Note: Yay new content! This is a new chapter, I promises, and if you haven't revisited chapter 1 yet please do! R&R and all that good stuff.
Chapter 10
Visions came in bright wild flashes. Suppressed emotions flared bright and burned away to dull gray ash.
He heard the slow steady thumps of a heart in its last moments of life, loud and powerful as a bass drum. He did not know to whom it belonged.
A flash of white light blinded him and faded into the stale palette of the world. A glimpse of a reality that had once been, then darkness bolted through his mind and tore the color away in thick shreds.
What had he seen? People? People he recognized but could not recall. They were faceless and soundless, figments of an imagination lost in a twisted mass of blood and metal.
He watched as a shadow of himself peered out of the window. White snow rushed past and a mountain, an amalgamation of white, green, and brown, loomed off on the horizon. A rush of black came suddenly down the rock, a thick rolling fog that flew free and fast over the uneven ground, and the shadow enveloped him in a sharp cold darkness.
He felt a jolt, heard a crash, hysteric screams assaulted his sensibilities. A woman's voice echoed loud through the veil, shrieking and wailing in the throes of a violent and painful death. Then it was quiet but for the irregular rattle of shallow breaths.
The veil was warm and numb and he opened his eyes to be greeted by darkness so absolute that he did not know whether he was alive or dead. He saw through a tiny crack in the wreckage a long thick stream of bright red blood against the black. It radiated with heat and fluorescence as it dripped through the dark onto his skin.
A voice broke through the void, a whisper that wove around his hollow breath so delicately that he was scarcely even aware of its existence. "Harbinger of death."
Ж
When Jun woke his body would not move. He felt his heart race, heard his rapid gasps, and felt pure unfettered panic. His body was numb but his mind raced with the implications of sudden remembrance.
It was not the first time he had had such a dream, similar nightmares were frequent and while they were not of consistent intensity they all featured the same rapid succession of images. They all ended with the crash.
But this one hadn't.
As he stared at the white blank ceiling he struggled to remember the details, the blood, and the darkness. He repeated the scene over again in his head until eventually the hysteria faded and he was left with thin memories of the dream tugging at the back of his consciousness.
He sat up slowly and winced at the dull ache that pulsed in his chest. He had been bandaged neatly, if a bit too tight, and deep bruises bloomed from beneath the white like a field of dark flowers. A thin line of red showed through the wrap.
He realized then that he was alone in an unfamiliar place, sitting on a traditional futon in the middle of a tiny square tatami room with bright white walls. The place was largely undecorated; a second futon was folded neatly against the wall to his left and a dark wooden chair sat in a corner beside a small table. Draped over the chair was a simple white shirt.
Jun reasoned that he was back at the shrine, safe, and that the others had cared for him as best they could. He supposed that Nasté had already explained everything.
With a sigh Jun got to his feet and walked to the chair where he pulled on the shirt with some difficulty. Then he returned to the futon, folded it neatly and placed it against the wall with the other, and walked to the door, a large sliding shoji through which he could hear the quiet conversation of the others, though he could not make out what they said.
He slid the door open and looked both ways down the long corridor. To his left was a dead end and to the right some distance down was a single stair that opened into a much larger space, probably the sitting room where he, Nasté, and Kayura had spent the majority of their time before he left. He walked to the stair and stopped with his back to the wall. Then he listened.
"I don't think this is a good idea," he heard Ryo say. "We don't know what's going on, we don't know who this person is, why it targeted Seiji, we've got nothing."
"It targeted me to get to him," Seiji said flatly. "And I don't think we ought to let him go yet."
Jun heaved a sigh from behind the wall and slumped down. He had been under the impression that his going home was not up for debate, he and Kayura had agreed that as soon as he returned with the others that he would be finished with the whole business. It seemed that the others had different plans.
"He won't be an asset if he's not here of his own choosing," Kayura said at length. "Let me assure you he is a brilliant young man but he will be of no use to you if he doesn't want to be here. Yes, it would be dangerous to let him go but it would be more dangerous to keep him here against his will."
Jun was confused by this comment. He was uncertain exactly to what danger Kayura was referring and uncertain as to the validity of the agreement between them.
"Maybe we should go wake him up," said Shin after another stretch of quiet. "It's been almost fifteen hours; he should be well enough rested by now to at least have a talk with us."
Jun stood upright again and breathed deep. Better to face them on his own terms than to have one of them catch him eavesdropping, he thought, and then he steeled himself for his
presentation. He shoved his hands in his pockets and strode casually into the room with his eyes on the floor.
"Jun!" Nasté cried and rushed to his side. "You shouldn't be out of bed!" She grasped Jun by his arms and surveyed him up and down several times.
"I'm fine," he said and pushed her gently aside. She looked hurt as she made her way back to her seat at Ryo's side, and when Jun looked to the others he was met by the wide eyed stares of the five warriors and Kayura. "What?" he said defensively. "It's not like this came as a surprise."
Kayura stood and waved him over, inviting him to take her seat. Instead Jun slid to the side and leaned casually against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest with Byakuen ever at his side. Kayura sat back in her seat and regarded him curiously. "We have a matter to discuss with you," she said.
Jun looked at her expectantly but remained quiet.
"You recall that I told you that you could go home once you retrieved the others," Kayura said. "It seems that our plans have necessarily changed."
"Bullshit," Jun replied and his voice dripped with animosity. "Your plans didn't necessarily change; they changed because it was convenient for you."
"Hey," Ryo cried. "You can't talk to her like that."
Jun shot Ryo a sharp glare and Ryo's offensive posture diminished immediately. "I can talk to her however I damned well please. Sit down and keep quiet, this isn't your affair," Jun said.
From aside Shu leaned to Ryo with a chuckle. "He told you," Shu said and Ryo looked angry and defeated.
Kayura cleared her throat and regarded Jun gravely. "Your safety is my primary concern."
"Bullshit."
"Fine," Kayura said, offended. "Believe whatever you want. The fact of the matter is that I simply can't let you leave until we know exactly what we're dealing with. It's too big of a risk to let all of you go gallivanting around the country unsupervised."
"Somehow I don't feel like this is my problem. I pulled my end of the deal," Jun said. "Seems to me that you couldn't hold up your end and now you're backing out."
"See it however you want," Kayura said. "The point still stands."
"You've got until tomorrow morning," Jun said, "After that I'm out of here. I can take care of myself."
Kayura looked perplexed. "Two days," she bartered and Jun looked at her coldly, apparently unwilling to barter. "There is much work to be done, and you're still badly wounded besides."
"Noon the day after tomorrow," Jun said. "Then Nasté is taking me to the nearest train station so I can get back home. You're not the only one with work to do around here."
Kayura seemed happy enough with Jun's concession and she beamed with her victory. But her smile faded when she saw the confused and angry expressions splayed over the faces of the rest of the room and she collected herself as best she could. She cleared her throat once more and spoke in as professional a tone as she could. "We know that whomever we are up against is very powerful and very dangerous," she said, picking up an earlier conversation. "But we do not know who or what it is."
Seiji seemed suddenly alert then and looked to Jun with interest. "Does the name Mai mean anything to you?"
Jun returned the interested expression and shook his head. "You were unconscious for quite a while," he said. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Nothing at all?" Seiji continued, deliberately ignoring the question. "That name has no significance to you whatsoever?"
Jun pondered this for a moment and gazed at the ceiling in thought. "I slept with a girl named Mai once," he said and when he looked back at the group they seemed shocked by the candid admission. Nasté blushed bright red, looked away from him, and Jun shrugged. "Though it was not an event of particular significance whatsoever," he continued, mocking Seiji's inquiry directly.
"Was she eight years old and dead?" Seiji remarked slyly and it was Jun's turn to appear shocked and disgusted. "Because the particular young lady I was dealing with was certainly one of those two things."
"How do you mean?" Jun said.
"What he means is that we're dealing with a vengeful spirit," Ryo said bitterly. "And she said she was your sister."
Nasté touched Ryo's arm gently. "Calm down," she whispered and he relaxed noticeably.
"Ryo is right to be upset," Shin said so quietly that Jun could scarcely hear him at all. Then Shin turned around, sat backward on the sofa, and seemed genuinely empathetic toward Jun. "None of us want to deal with this, but for the time being we have to take it seriously."
"I don't have any siblings," Jun said to Shin. "My mother and father never mentioned anything about other children, if they had plans I wasn't aware."
"Then she lied to me," Seiji reasoned and stared at the ground for a long while. "I know that she was not operating alone."
Kayura leaned forward and rested her chin on her hand. "You had mentioned something of that earlier," she said. "Please, divulge."
Seiji leaned back in his chair and pondered for a moment. "She came and went frequently," he said.
"Came and went from where?" Jun interjected.
"She inhabited my consciousness," Seiji explained. "And each time she left and returned she imparted me with more knowledge."
Jun pushed himself away from the wall and leaned against the back of the sofa, poking his head between Shin and Shu. "She told me that you let her in willingly."
Seiji laughed. "She was bluffing," he said. "To get you angry."
Shu looked at Jun with a smirk. "It seemed to have worked, too," he said and then gazed coyly at Seiji. "He dominated you."
Seiji glared at Shu then. "She didn't have access to everything," he said. "I let her have enough to make it seem as though I was fully under her influence."
"Sure," Shu said sarcastically. "Save face, I don't mind."
"To the point, Seiji," Kayura said loudly and Seiji focused at her urgency.
"She was tracking you, Jun," Seiji said. "And periodically she would report to someone else the things she had seen you doing. Whenever she returned to me she brought images and emotions. I don't know the exact nature of her superior or what its goal is, but I do know that it exists."
"Why would someone track me," Jun said.
"You know very well why someone would want to track you," Kayura scolded and eyed Jun grimly. "And be happy I've not disclosed that information to your friends."
Jun was startled by Kayura's threatening expression. He had forgotten that she knew of his less-than-legal exploits in the city and had not considered the implications of the warriors, or Nasté for that matter, knowing any of it. He slumped a bit against the couch and continued to listen despite the curious glances aimed his direction.
"Well if she wanted him why did she get all of us involved?" Shu said. "That seems like a backwards way of going about it."
Seiji shrugged. "She or her superior must have wanted all of us. I would imagine that they were in the same boat as we were, as far as knowledge of this situation," he said slowly and looked to Jun. "Likely that they didn't know of this strange black armor just as we didn't know about it."
Jun stared at the floor and felt everyone's eyes shift to him. He felt uneasy then, like they were prying into him and his skin crawled with the thought. Byakuen nudged him gently.
"Why didn't you summon it when you had the chance?" Shu said and turned about on the couch. "I would have been excited."
"I didn't think it was necessary," Jun replied placidly. "I was able to handle everything up to the production of the kanji orb easily enough."
"You almost died."
All eyes turned to Toma as he spoke with such uncharacteristic anger. He had remained silent since they returned, had seemed almost resentful, and he had been sitting in the same defensive position since the meeting had begun some hours ago. Jun was the last to look at Toma and he met the strata's hard gaze with his own steel.
"Don't be stupid," Jun said venomously. "There was no almost dead about it."
"You were badly poisoned," Toma replied. "You were suffering serious pain; you broke mentally at least once and lost complete muscular control toward the end of it."
Jun cocked an eyebrow then and pushed himself away from the couch. "It was a high morbidity toxin and in a huge majority of cases high morbidity does not mean high mortality. I was in no danger of dying," Jun said with such fluency and finality that it seemed he was reading from an elementary school textbook. He regarded Toma once again and the warrior did not seem impressed by the complexity of Jun's argument, though the others gawked.
"Don't talk down to me," Toma said indignantly. "I know exactly what was going on with you in there and now you're too big of a tough guy to admit that you might need our help."
"Says the guy that had to be rescued," Jun retorted. "I'll be damned if you think I'm going to take advice from someone who is incapable of watching his own back."
Toma stood up then, angry and offended by Jun's implication. "Says the deviant that had to be carried like a defenseless child for the last third of the ordeal," he spat.
"I did all the work in there," Jun yelled. "You couldn't have taken half the beating I did and come out alive."
"You think so, kid?"
Jun stepped forward. "You want to see?"
By this time the two were shouting loudly and the others looked on in horror and confusion. They all remembered Toma saying that Jun despised him but none of them could fathom that the once brotherly relationship between the two could have deteriorated so severely. The two were at each other's throats like a pair of angry wolves, and now they stared at each other with a smoldering rage so intense that the other warriors were too intimidated to make a move.
"Maybe we should take a break," Shin said tentatively as he looked between the two, but they did not move.
The tension hung in the air for a long moment before the two exploded into action, and no one could be certain what set them off. In two strides Toma was up and over the sofa on which Shu and Shin sat, toppling the furnishing and its occupants in the process, and Jun took the first hit without so much as attempting to dodge. He returned the punch in kind, catching Toma square in the jaw, and Toma threw his fist low and connected solidly with Jun's injured side.
Jun staggered back in agony and scowled at Toma. "You fight dirty, you little girl," he growled and then rushed back in. Toma threw another punch and Jun caught his fist tight. In the same fluid motion Jun wrenched Toma's arm backward in a deft feint and slammed him violently against the wall. He leaned against Toma with all of his diminutive weight and pressed hard against the back of Toma's neck with his forearm.
By this time the others had scrambled to their feet and as Jun successfully pinned Toma to the wall Shu and Shin grabbed hold of him roughly by the arms. Jun spoke low and threatening before Shu and Shin pulled him away, and despite his best effort he could not hide the hate dripping from his voice. "If you ever touch me again I'll lay you out."
At last Shu wrenched Jun away from Toma and he and Shin wrestled him back several yards. Ryo and Seiji treated Toma similarly though they were far gentler, and Toma and Jun glared at each other even as they were separated.
"Excuse us," Shu said, and he and Shin ushered Jun from the meeting room, down the hallway, and out of sight.