Chapter 12: Gazing Back
Bored after long minutes of silence, Ellen breaks it. "So.........speaking of Hiei.
"We weren't speaking of him," Anneliese bites back bitterly.
"Oh,.........but now that you mention him," she is immediately interupted.
"Why don't we talk about Jesse?" Anneliese puts on a obviously false smile.
"Okay!" Ellen's bubbly talking soon fills the hallway and Anneliese finds her mind, not suprisingly, drifting.
The girls walk on, Anneliese lost in thought staring blankly at the floor and Ellen babbiling happily to no one in particular about her boyfriend. Ellen suddenly ends her chatter and grabs Anneliese's sleeve pointing up ahead of them. Anneliese quickly glances up just in time to see a shadow move in front of them. Ellen closes her eyes and jumps back flayaling her arms feeling her gun hit something solid.
"Anneliese, I think I got it," She excitedly whispers turning to face Anneliese, but her face suddenly drops when she sees that Anneliese is no longer standing next to her, but is instead knocked unconsious on the floor. "Umm.........Anneliese?"
FLASHBACK
Anneliese opens her eyes to see she is no longer in the dark cavern. Instead, she is standing in a clean, spacious room with comfortable furnature. Anneliese hears shouts coming from two men outside. She tries to move her feet, but finds that she is immobile. The other occupants of the room, a woman staring out a window and a small girl sitting quite close to Anneliese, seem to not have noticed her sudden apperance. Anneliese looks at the child sitting and notices that there is something strangely familiar about her.
"Anneliese," the woman calls from the window, "come to me."
Anneliese tries again to walk forward, but suddenly stops when she sees the young girl rushing toward the woman. Anneliese realizes with a start that that girl was infact her younger self, but then, whose eyes are she looking through if not from her own? There is no time to ponder this thought, the shouting gets louder, and the woman runs quickly to a desk and frantically extracts a pen and paper from its contents. She hurriedly begins scrawling things on the paper. Upon finishing, she beckons the mini-Anneliese to take the paper which she accepts. The woman kneels down to the childs height and wraps her arms tightly around the small figure. Tears creep silently down the woman's cheeks, emotional pain clearly expressed on every aspect of her. With a last tight squeeze, the woman draws back slightly and places a hand gently over little Anneliese's bright eyes and trusting face. A pale mist seeps from the woman's hands and travels ito the child's nose and mouth. A few moments pass where the sounds of a struggle outside the house are the only noise to be heard, then mini Anneliese drops unconsious into the woman's waiting, outstretched arm. The woman then turns in Anneliese's direction, or rather, in the direction of whoever's eyes Anneliese is peering out of. Tears still brimming her eyes, she says that she had erased the child's memory, and the second she wakes up would not remember anything of the previous years of her life. She then implores "Anneliese" to retreat to somewhere faraway and safe, and to take the girl along. The woman then warns to not stay with the child, but to drop her off where a caretaker will be sure to find her, and leave. She again kneels down and hugs the owner of the eyes Anneliese is gazing out of whispering into their ear that one day you'll find each other again, and when that time comes, you must stick together in the mean time, always wear this and never give it up. She lightly touches a key hanging from a necklace identical to Anneliese's. The woman breaks away and stands, prompting to pick up the child and go. The owner of the eyes obliges and races out the back of the house. Anneliese's vision begins to fade as screams fill her ears, but just as it is getting completely black, it fully comes back and the sound vanishes. She is no longer occupying someone else's eyes, but is higher up now, perhaps in a tree, looking down into a forest clearing. In the pale dawn light, Anneliese can bearly make out two figures in the clearing. One she recognizes as her younger self again, but the other is a new undistiguishable figure. In the lonely silence of the forest, she can hear whispers of what is being said on the forest floor. The unknown figure sets the young Anneliese down as the child whimpers in her sleep.
"Don't worry," a comforting small boys voice is heard coming from the unknown idividual, "someone will be coming along this way shortly. Unlike me, you won't be alone for long." The boy leans over and kisses her innocently on the cheek. "I'll find you again." Quietly he turns and leaves.
Anneliese wanted to jump down to him and see who he was, but furiously remembers that she can't move. To make matters worse, Anneliese starts feeling a dull, annoying sensation on the side of her face.
END FLASHBACK
Anneliese slowly opens her eyes which are greeted by a very hystarical Ellen.
"You're not dead!" Ellen firmly graps Anneliese in a tight bear hug.
As Anneliese has the air squeezed out of her, her hand subconsiously travels to her face where it finds the place the boy had kissed her younger self. Suddenly Anneliese remembers the urgent situation she and Ellen had been in before she had been clobbered with Ellen's gun. The shape coming toward them had disappeared.
"Ellen. The figure.........where did it go?" Anneliese pushes Ellen away and peers anxiously in front of her.
"Oh yeah, him, I forgot to tell you. It was Hiei." Ellen motions to the space behind Anneliese's back. The turn to face where she had pointed to. There in the shadows glaring back at them where a pair of flaming red eyes watching intently. The rest of Hiei was nonchalantly leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
"Hey Hiei," Anneliese and Ellen return to their feet. Anneliese peers around Hiei, "where's Kurama?"
"He's busy." He replies shortly stepping out of the shadows and into the center of the hall. His ruby orbs still emiting an errie glow.
"Doing what?" Ellen questions curiously still looking around for Kurama as though expecting him to pop out at any second. "Maybe he's off looking for Theresa........., yeah that's it." Ellen's face brightens as she takes pride in her plassable theory. "But,.........do you think he'll find her?"
"I'm sure that they will run into each other." Hiei smirks. "After all, I found you, didn't I?" He gives them a far from reassuring look.
"Oh, well.........let's keep going shall we? Lead the way Hiei." Anneliese says in a unusually high pitched voice. Hiei proceeds without a word. As Hiei begins his quick paced walk, Ellen and Anneliese lag a fair distance behind. "Is it just me or is Hiei acting a bit weird?" Anneliese questions in a low whisper.
"You mean, weirder than usual?" Ellen replies. "Yeah, what do ya thinks up?" Anneliese and Ellen continue on in silent contemplation.
Suddenly Hiei disappears from where he was once walking, and reappears infront of the two startled girls. "Are you going to keep up or not?"
"Y.........yes." The girls replied in unison. Their uncertainty of him making them tense.
"Then hurry up." Hiei transports back to his place a distance in front of them.
The girls let out a sigh of relief. "Did you see that thing on his hand?" Ellen points up at Hiei. "The top of his hand had a weird sort of eye on it. It blinked up at me when I moved; gave me the creeps."
"Okay Ellen, listen up.........we need to get away from him. I don't know what's going on, but I don't think we're safe in his company. If Hiei was able to use teleportation ability then perhaps I will be able to use mine, but we won't teleport too far.........just in case. All we need is a distraction of some sort." Anneliese quickly looks around the cave and up at Hiei to discover some sort of diversion.
"Okay, leave it to me. I'll handle the distraction" Ellen states in an hurried, excited whisper.
"Ar.........are you sure?" Anneliese turns apprehensively to her friend. "This is kind of a big deal.........I mean, we don't know what kind of danger we are in, our lives may depend on it."
"Of course I can do it.........don't you trust me?" Ellen does not notice the sweatdrop slidding down the side of Anneliese's face, but only hears her weak laughter and takes that as her consent. Ellen gives Anneliese a large thumbs up and take a deep breath and bellows. "HEY! LOOK! A DISTRACTION!!!"
Anneliese curses under her breath, sure now that they are gonners when Hiei begins quite unexpectedly to turn.
She quickly graps Ellen's wrist and puts two fingers to her head disappearing in seconds. She and Ellen appear a good distance ahead of Hiei's turned back. This is lead enough for a good head start and Anneliese drags Ellen behind her as she blurs off at full sprint. The tunnel walls flash past them as their run continues.
"Ellen, can you see if Hiei is trailing us?"
"Um.........I don't see him........." Ellen murmurs from behind.
A few more moments reveals a bright light up ahead on the right. The girls scramble forward and tumble into the room. There they are greeted by a sterile white room. Everything from the ceiling to the floor is a blinding white. As the girls try to continue running to the center of the room, they slip and land face up on the cold, slippery floor. They proceed to slide to the center.
"Hey Anneliese, what's that red thing up there?" Ellen asks looking blankly up at the ceiling. But before Anneliese can locate the scarlet object, a large explotion takes place at one of the walls. Anneliese and Ellen immediately stand up to observe the hole now present in one of the snow white walls.
A lare pile of rocks and rubble directly below the hole give a small shudder. They rush over to the pile and begin shifting the rocks to one side. As they get further down in the pile, the rocks retain a redder color as a human form comes into view. As the last stone is lifted, the girls realize with horror that the figure trapped beneath the pile of rubble is a bleeding, battered Theresa. ".........Shit.........," They whisper in unison. "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!"
"Come on Vegeta, keep going!"
"Goku! Don't let him win!"
There is a loud thud as Vegeta slams down his keg and throws his arms in the air.
"HA! Is thirty kegs too much for poor little Ka.........Kak.........er.........whatever I call you." Vegeta looks slightly confused as he looks around. "Where are we again?"
Goku, who has just finished his twenty-sixth keg, falls over backward and begins to laugh uncontrollably.
".........Then, we can tackle him and pour some down his throat!" Yusuke exclaims taking another swig from his Dr. Pepper which Sanosuke had spiked with help from Jin (who works at the bar) without Yusuke's knowledge. "Yeah, that'll do the trick."
"Poor unsuspecting Kenshin," Sano grins wickedly. "But it's not our fault if he refuses to drink with us."
"Right," says Yusuke trying and failing to stand up. "Man.........what's in this stuff?"
"Nothing," answers Jin quickly while stealing a quick glance at Sanosuke who is trying hard not to laugh. "We ready?" He proceeds hurriedly, trying to change the subject. They creep clumsily toward where Kenshin is stationed next to Goku who has passed out from lack of oxygen due to overexcessive laughing (though it might be from the alchohol, but we doubt it xx;;). Suddenly the lights blacken as a spotlight shines on the karioke stage in the back of the establishment. Concert lights start flashing as someone proceeds to the stage. "Stronger" begins playing and the lights go out on the stage as the person takes the center.
"Hush, just, stop," where here there should have been a woman's voice, there is instead a deep, raspy males voice. The stage lights suddenly blaze on and everyone stares openly as Vegeta continues.
As Kenshin stares shocked in Vegeta's direction, Sano and Yusuke tackle him to the ground. Jin stands over them smiling evily as he prepares to force an unwilling Kenshin to drink the designated bottles. "Sorry we had to do this to ya lad, but you can't just go into a bar and not drink anything, it's unnatural." (remember Jin is Irish so if you didn't read the previous line with an accent, do so now, it makes it all the more fun to say)
"You will stop NOW, that you will," Kenshin struggles against their grip. "Or I will be forced to defend........."
"How ya gonna do that, Kenshin, without your sword?" Sano questions tauntingly while grabbing Kenshin's sword and tossing it aside. As Kenshin notices that his sword has been taken, his eyes become small and sullen. "That's not fair," he states in a pouty little kid voice.
"Well, life's not fair, you should know that, shut up and open up."
"Make me," Kenshin continues in his kid voice glaring up at the trio.
"There's nothing you can do or say!.........baby?" Vegeta squints questioningly at the next group of words he is to sing. "I use to.........go? With the snow.........I mean flow.........didn't really.........(starts randomly humming notes). You.........might think that I can't sing this, but you're wrong!" He yells out while abandoning the screen with the lyrics posted. "Cause now I'm stronger than.........Ka.........Ka.........that guy over there (he motions to Goku's unconcious body). He's gonna go down he's gonna,.........gonna........." The microphone makes a loud sreeching noise as Vegeta bangs his head on it before he slides to the floor, grinning from ear to ear as he mumbles in his sleep.
Hey everyone! Long time no write, I know.........sorry bout that. Between school and injuries and other such unpleasantries we couldn't find much time to get together and write. Again our apologies. You can even rant and rave on us in your reviews.........just as long as you review. Anyway next chapter Hikoro will be seen again and we'll see (not that we already don't know) how Theresa got so beat up. Also Hiei get the job of finishing the girls off.........but, what happened to Kurama? R/R