Broken Melody

Chapter Five

Hopeless

"If you want me to wait, I will wait for you, if you tell me to stay, I would stay right through. If you don't wanna say anything at all, I'm happy wondering." Wondering- Good Charlotte

Author's notes: Wow. I'm at chapter five, and I have not gotten one flame yet! So happy…… Anyways, thanks to all my reviewers, your response to my story is very much appreciated. To Natsuki, I thought about what you said, and a tiny bit of the plot has changed so it makes much more sense. Anyways, standard disclaimers apply, and please review!

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Chiaki's eyes widened as he stared, then he fell to his knees with a thud muffled by the carpet. He yelled in rage, and pounded his fist on the floor. He suddenly looked up, and heard a voice.

"Anger management, Joe, anger management."

It was a girl, a black-haired girl wearing a black cloak. She grinned at him, and her new, pristinely white fangs glimmered in the soft moonlight. Silence reigned over the small room, and time itself seemed to stand still. And then, he reeled back and punched her in the jaw with all the strength he could muster in his state of mind. She clutched at the bruise already forming on her pale skin, and glared. And then her face smoothed into a thin smile of satisfaction.

"You're looking for her. Don't waste your time, you'll never find her. Yes, She made sure of that. Oh, I won't hurt her. She won't suffer. Quick, painless death, I promise you." He gritted his teeth. So, she had Maron. His rage and anger at himself (and the world, as it so happened) only made her smile widen.

And then she was gone.

He flew out of her apartment, pausing briefly to grab his shoes and force them on speedily, before running towards the stairs. Instead of making the turn, he simply vaulted over and kept on running. Why waste valuable time, after all. And he ran as fast as he could, thinking he knew where to look. As it so happened, he was headed in the correct direction. He skidded to a stop in front of the school, breathing heavily. His eyes scanned, looking for something unnatural, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Wait.

He saw a dark shadow, which looked oddly familiar, leap down from a tree.

And disappear.

He looked under the tree, but saw nothing. He cursed colorfully under his breath, and kept on running. He had to find Maron, fast. He was normally very trusting, other than when it came to Maron, but he'd known enough evil demons to realize that they literally had no honor, and swearing to or not to do something was like any ordinary sentence. So he had no doubt that now Maron was going to suffer a particularly painful death. He had to find her before that happened.

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The shadow grinned darkly, red eyes glowing brightly in the dim moonlight. She'd been able to throw that persistent and aggravating bastard off her trail. So now she could report and help her Master prepare.

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Chiaki had run everywhere, looking at places he'd never looked before, trying every hidden road he could find. But they were all dead ends. He wouldn't give up, not just yet. But it was after midnight. He was sure that if they were torturing her, by now he'd have heard her screams. And so he turned around and headed back towards his apartment building, taking a shortcut he'd discovered. He was weary beyond belief, but still managed to run up the seven flights of stairs and stagger awkwardly into his apartment. HE flicked the light on, and felt something warm and sticky on his fingertips. In the flickering light, he could see it was red. And painted on the wall, in the same substance was:

Happy Birthday

He figured out it was blood only by the foul stench it gave off. And there was little doubt in his mind as to whose blood it was. He felt sick, like this was all his fault. He should have been there to protect her. His mind told himself that she was already dead or dying, but a tiny voice in the back of his head cried out that if they were truly torturing her, she'd still be alive after only a few hours. He sighed and flopped onto his bed, and the silence of the house somehow disturbed him. But weariness drove him into a light sleep, but he awoke often because of nightmares.

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Finn blinked slowly and yawned. Her large white wings unfurled quietly, barely rustling against each other. She stretched her arms, then leapt neatly down to the dry and barren ground beneath her.

She was ready to spread Darkness.

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Maron awoke slowly, the throbbing pain at the base of her skull flaring up whenever she tried to move her head. Finally, her eyes cooperated and fluttered open. She was tied to a hard metal chair in a damp, cold stone dungeon. These idiots obviously were inspired by fairy tales. She had no intention of just sitting there, waiting to be let go. Or whatever. She tried desperately to saw the ropes against the cool metal chair, but she was bound too tight to even twitch. Her legs were bound tight also, making her immobile from the neck down. The chair was bolted in too, and some scarf-like cloth covered her mouth. She blinked, trying to think straight. So she was bound tight, unable to move or scream for help. This was bad.

She struggled wildly, but gave up after a few minutes. It was hopeless; she'd better save her strength. She somehow fell into a light and dreamless slumber for the remainder of the night, unaware that anyone knew of her disappearance.

"Wake up," someone with a heavy Russian accent growled in her ears. She blinked her eyes awake almost immediately, to see the ugly face of a brunette man glaring at her. She quickly scanned the area. She was in the same room, but she could see several soldiers looking at her, obviously armed. She knew it was pointless to struggle, so allowed him to untie her and force her into an unsteady standing position. Her legs were numb from lack of use in the cold air for many hours, and she staggered and stumbled behind him out of the cell, arms re-tied in front of her and gag still on. The soldiers will still following her, and the man chuckled at her as she stumbled along behind him. He knew that they were someone where no one would find her.

Finally, after about forty-five minutes of silent and terrifying walking, they came to a large, dark chamber. The man snapped his fingers, and the sound echoed in the room. A torch was silently lit, and others followed. Maron heard a small sound to her left right before a torch was lit, so she assumed some creatures were hurriedly lighting the room. She shivered at the power these new forces were showing. What would they do to her?

When the room was finally lit, she saw that it did indeed contain one strange object in the center of the room. When she saw what it was, her mind rapidly put the pieces of the puzzle together. She screamed around the gag, wondering if there was anyone nearby to save her. When silence greeted her desperate pleads, she screamed again.

Silence.

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Chiaki sat upright in bed, almost drenched in sweat. He would almost swear he just heard a scream. He sighed again, and buried his face in his hands. Suddenly, an idea sparked in his mind, but he mentally threw it aside. These new forces just could not be that stupid. It was two in the morning, and he could not sleep. He decided to go out looking for Maron again. The silence of the early morning disturbed him, so he ran like he had never run before, searching and looking and trying to find her.

The smell of the fresh morning air, of sunrises greeted his nose hours later as he rested his sore back against the trunk of a tree in the park. He was breathing heavily, and still no luck finding her. He rested the back of his head against the trunk of the tree, letting the newly-risen sun warm his sweat-drenched face. And that was when another ingenious idea sparked him.

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(Because I know absolutely no Russian, and about five words in French, this conversation is pre-translated. Mostly, anyways.)

"Jean-Paul?" Nikolai called into the dark antechamber.

"Oui, c'est moi," The French man replied.

"That pathetic witch that She insisted be taken captive doesn't speak Russian, and you're the only one that bothered to learn Japanese. Could you go talk to her?" Nikolai told him angrily. Jean-Paul's eyes glimmered evilly in the darkness. He loved it when people pissed Nikolai off. It was just too funny to watch them scream and beg for death.

"Oui," he replied, smiling thinly through the darkness.

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Chiaki remembered wandering down from the basement parking-lot and into that huge underground area and being lost for hours. He remembered going to his dad and demanding an explanation for two things: why there was that huge labyrinth of dark tunnels and chambers under their hospital and why he'd never been told about it. Kaiki just shrugged and said that nobody ever used it for anything or even went down there, and it had been there when he got here, so he didn't know why it was there.

Chiaki, despite fatigue, sped toward the hospital as fast as he could. Luckily for him, he was close, so he didn't have to run far. The hospital wasn't open, and nobody was there, but he had a key. He let himself in, disabled the alarm, and ran down the stairs as fast as he could, skidding at the corners and skipping steps. Finally he reached the 'bottom' floor- the garage parking lot. Then he felt for the door that so little people noticed. He found it with little effort, because he hands surprisingly still held that memory {1}. He slammed his shoulder forcefully against it, and gritted his teeth hard against the pain. Surprisingly, the door swung open easily, sending him tumbling ungracefully into the opening chamber. He steadied himself against the cold stone wall, rubbing his sore shoulder. He cautiously crept down the staircase, all the while trying to stay hidden in the shadows.

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The possessed Nightmare was hiding in a tree, the good Nightmare long since drowned in the dark and evil feelings that had been forced into Indigo's body. She was waiting for Chiaki to come along and re-discover that nice, huge underground labyrinth. Because that's what it technically was. A labyrinth of long passages and antechambers and locked rooms and dungeons. She smiled. It wouldn't take long for him to get lost, hopefully. If not, well, that just moved Her plan along a heck of a lot faster, which meant she wouldn't have to do much more waiting around in stupid trees for stupid kaitous. After hours of sitting still and silent in the same position, she finally shifted slightly and yawned quietly.

Suddenly, a shape darted out of her blind-spot, headed towards the hospital doors, and unlocked them, and threw themselves into the lobby of the massive building. She smiled thinly- finally, her stupid brother picked up on the little clues that didn't exist. The real fun was about to begin. She snapped her gloved fingers together, the holes the claws had formed enlarging as her claws scraped each other and her fingers, giving her a sudden shock of small pain and a trickle of blood. She ignored it, though. It was a small price to pay for revenge.

When she reappeared in the large stone chamber, she called out in a cold voice:

"Laissa le jeu commencez."

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I am so sorry for the shortness of this chapter, but it needed to be finished, and if it were longer, this would be a good place to end. Oh well.. I like it though. Please Review!!!!

{1}: What he's talking about is muscle memory; we talk/hear about that a lot in karate. It actually exists, so if you make minor adjustments in a kick, and do it enough, your muscles will remember those changes and keep them with little to no effort. It's strange that his hands remember the workings of the door after only doing it once and so long ago; it's also probably not possible, but whatever.

'Oui, c'est moi' menas something like: Yes, it's me

'Laissa le jeu commencez' means something like 'Let the games begin.' It may be a little off, because 'jeu' is French for 'game', but the online English-French dictionary I used didn't have games, so I just used 'jeu'.

Again, please review!

-Knife thrower