place.
"Unless you want him to panic again, explain what you're doing, first," she replied. Without removing her arm or waiting for a response, she redirected her attention to the prince gently. "Tamaki, the doctors are going to give you a shot. It'll help you sleep. You'll be all right."
He continued to stare motionlessly at her. His only response was a routine blink.
Haruhi slowly removed her arm from the doctors' path to grant them permission. When they poked the needle into the vein inside his elbow, his arm twitched violently in the grips of the two doctors and his bodyguard. Haruhi continued to console him quietly, and they were met with no further resistance from the prince.
Tamaki's eyelids drifted closed and his mouth opened a fraction in the drug-induced sleep just enough for his lips to part. As his head fell to the side in Haruhi's grasp, the door opened to reveal Kyoya and Honey entering.
"How did you get in here?" Kyoya demanded of Haruhi.
Mori continued to hold down the prince until the sedative could take its full effect. Though he was facing away from the door, he called his friend. "Mitsukuni."
It was all he needed to hear. Honey began the process of removing Haruhi from the room as quickly and politely as possible. He led her to the dining hall for breakfast by the hand since her gaze repeatedly drifted behind her in attempts to keep the prince's room within sight or earshot. Once she was sure she could no longer see or hear anything from the room, she turned around.
"How often does that happen?" she asked.
The childish-looking boy gnawed on his lower lip from his inner battle whether to tell her or not. "It depends…" he said slowly. "Usually it happens every few weeks or so, but it's been happening more and more…"
"Has that ever happened before?"
He shook his head. "The only time it's even come close is once when Prince Tamaki was younger. The doctors thought he was going to die."
"I remember hearing about that," she muttered.
"All of the best doctors were examining him, but they couldn't find anything. The king even cancelled all of his meetings to make sure he would be all right." He thought silently for a moment. "What was really strange was that Nekozawa refused to examine him with the rest of the doctors…"
"Really?" she asked in bewilderment and interest.
As he nodded, Kirimi skipped up to Haruhi with a smile, taking her hand happily. "Ready for breakfast?"
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Haruhi knocked lightly on the large wooden door to prevent the sound from traveling down the halls. In moments it cracked open and she heard someone say, "Come in, Haruhi."
She entered and closed the door behind her. "How did you know it was me?"
"What kind of mage would I be if I didn't?" Nekozawa countered while he poured over several books on his desk.
"I need to talk to you."
"I know, and I can't tell you what I know about the matter."
"How do you know what I was going to say? Don't tell me it's your job to know that, too."
He stood from his desk and turned, walking to a shelf of vials. "No," he replied while removing a vial to examine the label, "I overheard you talking to Honey before breakfast." He thrust the vial at her while her mouth formed a small "o" and moved to another one on the shelf. "Drink that," he commanded, "It'll keep you hydrated."
He pulled a few vials off the shelves along with one empty one, referring several times to one of the books on his desk. "As you know, it's also my job to make sure anyone who enters the palace has no intentions of harm towards the royal family. Of course, my sister's attachment to you motivated me to look a little more thoroughly than usual at you. Nothing personal," he added quickly on the end.
He began combining specific amounts of different vials into the empty one. "I must say I was surprised what I saw." Glancing over, he noticed the liquid she held was untouched. "Drink it; it's not poisoned."
After a moment's hesitation, Haruhi uncorked the container and drank it gingerly. "So why can't you tell me what you know about Tamaki's illness?"
"Take a seat," he instructed while he worked. "Are you aware that the prince's mother wasn't originally arranged to marry the king?" He held the unfinished mixture up to the dim candlelight to examine its color. Without waiting for her to answer, he continued, "The king had been arranged to marry the present queen until he met the prince's mother at his ally's engagement party. Still, since the three got along with each other, the queen lived in the castle often as a guest for several years until she took permanent resident here."
She sat on a cushy chair nearby, folding her hands neatly in her lap. "No, I wasn't."
He nodded sagely while he reread something in one of the books. "When the queen was so inclined, she even assisted around the castle—and still does occasionally—with the excuse that she was making herself useful. She was even used as a political substitute when the late queen was ill. You see, the prince's mother had a weak immune system, so she often fell ill ever since she was a child."
She nodded in understanding.
His gaze drifted away for a few moments. "The late queen was a very kind woman."
"It's a shame she got sick," she quietly announced.
Nekozawa returned his attention to his book. "Yes," he replied even more quietly than Haruhi. He added two vials at once, careful to keep the amounts equal at all times as he poured slowly. "Often times, Prince Tamaki practiced piano in his mother's room when she couldn't leave her bed. Even if he wasn't allowed inside, he played it in the nearby den so she could hear. Even though bold doctors would scold him for it, he kept playing and his mother always encouraged him and said she loved it. At all times, he was either studying or playing the piano for his mother. The more ill she grew, the more he would play."
"How thoughtful of him," she commented, "He must have loved her very much."
He stood. "Indeed," he replied as he began to search a shelf of powders. After he grabbed two, Nekozawa returned to his desk. He poured one powder into the watery mixture, but only a few teaspoons' worth. He swirled the vial in his grasp to mix it.
"Prince Tamaki wouldn't play a piano for over a year after his mother passed away. It took him even longer to be able to play without shedding tears," he said, "Though he wouldn't make a spectacle, many times he would just sit in front of a piano for a long time with a very depressed expression on his face. He rarely cried in those times, though. I think he just thought… and remembered."
"I don't think I can even imagine him like that…"
"He began to really pull out of it when Kyoya, Honey, and Mori took occupation here. Though I already lived here," he smiled eerily to prove his point, "we didn't talk much." He placed a large dollop of the second, blue powder on a palate and poured some of the liquid mixture onto it. Using a small rod, he mixed them together to make a paste.
"What are you making?" Haruhi finally asked.
Nekozawa turned around, palate in hand, and began to gather the paste on the rod. "As I said before, I can't tell you what I know. This, however, may be able to. Now drink this." He handed her the purple liquid.
After she drank the foul-tasting liquid, he instructed, "Close your eyes."
She hesitated for several seconds before suspiciously complying. He spread the paste over her eyelids and a strip over her forehead. Haruhi soon felt heavy and saw colors flash before her.
"Make yourself comfortable," Nekozawa's voice echoed distantly.
