Masquerade
By Ekai Ungson
DISCLAIMER: please see previous chapters for full disclaimer.
For Luna, in gratitude for created grace, beauty, and friendship.
A/N: I won't even think of apologizing for the lateness of this chapter. I've been busy running over to other fandoms because I was so depressed at what the world was coming to. To everyone who stayed loyal to this story, thank you. ^-^
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"Leave her and come with me. Eriol, divorce her. Marry me. We were happy before she was ever around, before you even knew her. She doesn't love you. I do. Can't you understand that?"
"And you, can't you understand that I love her?"
-Ten: Left-
It was as if he no longer acknowledged that there was still life around him. His outlook went from black to blacker within days. The life of the house had left, leaving in its wake immense traces of despair. No laughter survived in the mansion when the lady left.
He was aware of everything and nothing at all. When he heard a swish of silk rustling against chiffon he turned sharply around to see. A flash of black might be raven hair. A pale swatch of skin might be a slender hand.
Here I am, Eriol.
He looked up. Tomoyo?
It wasn't her. This woman had crimson hair and ruby eyes. It was someone who could never, ever be Tomoyo.
Kaho was the one who stood before him, who still stubbornly stayed and cared for him even though she knew that the whole manor rejected her very presence.
Kaho, whom he did not want, nor love.
"What are you still doing here?" he asked tonelessly.
"Taking care of you," she replied. "You're a wreck. What is it with you? What does that lowly prostitute have that I don't? I can give you money, Eriol. I can give you power. I can give you everything she has given, in bed or out of it, and more! That little girl was nothing but a common whore!"
Eriol's eyes flared. "Do not talk about her that way," he muttered. "I do not need you here."
"Eriol, it's the truth," she persisted. "Why won't you let her go? She has left you." She took his hand. "I can be better than her."
He retracted his hand sharply. "No. You can never compare to her. You've ruined my life enough, Kaho. Stop it already."
And he walked out.
----
"Okaasama… dead?" Tomoyo repeated disbelievingly.
The elderly Miki nodded. "Died of a disease still unknown to us all. The doctor said something about her blood going bad, or something like that. I am very sorry, ojou-sama, but she had strict orders not to give word to you."
"And my father?" asked Tomoyo, panicky now. "Is he well?"
"The Master is upstairs, resting," replied Miki. "Ojou-sama… your father, Master Ken. He is dying as well."
Tomoyo didn't even stop to think. She ran up the enormous staircase to her father's room, the words echoing in her head. Father. Dying.
Father. Dying.
It cannot be!
"Otou-chan!" she cried as she hurled the door open. "Otou-chan!"
Ken straightened at the voice of his only daughter. Then his eyes widened. "Chiisa hana…?"
Tomoyo rushed to his side. "'tou-chan…" She laid her head on his bed. His hand reached up automatically to stroke her hair.
"Chiisa… hana," he said weakly. "What are you doing here? Why are you back? Did something happen with Hiiragizawa?"
Tomoyo couldn't answer. Instead she looked up, teary-eyed, at her father and said, "Everything will be just fine, Otou-chan. I'm home now."
----
"The doctors' medicine is keeping him alive," said Mai. "But we're almost out."
"Can we buy some more?" asked Tomoyo.
"Yes, Ojou-sama, but I must remind you that the medicine is very expensive."
Tomoyo breathed in sharply. This was the exact reason why she had been married off to Eriol in the first place. To support her family. What now?
"And the treasury?"
Mai shook her head regretfully. "My apologies, Ojou-sama. But there is very little gold left since Hiiragizawa-sama last sent money. It will last no more than a month."
The young lady bit her lip, nervous. What was she to do now? Run back to Eriol? She remembered the spectacle on her bed no more than two days ago and crushed the thought. She was NOT going back to Eriol. There was no need to, because her father wasn't dying. She'd be damned before that.
Damned. There was an idea.
"I'll look for work tomorrow," Tomoyo decided.
Mai looked horrified. "Ojou-sama! But you can't!"
"I have to," said the lady firmly.
"Let us—"
Tomoyo looked at the young servant and smiled. But her smile was devoid of joy. "Mai, I cannot 'let you' do things for me forever," she whispered. "If I do not do anything, my father will—" she broke off, trying not to think about it. "I can't lose him, do you see?" she said. "He's all I have right now."
But everywhere she went she was turned down.
She went to town looking for a job, any job, but it seemed the whole women population of the city had rose up in arms and gathered against her and her blood. When she was about to be accepted, someone's wife or mother would interfere and she would be thrown out into the street.
"—not the Kurotori—"
"—her family's bad blood—"
"—child of the temptress—"
"—not her, she's Flame's daughter—"
"—she's a whore like her mother—"
"—she's getting what her whole bloodline deserves—"
Tomoyo let it all slide off her like water. These were things she had grown up with and could never escape no matter where she ran.
But she was desperate.
Once she stepped back into the mansion she was met with a panicked cry.
"Ojou-sama!!"
It had come from her father's room.
She gathered up her skirts and ran.
And there was her father, surrounded by panicked servants, having a terrible seizure.
"Otou-chan!" Tomoyo yelled. Then she shouted for a doctor. Then she yelled her father's name again.
She could only hold on to her father's hand. "We'll be all right, we'll be all right," she chanted.
Tears were falling from her eyes to her father's sheets.
-tsuzuku-
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A/N: This is the part where it really gets tricky. I'll leave a chapter snippet here to stave you all off. If I get any death threats or pointy objects in my email I'm going to make sure you guys never see more of Masquerade 'til two years. I'm not kidding.
::Masquerade Eleven—Suicide::
"If they think I'm a whore, if they think I'm a prostitute, if they think I'm my mother—so be it forever," Tomoyo said grimly.
"…! Ojou-sama, we beg of you, please! Don't—" cried Mai.
"We have no choice," the lady said. "I have no other options than this."
"There are other ways—"
"There are no other ways left, Mai. There is nothing left. Now give me the key."
"I beg you to reconsider, my lady!"
"The key, Mai," Tomoyo repeated forcefully. "Hand it over to me now."
Mai turned to Obaasan-Miki for support. The old woman merely shook her head. With a small whimper, she handed the key over to the lady.
It was a silver key. The silver key to the room at the end of the third level hallway. The key to the Untouched Room, where all of her mother's possessions were kept. All of her mother's possessions before she married her father.
Her days of being the Flame, from out of necessity or simple spite, it didn't matter to Tomoyo anymore. This was necessity. Desperate necessity.
She walked out of the room and up the stairs without looking back.