Broken Melody

Chapter 9

Conversations and Explanations

"So here we are now, a sip of wine, a sip of water. Someday maybe, maybe someday we'll be smarter." If You Don't, Don't-Jimmy Eat World

I wanted to celebrate this story going on for a certain length, but chapter 10-celebration is overused, so I chose chapter nine! It's an uber-long chapter, and it's dedicated to Jo-Ryan-Salazar. Enjoy the utter long-ness of this chapter, and please please please please please in the name of Orlando Bloom, review! Warning: This chapter also covers some very dark material; I warned you, so please believe me when I say there is dark stuff in this chapter.

Oh, and the rating might go up because I'm considering making Indigo a bad-girl punkish-type person. Tell me in a review if I should or not.

Standard disclaimers apply, it's pretty obvious who and what I made up. And once again, everything I made up is mine and my own. Use it in anything like an RPG or story without asking and I find out, I will alert the fanfiction.net people.

~~~~~~~~~

Chiaki heard someone clear their throat behind him, and he turned, surprised, as his father woke up. Standing behind him, holding a suitcase with a purse slung over a shoulder, was a girl. But not just any girl, she was a French girl who had long light blonde hair, with blue hair extensions clipped on. As a matter of fact, the blue matched Indigo's hair.

She cleared her throat again.

"I'm Antonia, Indigo's friend from France. U-um, my parents heard she was… not well again, so they let me come and visit her. The girl in the apartment next to yours said she was here. Can I see her?"

Chiaki stared at her, then motioned over his shoulder to the room. Antonia was wearing a long-sleeved pale green T-shirt and jean pants, with a green ribbon holding back her hair. She walked by him carefully, and he felt…something as she passed by him. She immediately dropped her purse and suitcase and ran to Indigo's side.

"Oh, Indigo," she said, and the blue-haired girl moaned softly in her sleep. Her arms were out of the covers, and Antonia saw the cuts on them and her face and neck.

"What happened?" she asked softly.

"I don't know," Kaiki replied. "I found her like that this morning, out on the lawn. She'd been there for hours, and had lost a lot of blood. It's a miracle she's still alive."

"Did she..?" Antonia began, but trailed off with a quick glance over her shoulder at Chiaki, who was thinking, What the Hell is going on?

"No, but we haven't even the smallest clue as to who did do it. We can't even go to the police, because there's really no proof and we can't accuse just anyone."

Antonia nodded, and Chiaki just went back to leaning on the doorframe.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm Antonia, Indigo's close friend and foster sister from France. And you are…?" she asked him skeptically, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm the owner and manager of this hospital, and Indigo's father." He replied, stroking Indigo's forehead again.

"Oh! It's a pleasure to meet you Mr…. I'm sorry, Indigo never mentioned her real last name, so…" Antonia trailed off again, which she seemed to do a lot, and looked at Kaiki expectantly.

"Nagoya," he told her firmly, "Kaiki Nagoya. If you add up all her names, she's Nagoya Indigo Gin Hermione Tama Marie Antoinette Rachel Eileen." They both laughed.

"Quite a mouthful," Antonia said. "My initials spell out 'Amour', which is a French word for 'love'."

"What's your full name?" Chiaki asked, just out of curiosity.

"Antonia Maria Ophelia Urania Rebecca. You really don't want to know what my parents were thinking when they named me. They wanted each of my names to represent them, which makes sense in a sick and twisted way." She told him, looking slightly embarrassed at her list of odd names.

"How does it represent them?" Kaiki asked, looking vaguely interested.

"Antonia is my great-grandmother's name, a family name; my mom's saint name is Maria Goretti; Ophelia is a character from Hamlet, which both of my parents supposedly loved; Urania, they had some friend named that, she O.D.'d a couple years back, I think; and Rebecca is the name of my dad's second wife, it was added recently."

"Wait a second, if you're a foster kid, how do you know you're parents?" Chiaki asked her, joining the conversation again.

"Well, they took me out of there when Rebecca overdosed, and my mom and dad got back together. They were afraid I'd start snorting pot or whatever. I have the opportunity to see my parents, but I never want to again. Bad memories, like the time one of their friends tried to sell me ecstasy." She said. It was dark stuff, but she seemed to be mostly over it.

"No offense, but you're making it seem like this is every-day kiddy stuff. If this is the kind of bedtime story you're going to tell you're kids, then I really think someone needs to be told."

"Oh, it was years ago. And besides, a few years ago, I ran away to L.A., and there I literally lived on the streets. A couple weeks living on the streets seeing everything, and I mean everything happen will do that to you. I was really shaken up when I came back, but that was a while ago, so it's OK now." She replied, once again looking calm. Well, actually, her face looked more than calm, it was devoid of any human emotion.

"Wow, your life sucked for a while," Chiaki commented. Antonia laughed.

"I think that would be correct." She replied, then she turned back to Kaiki.

"I have to go check into my hotel room now and unpack, I'll be back in a couple of hours, is that OK?" she asked him.

"It'll be fine, it looks lie I'll be here all night," he told her, and she walked by Chiaki again. But this time, he didn't get that weird feeling.

After she'd left, Chiaki turned to Kaiki.

"You know something else about Antonia; what?" he asked him, crossing his arms over his chest.

"She was pretty depressed, then she met Indigo. What she didn't tell you is she went to L.A. looking for Indigo, except she forgot to take enough money with her. Luckily, Indigo found her three weeks after she arrived." He replied softly, still stroking Indigo's face.

"Oh, that would explain a…lot. I have to go now, too, Dad, OK?" he said, turning to walk out the door.

"I'll see you soon, Chiaki," he told his son as he walked out the door.

~~~~~~~~

Maron was still on her balcony, thinking. It was later, but there was so much on her mind. She sighed heavily as she remembered the French girl that had come looking for Indigo. Half of her had actually wanted to lie, because she was so beautiful and Chiaki was there, but she'd squashed that thought instantly and directed her to the hospital. Luckily, she'd been learning English and the girl knew quite a bit of Japanese, so there really wasn't much of a language barrier.

She heard a knock at her door, and walked slowly through her apartment to open it. It was Chiaki, looking thoughtful and worried, obviously thinking about Indigo.

"Do you want to come in?" she asked him softly, because he was avoiding her gaze and hadn't said anything since she'd opened the door. Stupid French girl, she thought, and she felt her heart sink.

"Can I?" he asked, and she opened the door a little wider and stepped out of his way. He followed her into her living room, and sat down across from her on a couch.

"What you said down there," he began, and she didn't have to ask where 'down there' was. She knew he meant where Nightmare and Jean-Paul and the others had kept them. "Did you mean it?"

"I said a lot of things," she said evasively, even though she knew exactly what he meant.

"I think you know what I mean," he said softly. "Did you mean it?" he repeated in an even softer voice, so she could barely hear him. She felt uncomfortable telling him how she felt now that she knew he was Sindbad and probably everything that he'd ever told her was a lie.

"Yes," she said softly, looking at the ground. She shifted position, and heard him get up after a few moments, and decided she didn't want to see him leave. Instead, however, she felt him sit down next to her and wrap his arms around her. His face was rested on her shoulder next to her ear, and he held her tight and close.

She sighed and leaned back against him, letting him hold her. Normally, she probably would have smacked him, but now it just felt so right. When he finally let go of her, he rested his forehead against hers, and the closeness made her heart rate speed up.

"Good," he whispered, "Because I'd hate for it to be unrequited love," She smiled at him, and he grinned back at her.

~~~~~~~~~

Mariana growled in rage as she watched the two kaitous confess their feelings. Jean-Paul stood beside her, though he contained his rage much better than her.

When she was still seething, a messenger made the mistake of approaching her. He wouldn't make that mistake again; as a matter of fact, he wouldn't make any mistakes again because she'd killed him.

She also watched Antonia very, very carefully.

"There's something about that girl," she told Jean-Paul. "And I don't like that we don't know. Send some Shadow agents to go find out." She bared her fangs before continuing. "And if she presents a problem, kill her,"

Jean-Paul smiled, hiding his rage at being ordered around by a mere female. "Yes, my Lady," he said, and left the room, fully aware that she was watching him.

~~~~~~~~~~

Indigo slowly opened her eyes, and blinked as the harsh white lights hit them. Her father was still by her side, even though it was dark outside and he hadn't eaten anything today. She yawned and tried to sit up, but she still felt too weak. Her arms collapsed underneath her, and she fell back.

"You've lost too much blood; you'll be weak for a while," Chiaki said. He'd finally moved from the doorway to next to her bed, and was sitting in one of those uncomfortable chairs.

"Why are you here?" she asked him, not bothering to hide her surprise.

"I'm your brother," he reminded her.

"Well, you don't know anything about me. Not really, anyways. I haven't seen you since I was three or four." She said. She was speaking very quietly because it hurt to talk too loudly. And she was tired and weak and didn't want to wake Kaiki up.

"Well, we're related, aren't we?" he asked her, raising an eyebrow.

She grinned slightly. "Unfortunately, yes," she replied, and a slight sparkle appeared in her currently dull eyes. He laughed.

"Maron kicked you out of her apartment, didn't she?" Indigo asked him. He glared at her.

"No, she did not." He told her, and then he had to gloat. "I'm her boyfriend now," he told her. "Sort of. Or whatever,"

She raised an eyebrow. "So you're Maron's sort-of boyfriend, or whatever. Are you always this illiterate?" she asked him.

"No, but yesterday morning I had to get up at an ungodly hour to save my objection of affection's life, and I haven't slept at all tonight. I've been living off of hospital coffee, give me a break please." He said, burying his face in his hands.

"And I did not ask for a soap-opera worthy response." She said, her grin becoming weaker on her pale, thin face.

"Shut up," he said resentfully, scowling and crossing his arms over his chest. And after a few more minutes, they both fell asleep. His excuse? Decaf coffee doesn't exactly give you a caffeine high. Hers? She'd almost just died. Shut up.

Antonia arrived shortly after they both fell into the dark depths of sleep. She smiled at the sleeping Indigo, and her smile faded slightly when she saw Chiaki. Or, rather, disappeared from her face. She frowned as she watched the blue-haired boy sleep peacefully (or, at least, it looked to be peaceful), and Indigo toss and turn fitfully in her sleep. Kaiki had already left; probably work had pulled him away. She settled herself down into his chair and opened up a heavy textbook and began studying, while waiting for Indigo to wake up.

Chiaki awoke a few minutes later; she thought he had heard her, but in reality, he had remembered what had almost happened underground.

"Antonia? What are you doing here?" he asked blankly.

"I could ask you the same," she said coldly, slamming her book shut. He just stared at her blankly.

"I'm her brother," he said, "I was worried." She glared at him.

"Why? You don't know her," she pointed out, and it didn't seem like she wanted a reply.

"You make it sound like that's my fault, like I'm the one who sent her to an orphanage." He said, surprised at her bitterness.

"I don't really care if I hurt your feelings or not; she's my friend, and you look like the kind of jerk that would purposely hurt her," she snapped at him, standing up, her heavy book falling to the ground with a loud thunk.

He stood up as well. "It's nice to know you're judging your supposed-friend's brother without getting to know him," he said coldly. "As far as I can tell, you're just a mean little bitch who realizes this and needs to take it out on someone else, and because you don't know me, you chose me. And you know what? I don't think Indigo is the sort of person who would befriend a brat like you, so obviously you don't treat her like shit."

She just gaped at him after his little speech. He bent down and picked up her book and bag, both of which lay forgotten on the floor.

"I suggest you leave now," he said coldly, gesturing towards the door. She walked off, but before stepping out of the room, she looked over her shoulder.

"I still have more things to say to you, but Indigo might hear and I don't want to trouble her," she said, trying to sound like the bigger person.

"If she heard what you've already said, then she's troubled enough," he replied calmly, and she turned on her heel and stormed down the hallway. Kaiki arrived as soon as she had left, looking very, very baffled. Then he saw Chiaki and his eye narrowed.

"What did you say to her? She was practically screaming in French!" Kaiki said to his son.

"Well, she called me a jerk, so I said the same thing with a different choice of words, and gave the psychological reasoning behind what she said," he replied innocently. Kaiki smacked his forehead.

"How much of that is lies?" he asked in an exasperated voice.

"None of it!" Chiaki said indignantly.

Kaiki shrugged and left without another word, and Chiaki muttered under his breath for a few minutes, and then Indigo opened her eyes again. She actually managed to sit up, with some help from Chiaki.

"I know you want to know a lot of stuff, so call Maron, and when she gets here, I'll explain." Indigo whispered to him. He nodded and left the room for about two minutes, the returned and nodded at her.

"She's on her way," he told her, and she looked relived. A few minutes later, Maron ran into the room, breathless. She sat down in a chair next to Chiaki's, and he wrapped his arm around her. Indigo raised an eyebrow at the couple, but didn't say anything.

"So," she began, "What do you want to know?" Her question got both the kaitous thinking.

"Everything," Maron said calmly. "We want to know who those people were, what they want, what powers they have, and why they're here," she continued, and Chiaki couldn't have put it better himself.

"Well, the question isn't who those people are, it's what they are," Indigo said quietly, suddenly finding great interest in the white bedspread. It was obvious what she was thinking; she was wondering if she was still one of the Shadow-people. And though they would have liked to tell her she wasn't, they could not honestly tell her that because they didn't know.

"What are they?" Chiaki asked, breaking the silence.

"They're Shadow-people, as you may have gathered. Shadow-people look a bit like humans, though they are taller and far stronger. Every single Shadow-person has control of Dark magic, but some of the more powerful ones, such as Jean-Paul, control all different sorts of magic, and all elements too. They are generally content to live alone, underground, in large colonies and ignore us, but ever since the kaitous- you two- began checkmating, things became more complicated for them, as the Devil took their lands over and forced them to go out and attack; though they didn't resist much."

Maron and Chiaki nodded, and Chiaki looked as if something had suddenly dawned on him.

"That morning that you first came, that phone conversation I overheard- you mentioned Jean-Paul. I knew his name sounded familiar!" he said out loud to Indigo.

And then it hit her, too.

"Chiaki, you're right!" she said. "I was talking to Antonia and…ohh, shit." She said, trailing off suddenly and looking terrified.

"What?" Maron asked, looking very alarmed. "What's wrong?"

"Antonia's here, right?" Indigo asked. "You told me that, Chiaki." She continued slowly, and she took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"So what?" Chiaki asked scornfully, and Maron shot him a glare.

"Well, do you remember what I said about Jean-Paul in that conversation?" Indigo asked, still talking slowly and looking very worried.

"Yeah, you asked Antonia if Gregoire-Jean was still her ballet teacher and partner, and then you said, 'You know, after the whole Jean-Paul thing'. I wondered what you meant, but I didn't ask." He said, slightly confused.

"Well, the whole… Jean-Paul thing… is just, well, I don't know what to say," Indigo said, trailing off. "Well, Jean-Paul was her ballet teacher and he tried to…" she trailed off, but there was no need to finish the sentence. Maron looked very upset and clenched the arms of her chair until her knuckles were white.

"But that's not it. After her parents yanked her out of his class, he followed her around, broke into her house, and tried again. Her parents then moved, but he kept on following her. She wasn't liked very much by the police, because she hung out with a lot of people that had been seen doing drugs and drinking- though she never did- so they wouldn't believe her and didn't arrest Jean-Paul. That's another reason why she was moved out of her home," as she told the story, Chiaki and Maron became just as worried as her.

"So, Jean-Paul was obsessed with her… and now she's here where he is. I'm betting he's watching her right now; probably plotting underground or something," Maron said. Indigo nodded.

"There's nothing we can do to help her, is there?" Chiaki asked. "I mean, I don't particularly like her, but I don't think anyone deserves that." He added quickly.

"Well, nothing really," Indigo admitted. "He's too strong. I hate this!" she shouted the last bit, slamming her bandaged hand down onto the mattress.

"We're completely and totally helpless, just watching our fate unfold before our eyes. I wish we could change things; stop horrible things from happening" she continued.

"Maybe we can," Maron said, "But Chiaki and I don't even know what we're up against. Can we go on?" she asked, and Indigo nodded reluctantly.

"What they want," Indigo said, "Is to kill you. For starters. Then, they want to take over. I do believe they told you about the stages-of-the-moon sacrificing thing? I really don't understand it, and really, neither do they, they just know they have to do it to gain the power to completely take over. So, that's their long-term goal. To take over Earth and kill most, if not all, humans," she said this very cheerfully and rapidly, which disturbed Chiaki.

"Oh, joy," Maron said dryly.

"What powers they have? Shadow magic, elemental magic, and a vast knowledge of weapons. Why they're here? I just told you that. Anything else?" she said all this briskly, and Maron and Chiaki shook their heads in a dumbfounded 'no'.

"So, could you please leave then? I'm tired, and I'm sure you two need to talk," Indigo pointed out.

"Well, actually, I was hoping we could talk with you here," she confessed.

"Why?" Indigo asked, and Maron looked pointedly at her.

"To keep me from killing him, in case the need arises," she said calmly, and Indigo laughed.

"I'm sure, unfortunately for me, my brother will survive, so you can leave," she said happily.

And so Maron and Chiaki let themselves out, and walked quietly down the hallways and out of the hospital. As soon as the left the hospital, he tried to hold her hand. He was successful.

"Where do you want to go?" he asked her.

"The park?" she suggested, and they turned left when they got to the corner and entered the park. They found a nice, quiet deserted corner, and sat down.

"Why did you lie to me?" she asked him, and he flinched. The question he really, really didn't want to answer.

"It was Access's idea," he began, "He basically said, 'HEY! You have a rival!' and then told me that if I made you fall in love with me, then broke your heart and told you the truth, then you would stop checkmating. You weren't supposed to be so perfect," he told her.

"I'm flattered you think I'm perfect," she said sarcastically, and then she got serious. "So, basically, you were supposed to come, make me fall in love with you, then rip out my heart like I wasn't a human being who deserved better?" she asked him.

"I think I like the way I worded it more," he said, trailing off. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"The choice of words doesn't really make much of a difference; it's still the same thing," she pointed out, and he hated to admit she was right.

"I also wasn't supposed to fall in love with you," he told her, and she buried her face in her hands.

"This is just one huge mess," she said. "You lied about falling in love with me, and then I fell in love with you, and then you fell in love with me but couldn't tell me. Why didn't you tell me?" She asked him.

"Finn had already told you that we were servants of the Devil; who would you have believed then?" she nodded and he continued. "Maron, there's something else Finn lied to you about," he told her.

"What?" she asked slowly.

"Well, Finn was the one working for the Devil the whole time. Not us." He told her. She took a sharp intake of breath, and her shoulders shook. She looked up at him.

"I'm really that stupid to trust everyone, aren't I? That's why she knew she could get away with it; that's how you knew, too-or at least Access did," she said, tears falling gently from her eyes.

"I didn't think you were stupid," he said. "I just fell in love with you decently soon, so I didn't have to act after a while." He said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders comfortingly. She nodded and leaned her head on his shoulder, unaware that someone had seen, but not heard, them.

Iinchou.

~~~~~~~~~

Indigo was reading in her bed, an immensely thick book called The Stand. {1} She seemed to be about half-way through it, and enjoying it, too. Antonia watched her read for a while, then stepped into the room.

"Your brother's not coming here soon, is he?" she asked carefully.

"Nope, he's off talking with his girlfriend," Indigo replied without looking up. Antonia looked slightly upset and surprised at the news.

"He has a girlfriend?" she asked.

"Yeah, he's generally nice to people who are nice to him. Karma or whatever. Hey, what's the matter?" she'd said most of this while still reading, and at Antonia's silence, she looked up and saw the frustrated look on Antonia's face. "What did you say?"

"Some things I shouldn't have and regret now. He just makes me feel so weird inside," she said quietly. Indigo understood.

"You think you might like him," she said calmly. Antonia's face lit up.

"Do you think I have a chance with him?" she asked Indigo eagerly. Indigo didn't want to break her friend's heart, but she had to know.

"No," she said, "You don't. He's completely in love with someone else. He'd do anything for her." She added. Antonia's face fell, and she sighed.

"What is it about him?" she asked. "Why do I want him so much?"

"I'm the wrong person to ask; I'm his forking sister," Indigo pointed out, and Antonia sighed and stood up abruptly.

"I have to go now," she said, picking up her purse.

"Wait! Antonia!" Indigo said just as suddenly.

"What?" Antonia asked.

"I forgot to tell you," Indigo began, "But you really, really need to know that Jean-Paul's here. I don't know where, but I saw him. Be careful," Indigo said.

Antonia turned slowly on her heel to turn and stare at Indigo. Her eyes were wide with shock and terror, and she was breathing rapidly and heavily. She leaned against the doorframe, much as Chiaki had earlier that day, and tears began to fall from her eyes slowly, and cling to her eyelashes.

"H-here?"  She stammered, shocked. "H-he can't be here,"

"That's what I thought at first," Indigo agreed, "But he is. I've seen him. How he knows you're here is beyond me, but the point is, he's here," she continued.

"Here, as in Japan, or here as in this city?" Antonia asked worriedly.

"I don't know where he's staying, but earlier he was just outside my window here," Indigo replied slowly.

Antonia stood up from where she sat on the ground. "I have to go now," she said.

"Be careful," Indigo warned her. Antonia said nothing, and ran down the hall with out saying anything. Indigo sighed and leaned back against the pillows and picked up her book again, and read until the weariness of her heart overcame her body.

~~~~~~~~~~

Wow, long chapter. :P. I kind of like it. And remember Antonia, because she actually has a purpose. Sorry for the delay, my weekend was kind of crazy. I went to Mass on Saturday instead of Sunday, and then spent the night at Alyssa's. I didn't work at this at all during the week, because on Sunday we got two new video games. The one we played first, Dead or Alive X-treme Beach Volleyball, is so addictive we haven't even opened the other one, Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers.

Once again, sorry for the delay, and please review! If I don't have twenty reviews a week after chapter ten is posted, this story is as good as dead. Chapter ten will be focused more on Iinchou, and will be named after a Reel Big Fish song. Any guesses? Here's a hint: It's on the DOAXBV soundtrack. There's only two on that, so… mwahahahahaha. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS STORY WILL EFFECTIVELY BE DEAD IF I DO NOT HAVE TWENTY REVIEWS BY A WEEK AFTER POSTING CHAPTER TEN. I'm sick and tired of not getting the appreciation for the hard work I put into this story. If you like this story, please review if you want to know more. I'm seriously pissed as hell.

Now I'm going to sit back and watch people who have never reviewed before review this chapter, saying they'd loved the story from the beginning.;P.

{1}: The Stand is a book by Stephen King. I've never actually read it, but I saw the mini series and my sister read it. Stephen King is popular at our house. Another movie made out of one of his books that I really suggest is Misery, though if you scare easily, you might not want to watch it. Anyways, it sort of shows that Indigo's smart, because she's only fourteen or fifteen, and most adults can't get through Stephen King's books.  

-Knife Thrower

Please review!