Hey everyone! The big fluffy chapter has arrived AT LAST!!! Well I won't make you guys wait any longer, so I'll just say that I don't own any part of WHR, and here's the next installment!!!:
Our destinies reside in our own hands. They await our command, and will take us down the path we have decided upon. This future cannot be determined with fate alone. This is the simple truth one must learn to face.
Amon unlocked his car quickly and reached for his cell phone and the Orbo gun that he kept tucked safely away from Robin's view until now. He checked the amount--there was about eight shots left. Would it be enough?
"Here." He tossed Robin the cell phone. "Call the STN-J and see if anyone is there. A person named Michael will most likely answer."
"Okay." Robin quickly punched the number in. After waiting a few moments, she looked up at him again. "There's no response."
Amon groaned in frustration. "We'll just have to do this ourselves, then. I've waited too long to let this one go." He moved up the sidewalk then, and Robin followed him.
He felt a little guilty for allowing her to follow. After all, she still did not have her glasses or the experience of a full-fledged hunter. Still, Amon preferred her to come with him rather than wait in the car. In all probability Robin would have left the car after awhile to go look for him anyways, so this was better...in theory, at least. But besides that, she was completely useless.
Together they moved down the sidewalk in pursuit of Chiyeko. Sometime since she left the glasses store, she must've realized someone was following her because her pace increased more and more until eventually it broke into a run. But Amon wouldn't let her go.
Chiyeko turned the corner and flew down the street. 'She's headed for the abandoned office building.' He realized. 'She wants to fight.' Amon smirked. Well, she would be given that chance soon enough.
They burst the door open and quickly ran down the hallway. Suddenly that hallway merged with another one, and then another. "Which way?" Robin inquired quietly. Amon tilted his head to the side to signal her that he didn't know either. "Maybe we should split up to look around...."
"...No, stay with me." Amon replied. "It's too dangerous for you, especially because you don't have your glasses yet." Suddenly, they heard a noise in the next room, and he jerked his head up. "In there." They ran forward.
And indeed, when they got there, Chiyeko was standing in the other doorway. She saw them come in, but didn't look surprised. Instead, she smirked, took out and cigarette and lighter, and exhaled the smoke in a calm way. Suddenly, she began to chuckle. It grew louder and louder until she was laughing uncontrollably.
"...I've been expecting the STN-J to find me sooner or later. In fact, I've waited months for this. And now, when the moment has arrived at last..." Chiyeko paused to laugh again in an almost insane way. "...I can't say I was anticipating only two of you. Kind of disappointing, wouldn't you say?" She paused again to take another bite at the cigarette. After she was done, she looked at Amon dead in the eye.
"...Tell me, did I simply underestimate the STN-J? Or are you both stronger than you look? Which is it?"
Amon made no response, and took a step forward instead. Her face widened. "I suggest you don't move again." Chiyeko smirked. "I can see it in your eyes all the way over here. You know just exactly how strong I am."
"Try me." He growled.
She shrugged and put her lips once more to the cigarette. "...Suit yourself. I need a little fun anyways." Amon raised his gun to her, but before he could shoot, Amon suddenly became aware of the burning he felt on his face. She had thrown her spent cigarette at him and run out of the room in the midst of his momentary confusion. Amon sworn under his breath with frustration.
"Come on!" He heard Robin shout from somewhere. Amon nodded and wiped the ash away from his face. Together they ran down the hall.
And then, they skidded to a halt. "Where now?" Robin asked as they looked around wildly.
"Over here, you idiots!" Chiyeko shouted to them somewhere to the right in a taunting sort of way. Without hesitation the two ran down the hall. "You'll never catch meee!!" More insane laughter could be heard around the corner. Amon's brow deepened in annoyance--pretty soon he would no longer be able to bear hearing such a laugh.
They raced into a room. At the other side was a closed door which probably led to somewhere else, and so they quickly crossed over to it. Amon turned the knob with haste.
"Locked." He whispered hoarsely. "A dead end..." They turned around swiftly to go back the way they came in.
But to their horror, Chiyeko was standing at the doorway. She had the same smirk on her face that Amon had last saw. "Hope you brought a sweater!" She laughed uncontrollably at her own joke and shut the door while locking it right before they reached it. Amon practically collided into the door and pounded on it furiously. "Oh no..." Robin watched him from a distance as he tried desperately to break down the door. "...It's no good. The door is too strong..." Amon ran to the other side of the room to break that door down as well. If he didn't think of something fast and they didn't get out of here soon...
"Um, Amon?" Robin asked curiously as she approached him from behind. "Maybe...I should help?"
"No." He replied. "I can feel it already--this door is just as strong as the other one." In spite of this however, he continued to heave himself hopelessly against their only means of escape.
She watched him do this for a few more moments in silence, and then shuddered. "We'll be okay...won't we? We'll just wait for help..."
He made no answer.
"And Amon, what did Chiyeko mean just a few moments ago? I don't understand..."
A cold chill began to fill the room. But this was only the beginning.
Robin's eyes widened. She felt it too. "Do you mean...her craft...?" Comprehension filled her face as she turned to look at the very small windows on the wall of the room. Frost had begun to form.
He shut his eyes tightly.
Michael rounded the corner and stuffed another donut bit into his mouth. Besides computers and coffee, this was his true love. He smiled in gluttonous content and set the bag down near the hard drive. "Maybe the others will like some of these." Suddenly Michael stared at the half-eaten pastry in his hand. He took another bite and shrugged. "Oh well! First come, first served."
He stretched a little and landed on top of his comfortable desk chair. It had been a busy day for him. Of course, they always were for Michael, but this day it seemed to be exceptionally so. Everybody always wanted something from him. For some reason they had been given the impression that he knew everything. And if he didn't happen to know something, he could find it out in a snap. Like magic. Only Michael himself seemed to know that it wasn't always that simple. And he was growing tired of it.
"Oh well." Michael murmured. "It's not like I can quit anyways." He sighed and looked up at the security camera staring back at him. "I guess it's back to work for me then..."
He took another bite from his donut and clicked the screensaver away. A tracking program marked 'Important!' immediately caught his eye. Michael scanned through the text quickly. "Hmm...phone message...failed to receive...ah, here's the location the signal was given...and I see that's the number..." He stared at it for a few moments, and then suddenly recognized it.
"...WHAT!?" The rest of his donut flew from his hand to the floor as he rushed to the phone.
"Come on, Robin...try it again. It shouldn't be too hard for you to melt the lock from a distance so close, right?"
She nodded. "Yes...it shouldn't be hard at all...I don't understand why it didn't work. Let me do it again..." Amon watched as her eyes became hazy for a moment, and then lit up. A tiny flame appeared from nowhere and hovered about the door handle, but it wasn't nearly as strong enough to melt the whole thing. He groaned in disappointment. "No..." Robin whispered softly. "No...no...no! I can do this! We'll get out! I can!" Again and again she tried to use her craft, but each time the flame would become smaller and smaller, until there came nothing.
The frost had spread from the edges of the windows to the sills. Amon could start to see traces of his breath. "...That's enough, Robin." He said to her suddenly. He pulled her back.
She shook her head. "But-"
"-Save your strength. You may need it." He rested himself against the wall.
After a moment, Robin reluctantly gave up and sat down. "My eyes...they hurt a lot. Why...why..." Her brow deepened into concentration of explaining how it could be done. Suddenly, Robin's face lit up. "Of course! That's it!" Amon looked over at her curiously. "The eye drops he gave me haven't completely worn off yet! He gave me an extra amount. It'll take 45 minutes at most for my eyes to return to normal."
But Amon knew all too well Chiyeko's spell didn't take that long. "We might not have that much time."
Her face softened then, and sadness clouded her magnificently green eyes. "I...I'm so useless..." She whispered. "I'm a failure...I'll never make it as a witch hunter...I'll only get in the way..."
She let out a noise that was a mixture between a sob and a sigh of despair. Upon hearing this Amon's protective shell around his heart crumbled into pieced. 'Oh God.' He thought. 'What have I done? Why did I bring her along on such a dangerous hunt? Why didn't I insist that she stay in the car, where it would be safe? And now, she might die here...and I would have only myself to blame.'
His expression turned from despair over their situation to concern over Robin's well-being. On an impulse, Amon looked down at her hands. They were trembling, and not just from fear. At this point his fingers were too cold to properly flex, so instead he gingerly tore off his gloves with his teeth and told her to wear them.
Her eyes widened. "Oh, but I can't! What about you? You need to wear something too, Amon!"
"Don't worry about me." He replied gruffly. "Now hurry, put them on." Robin stretched her hands out and tried to take them, but they kept shaking too much to get a proper grasp. Amon took her hands then experimentally and she gasped. It was just as he had thought--colder than ice. "...You see?" He said. "If you don't put them on soon you'll eventually feel nothing in them." Robin looked away.
What Robin didn't know, and what he wasn't about to tell her, was that this was the first time he had ever held a woman's hand outside of the family. For what it was worth now, it was an experience he didn't want to end...even if she WAS a student. In order to get more circulation going, Amon rubbed her delicate palms quickly for the blood to flow. He looked away from her while doing this in order to hide his enjoyment.
A blush rose throughout her body. He could feel it. 'I'm making her uncomfortable.' He realized. Quickly Amon somehow managed to get the gloves on her hands, even though they were too big for her. Robin mumbled her thanks beneath the redness of her face and stuck the hands Amon wanted to feel again back into the jacket's pockets.
He glanced at the windows again. The frost had traveled around the cracks of the walls and would soon reach the floor. It was only a matter of time, really. "This normally doesn't take this long." He commented suddenly. "Chiyeko is intentionally making this process slow. She wants to torture us a little, it seems."
Robin said nothing. He looked over to her and saw that she was shivering uncontrollably. And it was then that he realized he was too. Amon's anger for himself rose up again. He didn't want to see her suffering like that, ever. And so, he did the only thing that he could do at the moment.
"Robin, come here."
She looked up at him reluctantly upon hearing this and shook her head. "No, I'm fine...really."
"...If you won't come over here, then I'll go over there." Was that meant to be a threat? Amon couldn't be sure. She bit her lip and finally walked over. He unhooked something from his neck and handed it to her. "Wear this."
Robin stared at it for a few moments before comprehending. "But this is...your Orbo! I can't wear this!"
"You can and you must, Robin. It'll protect you a little from the craft." He looked at her with soft, concerned eyes.
"Well then...we'll both wear it!" Robin cried. She leaned again him suddenly and placed the string around both of their necks. It was long enough to allow a comfortable distance between them. Still, Amon noticed that their breaths had begun to mingle haphazardly in the cold. He stared at her in shock. 'Robin is your student...'
But that reminder quickly melted away from his mind once he felt Robin reach for him. Despite their situation, she gave an innocent giggle. "I may never get a chance to do this again, you know." She unfolded his hand and delicately traced the lines there. Amon had begun to feel something he had never quite felt before, but he fought this new feeling away quickly.
Robin closed her eyes. "Hmm...you have five big lines and a small one altogether. This means that, if you were to ever have children, your first one will be born halfway through the month of May. Bu only if it's a boy. For a girl, it will be halfway through July. Your longest line starts at your thumb and ends near your ring finer. You will marry someone who is younger than you by at least four years." Amon saw her blush, but her voice did not show it as she continued. "The line that cuts between the longest shows that you are likely to take risks. Lastly, the short line that splits off from another means you will look back to your past and find something you never would've dreamed of." She let go of his hand and smiled gently.
Amon stared at it for a few moments. Did all of those lines actually mean something? He had seen them many times whenever he would happen to casually peer down to it without the glove, but he never knew so much could be told from something so little.
"It's not that hard, really." Robin said. "You just need practice..."
He looked at her. "Something from my past...I will learn what I could never dream of...what do you mean?"
She shook her head. "I'm afraid I can't elaborate much more than that. You'll have to figure the rest out..."
Suddenly, they heard shouts coming from outside of the doorway. They stood up, and Amon unhooked his Orbo from her. "What's going on!?" Robin shouted. He looked over at the windows. The frost there was starting to leave.
"They found us." He whispered. "Michael must have traced the location of the call you tried to make." He barely had time to finish that sentence when they heard a key fit noisily into the lock of the door. It swung wide open, and from it came Karasuma.
She smiled and dusted herself off. "Glad to see you two are still alive. Chiyeko was apprehended just a few moments ago. The others are waiting downstairs." She looked them over carefully for a moment or two. "You guys okay? How long have you been in here? Do you need medical treatment for anything?"
They both shook their head. Karasuma nodded to his and lead them outside. Sure enough, there was Chiyeko, being shipped off to the factory. Amon never liked seeing that, no matter how dangerous the witch. He turned away.
"Goodbye, Robin." He said to her once the van had left. "I'll see you in class tomorrow..." She nodded and gave the same smile that had the strange, foreign effect on him.
Review Responses:
Wake-Robin: Hehe, thanks!
Chii-san: The other fanfic is a Sess/Kag pairing and it will be a sequel to the one I have currently.
Haruya: Really? OOC how? Maybe I can fix it!
ShiroKitsune: Yeah, I know it was kind of long, but it had to be written. Sorry to make you guys go through all of that, lol.
WindSorceress: Hehehe, you're my number one fan for this story, eh? Neat! =D
Bana: Well, we'll find out all the answers to those questions by the end, don't you worry about that!
lurid-eyes: Hey thanks! Hope you'll be able to read the rest!
Stephanie Leung or a.k.a Yuna of Paradise: Yeah I did read that, it's really nice! I liked the sequel to that more, lol. A little more mature I guess…it's in my favs now! All thanks to you, hehehe.
Gundamwinggirl: Well, it's really really hard to get his personality down, you understand. He's probably THE hardest character for that, in fact.
ROW: lol, if you say so!
Kagome Of Summer Dances: Yes yes! I promise I'll review, but I can't do it now, Vira has been very busy after all…
Trekgirl01: Arigato! It seems some of my reviewers would disagree with you though, lol.
Seed-of-Flame: lol! Yeah that's funny to imagine, can you just picture that happening? Hehehe.
jasmine3883: You're welcome! Hope you'll write more!!
…Well, that's all. Not too many reviews that time, but I can't say I didn't expect that…oh well. Hopefully you'll review more now, seeing how this is the big fluffy chappy and all! I really need feedback, so R&R!! Arigato, ja ne!!!!