The Sacred Night, Chapter 14
I slept a lot. I was disoriented and just looked up at my ceiling, making no effort to figure things out. I stayed in the too-large futon that had been made for two people and ruminated over the circumstances surrounding my sudden aloneness in it. I eventually closed the window, preferring the darkness. I lost all sense of time, since it was always dark in the little room and I slept even during the night, in addition to the day. I didn't feed or answer anyone who tried to speak with me mentally, and generally never left my futon.
Eventually, my friends began to worry, and after fruitless efforts to communicate, they finally came to visit me personally. First it was just Sano, but them Aoshi and Misao began to come, and even others after that. Bound humans came eventually, too, and it was a good thing I'd left my door unlocked, since they would have been waiting outside for a very long time if I hadn't. The fifty year old man that Misao had bound, who of course appeared to be no more than twenty two, came to see me once, since he was good friends with Aoshi and Misao, and I had begun to foster friendship with him.
"Jou-chan's been gone for more than a week," Sanosuke rationalized on one such visit. He was especially close with both of us, even closer than Aoshi and Misao, though we had not known him as long. He was just more of a people-person, I guess. "You can't stay like this forever,"
"No more, I'm tired," I answered, trying to frustrate him into leaving.
"You can't be tired. It's nighttime,"
"No more, I'm tired," I repeated.
"Stop it with that already! You're not tired, you're depressed, and you gotta get better. You'll die if you don't feed,"
"No more, I'm tired,"
"How d'you think everyone will feel if you die? If you can't get motivated by caring about your life, at least care about them,"
I didn't reply to that.
"Jou-chan wouldn't have wanted you to be like this. She'd want to you to live and be happy, just like what you told 'er her father would want for her when she wanted to go after that guy who was killing people around here when you met her,"
"No more, Sano, I'm tired,"
He eventually left, but didn't give up. They all came periodically and tried to motivate me to get up and feed, assuring me that they could find a bound human very willing to let me feed without doing anything that might be disloyal to my wife's memory, but they didn't understand. I didn't want to feed and didn't care at that point if I died. I simply didn't want to do anything. I wouldn't.
Once, though, a unique message came rather than tired admonishments to feed. Aoshi, Misao, and Sano all came together and said they had good news for me. I didn't care, didn't even bother to reply, since no news except that Kaoru was alive could be good for me. Imagine my shock when I found out what news they had.
"Your wife is not dead," Aoshi said calmly.
"Excuse me?"
"A slayer has her on an island off the coast. The body you found was a well-made facsimile," he explained.
"She was... kidnapped? Why?"
"The slayers wanted to get to you, but they apparently didn't kill her for some reason, so he just made you suffer without killing her. Typical old-school slayer talk- don't hurt the superior race, and all that,"
"So... this slayer... can I get her back?"
"We were hoping you would come with us to rescue her,"
I stood for the first time in awhile and opened my window to look out on Tokyo. It looked the same as it had for awhile now, though considerably different from the first time I'd seen it. I wanted to leave immediately, since I had no other engagements or priorities, but the others told me everything wasn't quite ready. They still had to feed, and advised me to do so as well, knowing that slayers' usual stubbornness about these things would probably lead to a fight of some sort, but I refused. If I had been unwilling before, I was adamant now that I knew she was alive- I would not break our special bond.
Misao hadn't spoken the whole time the three of them were in my house. I had never known her not speak, under any circumstances. I couldn't tell what she was thinking, but something was clearly wrong. When she left with the others to feed, I tried to ask her to stay and talk to me a minute, but she just shrugged me off and was gone. It was difficult for me to focus much on that, since my relief at Kaoru's being alive overshadowed everything at the moment, and I forgot all about it while I tried to imagine what these slayers would say and wondered if I would have to fight to rescue my wife, or simply go in and retrieve her secretly.
Soon, all four of us were back in my living room, ready to leave. Only Aoshi and Misao knew where this unnamed island was, so they went first and Sano and I sensed them and followed. I was surprised not to see anything except forest when I arrived. There was dense vegetation through which we made our way agonizingly slowly, never seeing or sensing anything other than animals. I was beginning to think we were in the wrong place, or perhaps that these slayers were cruelly making my Kaoru sleep outside. I liked them less and less as time continued.
Eventually a very tall, gray building came into view above the treetops, and it appeared to have large, darkly tinted windows. I sensed only two people, both bound humans, inside. It followed that one of them would be Kaoru, but how many had the slayers captured? More importantly, why weren't they guarded and where were the slayers? Could they mask their ki?
None of us spoke, but I noticed that Misao seemed distracted again. She was following Aoshi without trouble, but not looking at him. Misao definitely never refused to look at her Aoshi-sama, as she had continued to call him adoringly even after they were married. I suddenly remembered her behavior at my house and made a note to try to talk to her later.
We reached the building and dispensed with the formality of doors. There was not one in our immediate view, so a casual observer would have simply seen us vanish. We were considerably closer to the two humans, both of whom were now on a small balcony at the back of the building. One of the humans was looking out on the sea in despair, or so his ki would seem to indicate, and the other, my mind rejoiced, was Kaoru. She seemed to be in a very hostile state of mind, however, stalking toward the man.
Why was my wife stalking someone? She didn't just attack people mindlessly, so she must have been angered, since this man didn't seem to be an obstacle to any escape she may have been attempting. WHAT HAD THEY DONE TO HER? I was, to say the least, not happy. As we neared them, I could hear the young-seeming man talking to himself sadly and desperately, not paying any attention to Kaoru or even seeming to sense her. She crept closer and closer to him, armed only with a sizable vase, presumably to knock him out. How very like her.
At the very last second, the man turned and knocked her to the ground, shattering the vase, with the strangest sword I had ever seen, and I had seen many. It wasn't strange for vampires or bound humans to use archaic weapons from whatever time period we had been born, but this one seemed to be a hybrid that was part katana, part some very old Chinese design, and incredibly long. He held it to her throat for a long moment, but crumpled with cries of anguish, never hurting her. I was halfway to them by that time, but stopped when I saw him go into hysterics and begin speaking to a ghost only he could see. I was turning away from him to run to my wife when I heard him utter a name I recognized.
"Don't look at me that way, Tomoe, I didn't hurt her... I couldn't because she reminds me of you... smile, please... smile..."
I was speechless. I didn't think it was likely he was thinking of the same Tomoe as I was, but it was unnerving all the same. My first wife had almost never smiled and he begged a woman by her name to do so, but the fact that my present wife reminded him of her compounded the bizarre effect it had on me. If I'd been carrying anything at that moment, I'd have dropped it, he'd have heard, and I'd have had that interesting sword through my heart, but thankfully, my hands were empty.
Kaoru didn't need time to recover from the sight, and was upon me before I'd registered movement. It was wonderful to feel her embrace me after the past couple of weeks we had both had, but she hadn't had the presence of mind to come quietly, and the white haired lad turned to see why she was shouting a strange man's name. He stood and turned toward us, giving the four of us vampires our first good look. He was very tall and rather muscular, wearing small, round sunglasses that reminded me of a very popular musician from a few decades before... John something.
"Ah, so you've come to rescue the lady, finally," he readied his sword, "now give me what I want,"
"I must confess, I'm not entirely sure what you want. You have kidnapped my wife seemingly to get me to come here and fight you, but I cannot think of any reason you would want to fight with me. You are clearly not a vampire hunter, since you are bound, and it can't be personal, since I'm sure we have never met,"
"Let me enlighten you. You are wrong in both of your conclusions. I am a vampire hunter, bound because there are vampires allied with us," he paused a moment, allowing me to recover from that odd surprise before he continued, "This, however, is more than the simple fact that you are what you are- you are clearly not like other vampires. My cause against you is personal, and I'll tell you about it. One hundred thirty eight years ago, my sister was killed by a vampire,"
He had been talking about the same Tomoe I remembered the entire time. I had never known much about her family, and she had not talked about them often. I had assumed there was some painful thing she didn't want to bring up connected to them, so I hadn't asked, not wanting to dredge up painful memories. Maybe she simply hadn't wanted to mention the fact that if her brother knew what she'd married, it didn't look good for either of us.
"She was a saint. She would have allowed herself to be bound willingly, had that leech cared to ask, but instead, he simply took what life he could get out of her while she lasted. He murdered her, and he murdered countless other people with his very existence. I will give him my own justice if it i the last thing I do," he finished, waited a moment, and launched himself toward me. My being weaponless didn't present that much of a problem, since he was human, but I was still uncomfortable fighting that way.
I sidestepped, pushing Kaoru in the opposite direction, away from the fight. She had been trained to fight when she was alive, but she was also unarmed and human. Besides, even though she could handle herself very well, I didn't want her to be in danger. I just felt better this way. He reacted more quickly than I expected, and turned to charge toward me without even stopping. I jumped, aiming a kick at his shoulder on the way down, and in spite of the crack I heard, he continued to fight.
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YAY! I love enishi! Anybody who has read "Island Tiger" or "History Behind The History" should know that. I think this fic is inspiring me to add to "Island Tiger." On a different note, I'm going to change my screen name soon, so after I've told you a few more times to make sure you've got it, my new name will be Reversed.
NightRain2: yes, i suppose that chapter was rushed, but as you said, not a big deal. You are justified in being confused, but this chapter should have cleared it up. I wasn't planning on showing how they met. Yes, vamps that have that kind of scruples are rare, but i've seen them before. In one series, there's even an organization of them- kind of a vampire PETA, if you will, because in those books, vamps do see humans a lot like how humans see animals. That stuff about vamps that reproduce is interesting; i've never seen that before. Yes, i know a few vamp haters, but i don't see vampires as murderers, necessarily, because they generally can figure out how to live without killing if they believe in that sort of thing. I do think it's silly to make them sexual, though. Thanks about the ki thing, but it just seemed natural to include it since vampires can generally sense auras. I thought misao was a nice change from most authors making it all about kaoru. I will stay in first person throughout. I considered changing to Misao's pov for the scene where he first feeds on her, because he was supposed to be unconscious, but instead i made him semiconscious so it could be dreamlike. It is more challenging to get all the info across with only one pov, though. yes, chibi has a way of introducing things like that and making you curious... she told me about that disease before.
The Great-Monk-Grl: thank you! I update on a schedule- Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The reason this is late is because my father had to reinstall his ISP, so he made me get offline before I could post.
Cheesecake: yes, tomoe is dead... why would you think otherwise?
Laurika: good heavens, no, he didn't kill her. No, they weren't married until after he met misao. Yes, kaoru and misao know each other. No, this is not a memory except in the sense that the entire story is a memory because it's written in past tense. thank you!
Cattibrie393: i would imagine this chapter cleared everything up.
Chibi Yuushi: i thought ppl would be a tad confused, but i didn't think it was that big a deal. Continue and you will understand. Yes, i think it is silly to make vamps so sexual- i mean they're DEAD for crying out loud. In my interpretation, vamps cannot transform objects or other people, but your ideas about it are fascinating. You know, you and Ry are so good at this, maybe you should be writing this story instead of me... and you are not disappointed by kaoru's situation in this chapter, i take it? Perhaps some coroners would be interested, but most would not even believe him. They would try to explain it with a strange disease, likely... *hint* lol. If they're morbid enough to want to be coroners, though, who knows?
Yuhi-thedoerofevildeeds: does this chapter explain? Read the revenge arc of the manga if you're still confused.