From Eowyn: Apologies for taking so long with these. There are reasons. Please be aware that this subject contains mature subject matter. Younger readers may want to avoid this chapter of the story.
Chapter 3 - The Deadly Game
The little blond-haired girl sat pensively in the lone room of the pitiful, dirt-encrusted hovel that she and her mother called home, staring off into space. With very little else to do in this world to which she had been condemned by her mother's actions, there was much time for reflection. She had been taken from the real world almost five years ago when only four years old, and so fortunately, or perhaps not, she had never really had much chance to consciously experience anything else.
Much worse off was her mother, who had spent her entire life in the real world. She had known the joys of living there... and though they were too few and far between for the woman, it was infinitely better than what they had here in the Void.
She had believed Him. Myotismon... the prince of demons. Believed in his vague promises of a better life enough to join the hundreds of others who had turned their back on the human race and joined with the creature and his army of monsters in an attempt to overthrow their world... believed him enough to take her daughter, her only child, with her.
"Mother?"
The tall, blond-haired woman's head lolled to the side as she lay on the cushioned bench that was all furniture that their home was endowed with, and she looked at her nine-year-old daughter. God, how she hated living like this. The dull, grayness of this world. The odd, empty colors, smells and tastes. And most of all, the exhausted, lethargic feeling that she lived with every second of the day. The brief sojourn that she had been sent on in the real world, the one where they had captured the little boy, had actually made it worse. Because for a brief time, she had once again known what it was like to be awake without wanting nothing more than to crawl back into bed and sleep her life away. The woman attempted a feeble smile. "Yes, dear?" she murmured.
The girl bowed her head, studying the floor. She was struggling to find a way to come to grips with a new emotion that she was feeling, one that made her feel just... ugly. There was no other word for it. After what she had been a part of, the little child felt nothing less than ugly. "Mother? About... about the boy..."
The woman lifted a hand and motioned her daughter to her side. The little child slowly inched her way to her mother's side and stood next to the prone woman, her eyes still on the floor. "Rena, dear... that was something that we had to do."
"But... but mother. You didn't see it, didn't see the look in his eyes when he found out what we'd done. I did. That was what that man called Roan wanted me at the palace for, you know. He showed me to the boy and told him that he was in the prison because he had trusted me. And then I saw his eyes, mother..."
And then the girl finally managed to look up at her mother, and tears were pouring from her sea-green eyes. "He looked so sad, mother. He was only trying to help me... and I hurt him!"
The blond woman patted the hand of her only child. She knew how to put into words what her daughter was feeling, for the crushing sense of guilt was threatening to drown her in its wake as well. There was something haunting about the expression of that young boy; she too had seen it when he had briefly caught her eyes after she'd ambushed him in the woods. As if she had stolen some of the child's innocence away with the betrayal that she had crafted with the help of her daughter.
"It's better to try to forget about him, dear," she whispered kindly. It would be hard enough for her to deal with the guilt... she did not think that she could bear to see her daughter have to live with it as well. "We did what we were told to, that's all."
The girl sniffled. "If you... if you see him again, will you tell him that I'm sorry? Please, mother?"
The woman's heart started to break at the pain she heard from her child. In the course of her duties at the palace of the Master, she was never allowed into the dungeons where the boy was being kept, if her daughter was to be believed. But, like most mothers do, she knew exactly the right thing to say at that moment.
"Very well, dear. If I see him again, I'll tell him that you... that we, are very, very sorry."
*****
The jade-green eyes of the boy that so haunted the two calmly stared into the darkness surrounding his cell. The situation that he and his friends found themselves in was not good, but Cody saw little sense in getting overly excited about it... particularly since there was nothing that he could do about it at the moment.
The little boy's gaze soon drifted over to the cell opposite his, wherein Yolei had fallen asleep against the bars after having kept a vigil for the entire night and more, looking for some sign that Davis would be returning to them. Shortly after dawn they had received a sign of sorts, as the tall, white-haired boy known to them as 'Roan' returned from that direction, infuriated and mouthing a scathing string of obscenities. Yolei had taken that as a sign that Davis was still alive, and Cody had not wanted to dash her hopes by refuting the somewhat nebulous evidence.
Cody smacked his lips together, and rubbed at his nose. He still had not been able to determine just exactly where the three of them had been taken. There was something about this place. It smelled wrong. The look and the smell and taste of this place was almost... dead.
Yes. Dead. That was it. The vague colors here were terribly dreary, and there was nothing to smell outside the very, very faint odor of sulfur in the air. Similarly, the small crust of moldy bread that had been forced upon him as food was absolutely bland and tasteless. And then, there was the eerie silence of the place...
Cody knelt next behind the iron bars of his cell, folding his legs behind him and partially closing his eyes. It was the proper position by which one could gain some measure of rest while at the same time maximizing concentration, or so his grandfather had taught him. Blocking out all of the external distractions, the boy slowly directed his consciousness inwards.
The three of them were needed for something by the tall young man. That much was certain. And the fact that they were still alive almost certainly indicated that he could not attain it if they were dead.
What had Yolei told him? That the teen had promised, 'To take everything from them that made them who they were.' Cody frowned. That made infuriatingly little sense. After all, what made a person who he was but the soul? There had to be a nuance that he was missing.
Cody's eyes snapped open as he heard footsteps approaching from the dark corridor down which Roan and his guards had initially taken Davis. "Yolei," the boy whispered, attempting to rouse the girl from her brief slumber without alerting whoever it was that was coming that they were aware that something was untoward.
She did not stir at his quiet call. The boy frowned. "Yolei!"
The girl snapped awake and looked at the younger boy, who placed a single finger to his lips and nodded his head in the direction of the sound. After a few moments she, could make out the noise as well, and soon the guards who had initially taken Davis away came into view, dragging something limp in between the two of them.
"Oh, no!" Yolei said with a sharp cry at the sight, the girl feeling the sharp pain of panic overwhelm her heart. The previous night she had thought that nothing could be worse than the anxiety of not knowing just what had happened to the boy, but now, at finding her worst possible fears confirmed, she realized that the death of hope was even worse than that. "Davis!" she shrieked at seeing the boy's limp body being dragged into the dim light by the two tall, gaunt men.
At that same moment Roan appeared at the other end of the corridor, and a deadly smirk of satisfaction appeared on his lips at seeing the other's condition. Almost with the giddiness of a child he moved to the pair and seemed to speak into the darkness behind the guards. After a few seconds of whispered conversation had passed he moved back into the light, holding in his hands a glaring, reddish crystal the size of a large man's fist. When one of the guard moved over to speak to him, Roan threw his head back in a cruel laugh and indicated the now empty cell next to Yolei's. "What have you done to him, you monster?" the girl screamed him.
At hearing the fury in the other's voice, the white-haired teen snatched the second crimson shard from his pocket and thrust it in the direction of the girl's cell, looking through it to her with an almost hungry expression in his eyes. And though it may have simply been a trick of the dim light in the cell, for a moment it appeared as though the small jewel had started to glow with a scarlet-red light of its own.
The reaction was brief, however, and in another instant vanished. Roan chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. It had been a passing glimmer of hatred on her part, but only momentary. He would have to do much, much more to make the feeling on her part last long enough to make the jewel grow to the size of the first. Then the teen's substantial intellect kicked in, and as he stared at the younger girl the second part of his plan started to take shape. "Put whatever is left of him in with her," he commanded to the men, pointing to Yolei.
Roan smirked. He had initially intended to simply kill the first boy after stealing what he could of his life. But then again, the girl clearly had some sort of feelings for the child, and he could use those feelings to empower the second gem as well... if she were made to stay with him while his life simply expired and while Roan stood by and allowed it to happen. Yes. Yes, that would be most satisfactory.
The men moved wordlessly to the girl's cell, where one of them opened the door with a ring of keys at his belt. Then the two dragged Davis' body inside and dropped him roughly at Yolei's feet, the boy not even acknowledging the brutal treatment by the pair. As the door slammed behind them, Roan smirked at the young girl. "Pay close attention, bitch, because it'll be your turn next." And with that intimidating threat hanging in the air, the other turned with a swirl of his dark cloak and vanished into the darkness, though the crimson glow of the large gem that he was cradling to his breast remained visible for some time.
Yolei yelped in alarm and knelt at Davis' side, taking the boy's head in her lap and quickly examining his features.
It did not looked good. All of the color had retreated from the dark-haired boy's face, leaving it looking ashen and devoid of life. His closed eyes now looked like those of their guards, and were sunk deeply in their sockets. His breathing was shallow and infrequent, his chest rising and falling irregularly.
The girl's lips quivered in fear as she gently stroked random strands of dark hair off of Davis' forehead, tears starting to pool in her eyes as she did so. "Davis," she murmured, leaning over and whispering into his ear. The boy gave no acknowledgement that he had heard, not one. Yolei's hands were shaking as she continued to caress his head, and after a moment her hands began to shake as well. "Davis!" she cried desolately, digging her fingers into the boy's shoulders.
Still nothing.
Terror like she had never known filled Yolei's chest, along with a peculiar, overwhelming, and completely unexpected sense of loss. Somehow, even in the worst moments she had always known that... that Davis would always be there. Be there to annoy her with his maddening pigheadedness and his irritating... yet... charming little quirks that made him utterly unique in her eyes.
And then the feeling that she had sensed the previous day arose anew in the girl's chest, and this time it was more recognizable. Whether it was because of her proximity to him or because she finally allowed herself to admit it, she didn't know, and didn't really care either.
She had thought, in times past, to have been in love with boys too numerous to count. Izzy, Ken, Michael... even T.K. a time or two, though the blond-haired boy was far too wrapped up in Kari to take any notice of her as anything more that a friend. On any given day she might have felt that she was in love with no less than a dozen of the boys in her school, and reveled in it.
But what she had just realized was that, despite her fervent insistence about it, she had never really loved until now. She hadn't planned on it happening, hadn't even wanted it to happen, but that was apparently how love worked sometimes.
"Davis..." she murmured quietly into the boy's ear and beginning to stroke his limp, clammy hand with her warm fingers. "I... I--"
And then the girl realized that Cody, in the cell opposite hers, was staring at the two of them quietly, a calm look of attention in his unblinking green eyes. The boy looked like nothing so much as an oversized owl trapped in an iron cage. "Uhm... Cody? Would you mind... uhm, I mean, would you, ah, turn around for a few moments?" she asked, making a spinning motion with her forefinger.
There was a question in the other's eyes, but it never made it all the way to his lips. Yolei always had a suspicion after that moment that Cody knew what she was up to, but the little boy never made an issue of it, and politely did as she asked. Of course, everything that Cody had ever done had been done politely.
As the younger boy's back was now to her, Yolei leaned over and whispered in Davis' ear. "Davis... please..." she whispered quietly, her voice thick with emotion. "Davis, I need you. I never thought that I'd say that, but I really, really do. This place scares me, Davis, and I don't think that I can do this without you."
A surprising warmth coursed through the girl's blood as she allowed her confessions to pass her lips, and as that heat passed over her she felt a little, just a very little, less afraid. Somehow, Davis would see her through this... he always did, after all. Whether it be dumb luck or coincidence or perhaps something deeper, as if some higher power were watching out for him, Davis always came though everything all right. "Please, Davis, wake up." And with that plea still echoing in the space between the pair, the girl moved her face closer and closer, until finally she brushed the side of the boy's lips with her own.
It was Davis' first kiss, but he would never know it, for the storybook ending failed to come through for her as the unconscious boy remained limp and lifeless in her arms. Yolei bowed her head in defeat at the failure, though she continued to stoke the boy's hair idly as the wave of dejection threatened to again pull her under.
"Can I turn around now, Yolei?" Cody's raspy voice echoed from the other cell.
The girl gave a silent sniffle and wiped a tear from her eye. "Oh, yeah... Sorry about that, Cody," she replied, careful not to look at the young, wise boy lest he see the pools of tears in her eyes and recognize what they truly signified.
Nevertheless and despite her precautions Cody did see and realize just what was happening in the cell opposite him, though he chose not to mention anything about it at the time. "How's he doing?" the boy asked.
Yolei tried to disguise her emotions from the other as best she could. "I think that this is the quietest that it's ever been around him," she murmured, watching Davis' chest rise and fall with continued weakness.
"I think that this is as quiet as it's ever been around any of us," Cody replied, then fell silent and allowed the stillness of the place to once again envelop them. "Doesn't this place seem kind of like, dead, to you?"
Yolei opened her mouth to agree, but shut it quickly as the pair could hear the padded footsteps of the tandem of guards returning, Roan at their heels. An ugly smirk of satisfaction was on his lips as he examined his captives, and he was without the large crimson crystal that he had held before. The girl wasn't certain what that signified, but was fairly certain that it did not bode well for her. "Bring her," the white-haired villain ordered, indicating Yolei as she knelt at Davis' side.
Both men nodded with a grunt and moved to the girl's cell, entering without a word and dragging her to her feet as Davis' head slid from her lap and to the floor. The girl struggled against the pair, but her waning strength was just no match for that of the two burly men, and her efforts simply did not have the vigor that the brown-haired boy's had earlier.
As the two literally dragged the squirming girl to their master's side, Roan himself snatched the keys to Cody's cell and moved to free the younger child as well. "Now, boy, I trust you recognize that unless you can control yourself, my men will tear her apart, yes?"
A look of confusion was in Cody's jade-green eyes, but he did manage to respond with a slow nod of submission. "Good. Then I believe that we can come to an understanding of sorts." As the tall, white-haired teen opened the cell door, he motioned the younger boy forward. Cody, wary of a trap of some sort did step through, though slowly and with one eye on Roan and the other on the pair of guards holding Yolei.
"It is my understanding," Roan continued, his coldly monotone voice echoing in the narrow corridor, "that you are somewhat versed in the art of Kendo. As it so happens, that is a diversion of mine as well, and as I have rarely had the chance to test my skills here in this land, I wonder if I might interest you in a match?"
Cody looked uncertain, hearing in the other's words the trap that was being set for him yet powerless to evade it. A momentary pause of indecision swept over his brain as he looked from the tall young man to Yolei and back again. Oh, how he desperately wished for someone with more experience to be with him at that moment. "Well?" Roan pressed.
Cody looked at Yolei, a hopeless apology in his eyes. He knew that there could be no right answer to the question that had been put to him, and both he and the girl were going to suffer from his response. As that resolution came to him, the child turned his calm gaze back upon Roan. Well, if it was a fight he wanted... "I guess that I don't have much of a choice, right?"
The foreboding words of Roan's response belied his seeming civility. "None in the least."
*****
Matt extended a hand to Rio and assisted her to her feet, then started to brush the dust from their rough landing from his pants. The trip through Wizardmon's portal had shaken them all up quite a bit, and it took the blond-haired boy a moment to take in his surroundings. "Ugly place," the taller boy murmured, wrinkling his nose as he voiced the unspoken sentiments of each and every one of his companions.
While Wizardmon had briefly warned them of what they were going to find when they arrived, the truth still managed to shock each of them to the core of their beings. If there ever was a place that deserved to be described as a barren wasteland, this was it.
The ground was dry and cracked, devoid of any sign of plants or grass or even weeds. The dirt was a dull brown color, flecked with a black tint in random spots, which seemed even more lifeless than the rest of the soil. In the distance the group could see a small gathering of trees, all completely devoid of any growth of leaves, and for some reason their existence was more frightening than their absence would have been. If they had been human, Matt would have said that they could best be described as zombies.
T.K. looked up at the sky, his arm in a tight, protective circle around Kari's waist. It was difficult to tell whether it was night or day, for although there was a light, it was not like the golden light of daytime from their own world. It was a grayish sort of illumination, and the source for it was not completely discernable, for there was no sun to be seen. Yet neither could it be accurately described as nighttime, for there were no stars and no moon in the sky either. The coloration was not unlike an overcast day in the real world, a fact that stuck the boy as haunting for the fact that there were simply no clouds drifting about in that empty grayness.
Kari placed a fist against her lips and gave a short cough. The air here was fetid... almost rotten. It smelled strongly of sulfur and also of... what?
Kari knew the second smell, yet she was having trouble placing it. It put her in the mindset of when she had been much younger, and had been watching her mother while she...
Yes. Burnt hair. Kari could remember having watched her mother while the woman curled her hair once, and when she had become distracted the iron had been held in one place for too long and the revolting smell of burnt hair had flooded the house. And now, combined with the strong smell of rotten eggs, it almost set the young girl to retching.
Rio clutched at Matt's hand, her fingers wrapping around the boy's as she sought to buttress her waning strength with his presence. Matt turned and looked at her, his blue eyes flashing like sapphires even in the dim, gray light. There was intensity in those eyes, and a warm feeling caressed the girl as she realized that, with this boy at her side, she could not fail. Nevertheless she frowned, a look of worry remaining lodged in her dark eyes. "This is what always what Hell looks like in my dreams."
Wizardmon fidgeted at her side, clearly uncomfortable with the comparison. "We're certainly closer to it now than we were before," he replied, slipping his free hand into the gauntleted paw of Gatomon, who stood behind him.
The little feline digimon gasped at feeling the corporeal touch of her deceased friend's hand upon her claw, and she quickly pulled off her battle glove and reached for the other, staring in astonishment as her fur came into contact with his flesh. "Wizardmon," she exhaled breathlessly, her eyes flashing with astonished joy. "You... you're real..."
"Yes, Gatomon," the other replied seriously. "Here, in this place, I am all too real. This is where I reside now, much to my misery. This," he waved his hand at the barren surroundings, "is what I awaken to every day, the horror that I live with constantly."
Patamon's face betrayed a petulant frown at the bond between the two digimon, and he fluttered upwards to land on T.K.'s shoulder, folding his orange wings behind him. "Where to now?" he piped, looking sideways at his partner, his closest friend.
T.K. removed his Digivice from his belt, looking closely at it. "Did Cody have his--"
The boy stopped. The screen of the device was blank, as it never had been before. There was simply nothing there... it was completely bare. "That won't work here," Wizardmon said, looking up at the boy. "Remember, I told you, this is Limbo. Anything not of this world is powerless here." He turned to Gatomon, who still held his hand tightly in hers. "There can be no evolution for you while you are here."
The other smiled in response, the joy at being reunited with her friend still fresh in her mind. "I guess I'll just have to be careful about who I fight then, right?"
Kari pulled T.K. very close at hearing those words, holding him protectively. "Hopefully, we won't be fighting anyone," he said, a solemn look on his young face. "With any luck we can just get to the others and get out of here."
Rio opened her mouth to speak, then shut it quickly. She already knew that it was not going to turn out like that... the mysterious blond-haired boy that she had met back at her school had seemed certain on that point at least, and the girl was beginning to have some peculiar suspicions about him.
Wizardmon shook his head. "Hopefully," he murmured, sounding anything but convinced. "But as far as where your friends are being kept... if they are still alive, there's only one place that they can be." He turned, and pointed directly behind the group. They were without any landmarks or sun to tell them where they were or even in which direction they were facing, but the little ragged creature seemed awfully certain. "Myo-... He lives in that direction. I've avoided it long enough, I suppose." And then, after a brief pause, he suddenly seemed quite introspective, and his next words were much quieter, as if he had stopped addressing the others and now were speaking only to himself. "I should have done this a long time ago."
Rio released Matt's hand and went over to the little creature, kneeling beside him until the two were eye to eye. "I think I know how you feel," she murmured in response.
The creature dropped Gatomon's paw and reached out to touch the girl's face, glancing at her curiously as her dark hair fell over shoulders. After a few moments of staring at one another, he slowly nodded. "Yes. Yes, you do understand, don't you?"
Rio nodded. She knew how the little creature felt. She was about to be forced into conflict with an evil that she knew was more powerful than her, and with whom she had been allied for a time. She knew of his callous ruthlessness and his sinister intellect, and it shook her to the depths of her soul to think of even seeing him again. Alone, she stood no chance against the one who she was willingly going to confront. With the others... perhaps little more than that.
But with him she would go. With Wizardmon and with these others, she would go. Too much hinged on her to deny this responsibility any longer. T.K. and Kari had come here for their friends. Matt had followed his brother, and the other digimon had followed their partners. But Rio... she had been called here for a deeper purpose, and had been joined with Wizardmon to complete a task that neither of them could finish alone.
Unspoken words passed between the pair as they looked deeply into one another's eyes. They had been told of the suffering that would occur if they should fail, the terror that would be unleashed with the melding of those two minds. That had to be stopped. No matter the cost... Roan and Myotismon had to be stopped.
Matt knelt behind the girl, his hands firm upon her shoulders. "Rio...? Are you all right?" he whispered delicately into her ear, his warm breath caressing her skin as his kind words caressed her soul.
Rio closed her eyes and leaned her cheek on the boy's hand. She longed to be alone with him, where she could once again know the protective warmth of his embrace... but first there was a task to be completed. With a sigh she opened her eyes, blinking them so that the others would not know how close she had been to tears. "Yes..." she whispered ever so quietly. "Yes, Matt, I'm all right, and I am ready."
Matt gently lifted the girl back onto her feet. She was afraid. No matter if she denied it, the golden-haired boy knew the truth. He could feel the stirring in his chest that told him that she needed him, and at that moment he gave a silent pledge that nothing would harm the girl that did not kill him first. With a reassuring smile and a nod, he looked down at Wizardmon. "The sooner we get this over the better, I suppose. Where to?"
The little ragged creature steeled his courage with a deep breath of the fetid air and pointed with his staff in the opposite direction. "Two days travel," he said with a rasping sigh. "I had hoped never to return there, and so kept myself at a distance."
Kari looked off in that direction, her eyes focused on some indeterminate point in the distance. It was as she could hear the voices of her friends... voices calling to her from afar. Quietly she closed her eyes and concentrated on the three of them. Something was terribly wrong... she could sense it. It was as if one were shouting at her from the hollow of a bottomless pit, though the voice was unrecognizable in its emptiness. The call haunted her, for she knew that something terrible had already taken place.
"Kari?"
The girl blinked open her eyes at the sound of the familiar voice. The others had moved on, and were walking in a tight little group in the direction that Wizardmon had indicated. No chance of getting lost out here, after all.
She turned around in the warm embrace of his arms, placing her hands flat upon his chest. "T.K.? Do you think the others are... are all right?"
T.K. bit his lower lip and turned his eyes away to evade hers. He wanted to lie to her. In fact, at that moment and as he heard the plea in her voice, there was very little that he would not have given to be able to say that he was absolutely certain that their three friends were perfectly safe. But the truth, and he knew that he could not hide it from her, was that a strong feeling of dread had started to build in his stomach from the moment that they had set foot in this land. This place was dead. He had been almost certain that no place could be completely absent of good... but after having spent just a few moments here his certainty was beginning to waver. Bowing his head against her longing gaze, he gestured 'no'.
"This world scares me, T.K. More than any place that I've ever been to. It's like it's somehow... damned."
The boy forced a smile, a golden tuft of hair falling in front of his blue eyes. "Don't give up, Kari," he said gently, turning his head and looking closely at her. "Even if this whole place is dead, we're still alive, and where there's life, there's hope... And Kari?"
The girl turned her soft, brown eyes upward at him, and the whispered words that passed his lips renewed her strength, if only just a little. "Remember, no matter what happens, I'll always be with you."
A lump was in Kari's throat, and she was just able to get her reply past it. "I trust you, T.K.," she murmured quietly.
"Hey! Are the two of you coming?" Matt's voice called from up ahead.
Kari gave one last sniffle and stood on her tiptoes, kissing him on the cheek and whispering into his ear. "I trust you, and I love you..."
With that assurance the two turned and, hand-in-hand, headed to where the rest of their family awaited them, Matt already looking none-too-patient.
Of course, if the pair had waited around for just a single moment more, they would have seen a remarkable sight. For there, in the middle of that arid, barren wasteland where the girl had embraced her beloved and true devotion had freely flowed from the two, a few sprigs of leafy, green grass had started to sprout in the middle of the desert.
*****
It was a small room to which Roan and his guards led Cody and Yolei. Small, and bare... devoid of any furnishings or decorations. Another, perhaps middle-aged man was already in the room, and at his feet rested a pair of long Shinai. Somewhat surprisingly, this man did not look like the walking zombies that served as Roan's guard. Even if his eyes were somewhat distant, he simply appeared to be an ordinary man with no remarkable or outstanding features.
"Over there," Roan snapped at his guards, who responded by dragging Yolei into a corner of the room and forcing her up against the wall, each of them standing listlessly by her side.
Roan slammed the door that was the only exit shut behind him, indicating with a gesture to Cody that he should stand on the far side of the room. The young boy turned without a word and marched to where Roan had indicated, but his green eyes sought out Yolei as he moved. Whatever was happening here, he was certain that it was not the harmless spar that Roan might have him believe. There was something sinister about the other's invitation, yet he still could not fathom what it might be.
As the younger boy took his place, Roan proceeded to remove both his voluminous black cloak and the frilly white shirt that he had worn beneath. His shoes he kicked off as well, and so was left wearing nothing but his dark pants and one of the strange crimson crystals on the silver chain around his neck.
Yolei bit the inside of her cheek in order to stifle a gasp at the sight of the teen, and for a bare instant she felt a flush of desire for the other, through she hated herself for it. The girl considered herself (for good reason) a connoisseur of handsome men, but never in her years had she caught sight of a figure so immensely pleasurable to her eyes. Davis had told her that at one point in the past, Mimi had been very nearly seduced by their captor, but until that moment, the girl had been uncertain just how that had occurred. She no longer needed to wonder.
Roan's body was practically flawless, as if his features had been carved from stone by a gifted artist long ago. His shoulders and chest were broad and perfectly symmetrical, and all the muscles of the human body were seamlessly defined on his frame. Even the eerie patch of white hair that topped his head and the cruel looking salt-and-pepper goatee seemed to enhance his attractiveness instead of draw away from it. The air of confidence... no, haughtiness, that he projected left little question as to how any girl might find him attractive.
The tall teen snatched the pair of swords from the other man on the other side of the room and threw one of the Shinai over to Cody, the weapon clattering and rolling to a stop mere inches from his feet. Cody looked about in confusion and then was struck by a horrible realization.
Roan evidently intended to make him fight without the benefit of Bogu. The small boy drew in a quick, nervous gulp of air as he imagined the damage that someone of the tall teen's strength could do to him without the ceremonial armor to pad the blows. If he took it into his mind to, he could quite probably cripple him, or even bludgeon him to death with very little effort.
The boy's green eyes once again turned to Yolei, who by now had realized what was about to take place. His only thought was to make a quick dash for the door... but then, that would leave her alone in the hands of the two guards, and Roan's promise to have them tear her apart if he fled still echoed in his ears. So he could not even think to save himself that way. Abandoning Yolei would be the only truly dishonorable decision that he could make here.
So a fight it would have to be. As he locked his eyes onto those of the tall young man opposite him, the boy removed his shirt as well, refusing to be intimidated. While it was true that Roan had ten years and probably a hundred pounds on him, Cody had been trained by his grandfather, one of the finest masters in all of Japan. He would not go down without a fight.
The boy had kept his green eyes locked on those of his opponent as he bent over to pick up the sword that Roan had thrown at his feet, and so it came as little surprise to him when the other charged just as his fingers closed around the leather-bound hilt of the weapon.
Roan swung at Cody with an animal-like ferocity, and if the boy had not been prepared, the blow could have ended the duel almost before it began. As it was, Cody was just able to straighten his back and fall away from the assault before the teen's Shinai knocked him senseless. There was a whistle of wind as the weapon passed by his ear that gave evidence of its intensity. Another quick, savage thrust was easily parried away from his chest, and as Roan stepped back to recover, the boy's mind started to race.
He was no match for Roan's strength... that much was all too clear. And the quickness of the attack had been almost cat-like, the teen bounding over to his side of the floor with blinding speed. No possible advantage there either. And lastly, the swings which Roan had directed at him had been perfect in both form and execution, so evidently the other had not been bluffing when he had made claim to knowing how to use the weapon.
So it would have to be brains. His only advantage, as he saw it, was Roan's own arrogance. The boy had to find some way to use that against him. The first attack had been strong and fast, yes, but had also been careless. The tall teen had left himself wide open for retaliation, since he clearly did not consider his younger opponent to be a threat. So that would have to be it...
Cody and Roan circled one another, the younger boy hoping to goad the older into another reckless attack. Roan stared at him with an ugly smirk on his face as the two went around and around, and the teen seemed to be playing with his weapon as he waved it in the area between the two. Cody, however, refused to be distracted by the other's almost hypnotic motions, and kept his eyes locked on his opponent's.
Then, without warning, Roan launched himself into another attack, and this one was somehow twice as explosive as the first. Nevertheless, this time Cody was ready, and as he reeled away he struck back at the tall teen's exposed midsection, aiming directly for the sternum which he knew would take Roan's breath away if he should connect. His execution was flawless...
But just as he thrust his weapon home a horrible sound filled his ears...the crack of bamboo against bamboo that told him that Roan had somehow managed to bring his weapon back in time to turn aside his thrust. And then the two stared at one another over the crossed blades, and fear filled Cody's eyes as he knew that he had been tricked. The teenaged villain had been waiting for the boy to do just such a thing. He was overconfident, yes, but evidently had known that Cody had recognized that and would attempt to take advantage of it.
With another loud 'crack' and a stinging pain, Cody's weapon went flying from his fingers. And then, without any human emotion on his face at all, Roan's sword came up and connected violently with the little boy's chin.
Pain like he had never known exploded throughout Cody's jaw and head as he was thrown back through the air and sent crashing to the ground. "Cody!" Yolei screamed from her position between the burly men, but the other scarcely heard the cry as his body came to a rest upon the hard floor. His blood was pounding in his ears and his breathing was much too heavy for him to hear anything else.
Making his way up to all fours, Cody attempted to crawl in the direction that he thought that his Shinai had been lost. He briefly blinked open his eyes, but everything was a starry blur. He couldn't even clearly make out the floor, which was only a foot or so away from his face.
And then another burst of blinding pain coursed through the smaller boy's body as Roan brought his weapon down heavily across the middle of his back, the crack of the bamboo sounding like a gunshot in the little room. All the air was instantly flushed from Cody's lungs, and he went down in a heap at Roan's feet.
But the teen's savage assault did not stop there. Again, and again, and again Roan brought his sword down heavily upon the back, shoulders and ribs of his young victim, beating the little boy almost, as it were, to a pulp. Cody gasped in pain at each new attack and every merciless blow. Tears flowed from freely from his eyes, and his only coherent thought was a desperate plea for unconsciousness. But Roan seemed to be intentionally striking him away from any of the delicate areas that might allow him to lapse into oblivion.
During this horrendous time the young boy was vaguely aware of Yolei screaming his name from the other side of the room, and of her captors echoing her cries with taunting laughter. But the only sound that really mattered to him at that point was the continuous and all-too-loud splintering of the bamboo sword across his back, and at one point, Cody dimly wandered if some of the noise might have been the shattering of his bones as well.
Then, mercifully, finally, the beating stopped. Cody was still face down upon the floor, and each breath that he managed to gasp was exhaled in a whimpering sob. Rarely in his young life had he cried, and never because of mere pain, but the torment that his body had just been forced to endure made it impossible for him not to do so.
"You monster!" Yolei howled at Roan, seeing Cody's broken body on the floor at the tall teen's feet. The other gave an ugly smirk in her direction, the turned and spat on the little boy's prone form as he moved to the far side of the room.
Moments passed in silence, and the only sounds in the room were the weak gasping of the Cody as he lay upon the floor and the struggling grunts of Yolei as she attempted to escape the vice-like hands of her captors. It was almost enough to drive someone mad it they listened to it long enough.
Finally, seemingly having had his fill of inactivity, Roan spoke from his position across the room. Had he done enough damage to begin the second part of his plan? He had to know. "Get up, boy," he shouted, a sneer evident in the words as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Get up and fight, or I'll have the girl take your place."
Cody moaned as he heard the words and then, after his addled brain had taken its time to analyze them, allowed his lips (really the only part of his body that he could move without pain) to curl into a snarl. With a gasp he tried to force himself past the pain and finally managed to pull himself into a sitting position, stretching a trembling hand forward to try to pick up his fallen weapon again.
But the strength of the little boy's spirit could only take him so far if his body refused to cooperate. With a vacant expression in his eyes he stared at his legs, not comprehending why they would not obey his brain and place themselves under his body. His weapon was in his hands, yes, but he just could not force his limp fingers to grip the hilt tightly enough to bring it off the floor... and even if he did, his extremities seemed to have been taken with a disturbing bit of palsy, so it was quite probable that he would not be able to fight again anyway.
Roan did not allow the other to see the satisfaction on his face. Very well. The beating had indeed been enough to addle the boy's brains, at least for the time being, and the fury of battle was fresh in his mind. Clearly he was no longer thinking straight, as he merely continued to stare at the weapon in his trembling hands. Now was the time to strike. Moving to the side of the feebleminded man who would serve as the catalyst for the completion of his plan, Roan once again whispered his instructions into the man's ear.
An ugly, lecherous look appeared in the other's eyes at the words of his master. The man had been specifically chosen for this one duty, for while his mind was little more than that of a child, his body and instincts were unquestionably those of an of adult. Roan needed a target for the fit of animal brutality that was certain to explode from the little boy's addled brain at what he was about to see, and the teen had no intention of being that target himself.
The two guards continued to hold Yolei tightly between them as the human vegetable crossed the room, veritably stalking the girl with his eyes. As Yolei quivered under that gaze, Cody continued to sit on the floor and stare stupidly at the scene unfolding before him. It was not right, he was certain, but just exactly what was wrong about it escaped him for the moment. Roan, for his part, simply played with the silvery chain which held the crystal and waited for what was about to happen, the outcome that he had scripted so carefully.
And then the dim-witted man was upon Yolei, drenching her face with a deluge of slobbering kisses as the guards held her arms tightly, though one of them did have the decency to turn his eyes away from the ugly scene. They were not, after all, evil men... it was just that they had long ago accepted the fact that in this world, Myotismon's word was law. And now the law was that they should obey Roan in whatever he asked of them.
Yolei screamed and gagged as the man continued to kiss her sloppily, at one point even going so far as to lick the side of her face. His hands groped about her head and shoulders, grasping at and yanking her hair as the girl tried to avoid the onslaught of the man's ardor. Nevertheless, the flush of animal passion was already upon him, and as his motions became more frantic he reached down and literally ripped the shirt from the young girl's chest.
Yolei's screams came to a stunned halt as her naked torso was revealed to everyone in the room, her jaw hanging open. This had to be some sort of horrible nightmare... what was happening to her could not actually be happening. For her own sanity's sake, she had to believe that.
And then the protective shell of the girl's denial came crashing down around her as the obtuse man brought his hand up and caressed her chest. Yolei gave one shrill, shrieking cry of horror at his touch, and that desperate cry finally moved her one lone champion in the room to action.
At seeing what was transpiring and at hearing the degradation in the girl's cry, all of the calm, stoic child that was Cody vanished into a bloodthirsty animalism. His mind was still not exactly right after the savage beating that Roan had inflicted upon him, but now was not the time for thought... now was the time for action. With a feral cry the boy swept up his bamboo blade and rushed recklessly at the man on the opposite side of the room, whose hungry eyes were still locked on the struggling form of Yolei in front of him.
None of the other children would have recognized Cody in those few moments. At seeing his friend assaulted, the little boy had quite literally snapped. Now there was nothing about him that would have suggested that he was the calm, intelligent child that the others knew. The pain of his beatings and the degrading humiliation that his friend was suffering through had succeeded in turning him into a mindless brute.
Cody smashed his bamboo blade savagely into the side of the lecherous man's head, the other giving a single, astonished cry of pain and dropping like a felled tree. Neither guard moved to help the man... they had been told not to.
Just then the jewel about Roan's neck started to glimmer with its own self-contained light, and the dark teen chuckled in satisfaction as he watched the little boy mercilessly beat upon the helpless man on the far side of the room. Roan smirked, for the first time wondering just how much more intelligent the child was than the imbecile that he was now pummeling to death.
The addle-brained fool was on his knees now, begging for mercy as blood streamed down the side of his face. He simply did not have the intelligence to understand what he had done to make this little child so angry with him... he had only done what he had been told, after all.
Cody had trained for years with the weapon in his hands, almost his entire life, and he knew just where to strike a man to cause him the most pain... and now, more than anything, he wanted to cause this man pain. A strange weakness passed over him, as if his strength were being sapped by something outside of his body, but the boy didn't care. Pain, weariness, virtue... nothing mattered at that moment than his punishment of the one who had hurt Yolei.
Even as Roan's gem continued to shimmer and grow as it drew the boy's life force away, the object of Cody's wrath slipped to the ground, unconscious. Still though, the little boy continued to expend every ounce of his strength to beat the other even while he was senseless. Even as Yolei herself screamed at the boy to stop, fearing that he might kill the man, the little green-eyes child continued to impulsively pummel the other's limp form.
It was several moments later when Cody's strength gave out as Roan's crystal completed its work. The Shinai slipped out of the little boy's almost lifeless fingers as he stopped, and then stared at the bloody pulp at his feet that had just recently been recognizable as a man. His head reeling, Cody brought his hands up and gazed at them, the blood staining them from his fingertips all the way up to his elbows.
The last thing that the boy heard was Yolei's scream as he fell back into the waiting arms of unconsciousness, the scream that insisted that it was not really his fault, that they had been tricked.
At that point, of course, it didn't really matter much to the boy...
