"In Your Name"
Disclaimer: The Twelve Kingdoms (Junni Kokki, or Junni Kokuki) belong to Fuyumi Ono and MediaBlasters. This is a fan work meant singularily for the amusement of other fans, and would never be used for profit.
Chapter Two
There's a saying about jail, Don't Drop The Soap. Kaname does anyway, and reacts with calm indifference when another inmate decides to claim him. He is thrown roughly against the shower wall while the other prisoners laugh, warm water running down his naked body; they are about to do shameful things. The boy closes his eyes. This, he realizes, is part of his punishment. Because he deserves it.
He opens his eyes again and all of the men are backing away. They look frightened. Kaname realizes there is a horrible odour coming from something directly beneath him.
The guy who was just having his way with him before, isn't there any longer. Or rather, most of him is gone. There are still some bits lying on the ground there, and they mix in with the soap suds and make dark bubbles that smell nauseautingly like ketchup. Kaname stumbles back to his cell, barely making it there before he is sick all over the floor. The prison doctor proclaims him incapacitated; he stays in bed for a week.
When he is finally well enough to eat, a visit to the cafeteria spells trouble. He has nowhere to sit. Oddly he is reminded of school; it seems there may be little difference between the two institutions... either way his thoughts and actions are being controlled. Making his way towards a mostly abandoned table in the left corner of the room, he squashes himself all the way to the end, and hopes nobody recognizes him.
Sadly this isn't good enough for the five guys at the other end of the table. One by one they get up. "Hey! You're the one who killed all those kids, aren't you?"
"And Tekata-san!"
"Yeah, he's the one that killed Tekata in the showers!"
A guard looks up. "Quiet down! A big guy like that doesn't just dissapear! We all know he's loose somewhere and you're all covering for him."
This isn't good enough. "Liar! He killed him! That bastard there!"
Kaname keeps his head down and pretends not to hear.
"I said, hey! Murderer! Your kind isn't allowed to eat at this table, got that? Now why don't you get up and leave?"
After a moment's deliberation, Takasato stood up. Shakily he takes his lunch tray and---
--"Too late!" A fork came screaming down into his shoulder just as another man's left hook made connection with the side of his face. The eighteen year old boy let out a scream.
A crowd forms around them, chanting, "Fight, fight, fight!" But there isn't a fight. Kaname breaks into a blind run as alarms are sounded and guards come charging in with their tazers and batons. Takasato panics as the guards start beating down on prisoners randomly, while leaving the ones that were attacking him alone. He gets up and runs, shutting his eyes, he needs to get away from here, anywhere but here....
When Kaname awoke, he was still in jail, but it wasn't like any jail he recognized. He stands up. Torches lined the walls and rested in metal brackets. The walls and floors are made of grey stone. The floors were made of hard-packed dirt and the high ceilings were made of... clay?
"Psst... hey, kid!"
The boy blinked. He felt... different. More complete, somehow. His hand reached up to feel his hair which for some reason had grown to shoulder length. Directly before him was an old man, behind bars--the sort you'd see in an old American style cartoon. "Wh... where am I?"
"You're here to bust us out, aren't you? Isn't that why you're here?"
Takasato looked around bewildered at this new place he was in. "Where are we?"
"Hoo! And here I was thinking I was going senile. But if a li'l whipper-snapper like yeself can't even remember where he is, well, then my memory's sharp as a tack in comparison! This is a prefectural prison in Kou."
The rest of it went by like a dream. The man explained, there is no ruler and the magistrates are all corrupt, they capture people for any reason at all just so they can claim money from the city treasury for keeping the prisoners. They then leave the prisoners to rot and spend the money on themselves. They can do this because there's no ruler.
Kaname remarked that this wasn't right, and that he wished to see them all freed.
A pair of white arms appeared and dropped several keychains by his feet.
A large dog miraculously took down the guards standing at the door.
The people had all thanked him, and together they'd spirited away on all manners of strange beasts they'd found in the stables outside. The first clue that this was all some sort of dream appeared when the old man he'd saved had offered to share the blue and black striped beast with him. Kaname decided he must be in hospital recieving pain killers for being beaten, there was no way any of this was real.
The people called him things like saviour, and it made him feel good. It had been a long while since he'd felt good about anything and he couldn't even recall a time when he'd had the acceptance of an entire group. Even if they were outlaws, they didn't seem like the prisoners he'd been with back home. Most of the prisoners had been recent and still seemed like normal people, farmers and family men. Some of the longtime inmates' characters were a little iffy, but they'd sunk into the shadows and slipped away at the first given oppourtunity, while the bulk of the escapees decided to stay together and set up camp.
Some of the men hunted while the women built a fire, and he was given food to eat. It was some sort of half-cooked beast and the smell of raw flesh made him ill, so he ate very little. He apologized for being rude, which made his kindly hosts laugh.
It seemed a different sort of place. He was asked about his prison clothes, which seemed oddly clean and crisp to them--they all wore dark coloured rags in varying stages of filthiness.
Kaname began to realize as the night dragged on that the aches and pains in his legs, the taste of the food in front of him, were all very real. His eyes widened in fear. These nice people then, that were being so kind to him, if they were real--they all could be hurt by his curse. He stays awake that night, and leaves when almost everyone is asleep.
A dog followed him for several miles. Eventually he turned to face it. It was a tiny little thing, hardly bigger than a rat. He picked the canine up and looked it squarely in the eyes. "Look, everyone that gets close to me dies. It doesn't matter who you are." The dog barked stupidly and licked him on the cheek.
"Seriously, though. These things... I swear they follow me. Nobody's safe from this curse of mine. There was even this guy... he was a good person and I still wasn't able to stop it...." He shook his head. "I must be crazy, talking to a dog."
Rain began falling, soaking him through to the bone. It was a good feeling. It meant this other world was real--another chance, maybe, to find a place where he could be alone, where nobody had to come into contact with him. A strange elation overwhelmed him as he began to hallucinate again, he could swear he saw a beautiful woman--with the milk white head and torso of a human being but the body of a panther and a tail like a dragon's, gorgeous and beckoning, eagerly urging him onward into the night. Rather giddily he followed this fair apparition, wondering if this was the afterlife. He paused in his ascent up a cliff and sneezed, tripping among the mud and sharp rocks in his path. He was so tired. He'd gone far enough for a dream. He sank his pale cheek down into the softness of hard rocks and thought, perhaps he would rest here.
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(A/N: I'd like to thank my only reviewer, Haru-chan, for actually, well, reviewing. Please, people, if you read it, it's your responsibility to let me know what you think, even if it's negative! I'm desperate for feedback of any kind, here! Even if it's "you misspelled a word", or "that's not possible", I can't improve if you don't say anything....)