|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||
| En | Ning |
Disclaimer: Duh the characters don't belong to us, for one thing, I can't draw at all and Ning's look, well, much improvement is needed to reach that kind of standard. Think of all the fun we could have if they belonged to us though... (several anime characters vomit blood, others drop dead in fright, the rest decide to carry out mass suicide.) Anyway, don't sue us cause we're still students. Also, we tend to procrastinate, so you'll be wasting your time trying to get us to pay up. Ü
Last Revised: 03/08/2001
By the way, this is just a rough draft. We haven't had the chance to send it for proofreading yet, so expect some errors.
| Chapter 9 |
Genjurou adjusted his half-moon glasses as he continued to peer at the sheet of paper in his hand. The writing was simply illegible, not to mention microscopic. To make matters worse, the ink had faded over time. That was not surprising, since the paper was dated well over a hundred years ago. Genjurou, however, was not about to give up. He was sure that the paper held important clues to the nature of the cloning experiments that had been going on in the laboratory. Now, if only his eyesight were better...
Noroi idly played with a scalpel as he watched Genjurou strain his eyesight over what was to him a piece of junk. Make that a piece of antique junk. The mask considered babysitting Genjurou quite a waste of time and would have preferred working alone.
Genjurou suddenly gave a loud whoop of triumph. "The library... ah yes, the library!"
Noroi dropped the scalpel carelessly where it embedded itself into Genjurou's lab specimen and prepared to leave.
"Wait, where *is* the library?" Genjurou frowned as he flipped the paper over in search of a map.
Noroi sweatdropped (if that was possible).
A soft noise caused both mask and man to look up hastily. A young lady was leaning casually across the doorframe, looking at them expectantly.
Genjuro gripped his madougo and rasped, "Who are you and what do you want?"
The young lady, who had silver hair and violet eyes, replied in a melodious voice, "I know you and I know what you want."
Genjuro sneered, "Really? And what would that be?" Noroi Turned its head, as though it found the exchange rather amusing. After all, it wasn't everyday that someone dared to talk back at the old man.
The lady pushed herself off the doorframe and walked towards them. They unconsciously backed away from her, noticing that she wore a strange pendant around her neck which glowed on its own. She swept past them, not seeming to notice the stares she was getting from their direction.
She faced the only wall in the laboratory that was not filled with books and reached out to place the palm of one hand against the wall. There was a click and the wall moved out of its place, revealing a staircase that spiralled downwards towards the bottom of the mansion. Genjuro tried to conceal his surprise at the revelation of a hidden passageway by saying indifferently, "What's that got to do with what I want?"
The lady looked at him over her shoulder and said, "The library is at the end of the staircase. Your Kurei-sama is down there too." She retraced her steps and walked out of the room, leaving Genjuro to stare at the fluttering hem of her white dress and wonder how on earth she had known that.
"So, let's go see the library then," Genjuro told Noroi who just nodded and started down the dark staircase. It lighted up mysteriously with torches as they stepped through the door. They proceeded down the staircase cautiously, wondering, or rather, Genjuro wondered, Noroi stoned, whether the library really was at the bottom of the stairs.
"Oh, great, *another* dead end," Kirin complained as she faced another wall. "Rasen, are you sure we came by this way?"
'Even if it's not the way, at least we're still investigating the mansion,' Rasen replied as he turned around to go back the way they came from.
Kirin sighed as she followed him. They had more or less lost their way when they had run away from the armor. Suddenly, both of them heard voices that seemed to come from the other side of the wall...
"I'm telling you, you were hallucinating! Why the heck would I want to attack you for? I've got better things to do!"
"If that wasn't you then who was I fighting with?"
"Fighting with? You weren't fighting! You were just sitting opposite me complaining about something when you suddenly got up and whacked me with your Fukyo Waon!"
Kirin cheered up. "Hey! I think that's Neon and Jisho! Shall we go catch up with them?"
Rasen nodded as they made their way down the corridor to try to find a door that connected the two sides. At least I won't have to put up with her by myself, Rasen thought. Although having Neon and Jisho quarreling the whole way isn't exactly very relaxing either.
On the other side of the wall...
Neon and Jisho were at it. *Again*. This time, Jisho was trying to convince Neon that both of them had been doing nothing while Neon was trying to convince Jisho that he had been trying to kill her.
Neon was getting more irked by the moment. She kicked the wall in frustration, doing more damage to her foot than to the wall. As she hopped around clutching her foot, she heard a familiar voice call out.
"Neon! Jisho! Is that the two of you?"
"Kirin!" Neon exclaimed happily. "Thank goodness you're here. You're just the person we need to help us solve this problem we're having."
She proceeded to fill in the bewildered Kirin and Rasen with what had happened since they, well, got stuck at the split corridor. Kirin and Rasen sweatdropped as their colleagues somehow managed to exchange insults and argue while telling them what had happened.
Rasen sighed to himself again and thought, Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all...
Somewhere in a dark underground passage, outside a mystery room...
"You go first."
"No, no, no... *you* opened the door so *you* should have the honour of entering first."
"It's precisely because I opened the door that *you* should go first."
The two of them, two of the most powerful assassins in the Uruha, had been standing in front of the doorway in the dark, chilly passageway arguing for fifteen minutes. Neither was willing to be the first to enter. It was understandable that neither of them felt the slightest inclination to step across the threshold and into the dark, forbidding room. The room reeked of the stench of death and decay. Not only that, the room remained dark and gloomy despite the bright, cheery light emitted by the madougo. It was as if the darkness ate up whatever light it touched. All in all, it was *not* a pleasant place to be.
Joker looked at his fellow assassin and bowing mockingly, stepped way from the doorway. He did not want to enter that freaky room of unknown horrors. Horrors that he would quite frankly like to leave unknown.
"Oh just go in, you baka!" the purple-haired ninja snapped as he shoved the hapless Joker through the doorway and into the dreaded room.
"Itai! You just dented my helmet!" Joker protested as he fingered the dent on his helmet. There was also a dent on the wall. It was to be noted that the dent on the wall was noticeably deeper and more serious than the one on Joker's helmet.
Raiha followed the other Uruha member in cautiously, glaring and sighing inwardly. Joker was one of his best friends amongst the Uruha (well, he was one of the most normal) and a great person, but one could not deny that he was, and always would be, a well... baka. The baka did not even seem to be able to take a mission seriously either. Raiha was beginning to wish that he had partnered someone more sensible like Neon or Jisho and let someone else be stuck with this rasta-braided punk.
"Oi, Raiha-han, there's nothing here!" Joker called from a corner. He carelessly prodded a flowervase and then sneezed multiple times as a cloud of dust rose.
*crash*
"Err... Raiha-han..." Joker turned around quickly, and his eyes were met with a gruesome sight.
One of the large flowerpots in the conservatory... well, the room appeared to be a conservatory of sorts due to the assortment of potted plants crammed into the room. Most of the plants were long dead, but that was not surprising as the mansion had been abandoned for many years. The large flowerpot had apparently crashed to the floor, six feet away from where Raiha was standing in the centre of the room. The contents of the flowerpot were all over the smooth tiled floor where the flowerpot had stood just a moment before. Just visible, but mostly hidden, amongst the soil and dead plant matter was a human head.
As the two assassins watched in morbid fascination, the soil hiding the head slid away to reveal... the head of a lady. A lady with long, matted and bloodstained silver hair, her lovely eyes and mouth forever open, and her bloody face twisted in an expression of great horror and shock. Her graceful neck was totally covered with dry blood from the numerous slash wounds on it.
"Urkk..." Joker dashed out of the room looking distinctly queasy.
Raiha followed immediately after him, looking more than a little queasy himself.
The two assassins leaned against the cool wall of the passageway as they tried to get the disturbing picture out of their minds. Neither assassin said anything for a while. They just stood outside the room, neither willing to go back in.
"Oh man... what on earth was a *head* doing inside there?!" Joker asked once he had gotten his stomach back under control. It had helped that his stomach was empty in the first place.
"We have to go back in and investigate, Joker-san."
"Yeah..." Joker strode purposefully back into the room.
The next instant, he had dashed back out again.
"Raiha-han, the head... it's gone!"
Locked in a room somewhere else in the mansion...
Mikoto and Mokuren were still at it. They were still doing unspeakable and unmentionable things to each other. Things that now involved whips and leather. The fact that they were actually on a mission to investigate a house had apparently slipped their minds. They were 'having fun'. Again.
TBC…
Author's note: Sigh… I actually wrote the Joker and Raiha part three times! *groans* Let's see, the first time I accidentally logged out of my e-mail account after finishing writing when I was about to send it. So I lost everything! And it was much nicer than the current version. The second time, my computer hung when I was typing it. So I lost everything. Again. Finally I managed to send it without any problems the third time. I think I would have screamed and bashed my computer if I had to write the same thing out more than three times. *growls* Still, I'm quite happy with that part. Not as good as the first (lost) version, but better than the second (also lost) version.
In case anyone was wondering, the head does not necessarily have any connection with the silver-haired girl. I just wanted to add a decapitated head in. ^_^;
As for Mikoto and Mokuren, they're still at it. What else can they do? ^_^ As to how they actually got whips and leather, and other *ahem* equipment, I have no idea. Not everyone carries whips around like Nakago. ^_^ I'm not sure, but Mikoto and Mokuren do seem the type for S&M stuff.
Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.
Ning.
