The wars begin
On Location – 5:00am
Menchi cleared her throat with a loud "ahem" and firmly planted her hands on her hips. She pinned her iciest glare on Illumi's stirring body and took one threatening step forward.
"Hisoka - you've got five minutes to get dressed for this morning's shoot. The Director doesn't like to be kept waiting," she growled, blood boiling all the way to the tips of her ears and turning her face red. The magician let out a grumble of barely coherent protest and rolled over, taking Illumi with him, so that his back was facing the pink haired cook, almost in a defiant sort of way, daring her to do or say something about it.
Menchi struggled not to have a flying fit and her lips twisted into a poisonous smile and shadows danced across her face. Oh, I'll do something about it all right she spitefully thought and turned on her heals, heading straight for the trailer door and flung it open. Giving the unresponsive back one more glittering look of hatred at being rebuked and ignored and just a small futile hope that Hisoka would just look at her for once, she stuck her head out the door and sweetly sang for all the world to hear:
"Oh Director-sama! Hisoka is in bed with Illumi again. As much as I would like to start the filming punctually, you know me, being a weak and helpless girl and all - I don't have the strength to pull him off and make him get up!"
Silva had been some way off talking about camera angles with April, who had a distressed look on her face as the conversation had lasted well over five minutes already. His keen ears pricked at the words "Hisoka" "bed" and "Illumi" and his body stiffened. April was on the verge of tears when Director Zoldick's face darkened immeasurably at Menchi's lilting voice and career alternatives began popping in her mind by the dozen. The handful of other actors up at the grey hour looked up with baffled expressions and weary eyelids and cups of steaming coffee in their hands. The Director stalked off and the moment he was a safe distance away, Toby sided up to her with a devilish twinkle in his chocolate brown eyes. She instantly frowned. His hair was messy again, and she had only seen him comb it down ten minutes ago.
"Get back behind your camera and get rid of that look in your eyes. You're making me nervous already."
"It's five o'clock in the morning April-sensei, and Hisoka-sama is causing yet another stir."
April's frown deepened at the way that Toby's gaze was stuck to a particular trailer on the flat clearing amongst the other weather beaten trailers.
"Don't pull a Hanzo on me Toby. Make sure the lighting is right - the fog is pretty thick this morning, so we definitely don't' want any fuzzy blurs or - "
"For goodness sakes sensei!" Toby looked at her in exasperation, "Aren't you just a little bit curious? The screaming last night, and now this? Hisoka-sama gave the whole 'just friends' speech last time when the Insider published those pictures. What will be his excuse today I wonder?"
He was not alone in the smirk or the giggling. A dozen extras here for the shoot either shared puzzled looks or caught on to the gossip and furiously whispered amongst themselves. Toby flittered off to find some more willing participants in the latest discussion, leaving April to bite her lip despondently.
Shooting wasn't going to begin on time again.
Silva responded in under two seconds to Menchi's call and he was once again bounding up the steep trailer stairs. He banged the door shut and instantly bore down on Menchi.
"What in blazes do you think you were doing, yelling out like that!" The cook's breath caught so painfully in her throat that it nearly bought tears to her eyes as she reflexively took a step back. She certainly hadn't anticipated this reaction from the Director.
"Do you know how many extras, outsiders, are here today?" he continued to hiss, making his loathing for her actions more than clear.
He's going to throttle me, he really wants to strangle me and stick knives into my defenseless body, Menchi hysterically thought, panic causing her knees to tremble uncontrollably. She was sapped of strength and vitality, the Director's anger like a violent storm ripping all the defiance out of her. The Director was so close to murdering her and dumping her body in Northside, and it was all Illumi's fault. If only he didn't exist. If only he never met Hisoka. If only he did not put Hisoka under some spell that left no room in Hisoka's eyes for anyone but him.
Damn him, she thought as hot tears spilled from her wide eyes. Damn him. I wouldn't be in trouble if he never met Hisoka.
"Useless girl. Get out of here and learn to keep your mouth shut. GET!"
Menchi sniffed and rubbed her eyes dry, brushing past the director in the cramped room and let out an involuntary sob before she closed the door behind her then made a run for her own room that she shared with Gon's manager Mito. She didn't dare to cry aloud until her head was firmly buried beneath two pillows. Mito rubbed her back soothingly, trying to console her, but it took more than sweet words to quell the fires of hatred burning away every inch of sensibility in Menchi right now.
Her emotions were running amok. The word 'backfire' repeatedly flared up in her mind, bright red, in blocky capital letters. Failure. Lost. Hopeless. The Director was supposed to be on her side, not HIS. One night together, her plans all shattered.
The mess of jumbled thoughts made her sick. How was this all happening? Her plans, plans she'd meticulously poured over with all her twisted determination, were unraveling at a pace that her eyes couldn't keep up. Too fast, too fast, someone please explain to her how everything just went to hell in a handcart.
-- > > They're together again – on the same bed – I don't matter. --
-- > > He stuck up him – wrong side wrong side wrong side – I'm the one who's wrong. --
Things not making sense. I'm the one who's wrong.
Fighting for what I want is wrong? What kind of logic is that? Menchi thought hysterically to herself.
"I can't stand this anymore!" she wailed into the bed sheets rapidly being drenched by her salty tears. "It's just…not fair! I don't understand why the Director told me off when it was his fault! HIS fault!"
"Shhh, shhhh, it's ok. I'm sure the Director was more angry at that Illumi than you." Mito pulled a handful of tissues out of the tissue box and peeled away the pillows on top of Menchi's head. She gently dabbed at the corners of those bleeding red eyes and sympathetically beheld that piteous gaze.
"No one said it was your fault dear," she cooed in a warm, soft voice that she often used with her friends who had suffered a breakup with their jerk of a boyfriend. "It's not your fault," she repeated with emphasis to make sure that the actor heard and then handed her a glass of water.
"I can't work with him…no, I won't work with him," Menchi clenched fistfuls of her bed sheets and gritted her teeth. "I never want to work with him," she chanted over and over again as her eyes became distant and far off, her mind flashing through images of blood and violence.
"Stop it Menchi, you mustn't think like that," Mito's voice sharply cut through along with her piercing glare. "You ruin your complexion when you get angry and you can't let him get to you like this." Gon's manager dabbed at the actor's eyes some more and tilted the gourmet hunter's head so that their eyes were firmly locked.
"Now listen to me dear – getting rid of someone is a subtle and fine art. Art do you hear me? There's no screaming or yelling involved, and certainly no murderous look in your eyes."
The cook blinked rapidly as the words sank into her brain. She gulped down the last of the water but her mouth still trembled.
"It's harder than you think."
"Of course dear, you don't think I went through the same thing just so I could become Gon's manager? Have you any idea how many people I knocked off to get my job and position?"
Menchi dipped her head down, fingers now digging fiercely into her scalp. "But I can't stand him anymore. I'm at my wit's end. One night – they were supposed to have been fighting last night." More tears leaked out and dripped onto the floor of the trailer. "He managed to destroy all my work overnight, just like that, probably with a few tears of his own and some sob story about a tragic past or something."
She felt moisture on her fingertips. Curious, she bought her hand to her face and noted her bloody fingernails. She felt no pain in her scalp, her senses completely enthralled by the thudding beat of her heart in her ears and the glowing burns on her cheeks.
"Perhaps I should invent some tragic story of my own just so Hisoka will pity me and hold me in his arms for a night as well." She muttered, torn between defeated bitterness and the flicker of hatred and defiance that refused to dim. Struggling on the tether, traversing the dangerous tightrope, the bottomless abyss of infinite darkness beneath. Gods, the pressure of indecisiveness and helplessness.
"Silly child – this is only the beginning. If you can't cope with the start of the battle, there's no way you can continue, let alone win it. Now how desperately do you want the prize?"
The cook's eyes hardened. "Very badly."
Silva sighed with defeat after Menchi stormed out of the trailer, glad to have put off another problem to deal with. Speaking of which, problems had a habit of plaguing him these days, closer and closer to home each time.
He felt comfortable just staring at the door, a normal and uninteresting door, just as his life should be. For one moment, he mused that if he stared at the door long enough, his problems might just go away or fade into the background as minor annoyances that could be left to rot. But no, Menchi had decided to announce his problems for the whole world to hear, and if he didn't fix it now, the whole world might nag him to death about it.
But if you really think about it, the door is pretty bland, not to mention dull and lacking in personality. It would be a pitiful life if you could compare it to a trailer door – with a plastic window to look through and a broken set of venetian blinds to keep prying eyes away. Problems aren't that bad, Silva tried to reason to himself, especially if it enlivens your life in the positive sort of way.
'Positive' being the operative term.
No use dallying around with one's thoughts – haven't got all day. Who knows; if he was lucky, Menchi might very well be mistaken or her eyes had deceived her in the early hours of the morning.
Unfortunately, the two idiots were intimately sharing a single bed for whatever inscrutable reasons and motives that he didn't even want to touch with a ten foot barge pole. Sharp pains started stabbing at the sides of his temples that wouldn't go away even with the vigorous, then later frenzied, rubbing of eucalyptus oil.
Silva cautiously approached the bed, dreading with each step what he could and might see. Self doubt began to gnaw away in his mind, leaving him drenched in cold sweat. Why did things turn out to be this way? Why did Illumi have to turn out like this? Silva could not deny his welling disappointment and disgust but at the same time felt helpless to do anything about it. Even if he had Kikyou on his side on this matter, the last vestiges of what remained of his conscience told him that anything less than unconditional love for his son would pave his road straight to hell with an extra two buckets of grease sloshed all over it just so he can go down to the fiery infernos that much faster.
Damn the conscience, he thought, but alas, not even Lady MacBeth, the greatest villain ever, could escape her own conscience. Can't damn the conscience he painfully concluded, I owe the boy too much. What kind of father will I be if I watched him drown right before my eyes? I owe him too much.
His son was awake, albeit just, and those inky black eyes wearily studied the ceiling. Illumi made no move to remove the limbs draped across his body, and he lay as still as a corpse.
"I don't remember a thing from last night." he said to no one in particular, barely acknowledging Silva's presence. "Why am I still here? I'm supposed to be back in Anime City by now. I've got a meeting with some magazine editors today, then more business to discuss with Millu over lunch." He finally tilted his head to one side and looked at Silva with lifeless eyes. There was a long, strained silence.
"I take it you don't know either then." Illumi sighed and went back to gazing at the ceiling again. "Maybe this is just one strange dream, and when I wake up, I'll be in my bed in my own apartment."
Silva incredulously watched Illumi's eye lids droop and the young man was instantly asleep again before he could even get a word in.
It's all Hisoka's fault, Silva thought angrily to himself and mercilessly pinched the magician's ear, savagely twisting it as one would to a wind up watch.
"Get up you lazy slug! I can't believe you need me to give you a personal wake up call. Are you really sure you want to see my face first thing in the morning?"
Hisoka's petrified scream of fright was all the answer that he needed,
and the man leapt into action straight away. He stumbled over his clown
shoes to reach the dresser where his brush lay and sloshed down a cup of
straight black while he was brushing his hair. Under the gaze of the feared
Director, Hisoka got dressed and ready to go in the record time of one
minute and forty six seconds. It would have helped if he hadn't tripped
over the last step leading to his trailer and landed face first in the
damp earth leaving the front of his costume ruined by the mud. He bolted
at the first howl of annoyance from Silva and locked his trailer door shut,
shivering uncontrollably like a cornered animal as the vengeful banshee
rattled at his creaky iron gates.
Fame Court, 7:30am
"Oh shit! Karasu! Get the car ready, I'm almost done!" Lola threw a bundle of dirty pots and pans into the sink and sucked piteously on her fingertip that was burned when she brushed against a kettle whistling like mad. Tears moistened her eyes but she gritted her teeth and refrained from throwing the blasted kettle out the window and continued to stir in the boiling water into the oats. They would be nice and soggy by the time she got to her brother's place.
Throwing one last regretful look at the charred and burnt pots, the failed attempts at a healthy, decent breakfast, she closed the door behind her to prevent the smell of burnt bacon escaping into the rest of the house.
"Kay!" she shouted up the stairs in the general direction of her son's room, "Kay you lazy bum! Dad and I are going out now! You make sure you clean the kitchen and….er…buy something to eat this morning ok?"
The new guest to her house poked his head from out of Salar's old room, eyes blinking groggily.
"You say something ma'am?" he looked at her in confusion, which, even in his disheveled state, was still so adorably handsome and cute that Lola felt utterly repulsed and disgusted. What kind of monster had her brother reared? Overcoming that little observation, she also took note of the fact that she was shouting loud enough to bring the roof down, and Kurei looked like he barely heard the morning call.
It was just so difficult to give a placid, calm smile when agitation was so intense that it made you want to kick someone, hard.
"It's ok Kurei-kun. I've just made my brother's breakfast and Karasu is giving me a lift before he goes to work."
Kurei ducked his head back behind the door, followed by heavy clumsy footsteps and a series of bangs and crashes. He then flew out of the room, still trying to fit his arm through his shirt and almost tripped over the leg of a pair of pants that Karasu had loaned him. It was only due to god's kind graces and pure luck that Kurei didn't tumble down the staircase and knock his front teeth out.
"Kurei," Lola began severely, the irritated growl barely suppressed, "I would like to state for the record that I have a habit of beating the living daylights out of men who appear before me with their fly undone. So for the sake of your fragile and delicate health, I strong suggest you get back into you room and get some more sleep."
"But I should cook something for mentor – "
"Are you an idiot?! Cook with the same style and technique that my brother taught you?! He'd know where you were hiding in an instant, then come over to break your legs." She sucked in a deep breath to cool the burning in her cheeks. Then, when she was sure her voice was steady, continued, "Look kiddo, you've got to stay quiet for the next week or so until Salar gets nervous and retracts those threats. I've made breakfast already." She lifted up the canteen in her hand for him to see but he wrinkled his nose at the smell of burnt meat in the air. Lola's fists clenched by her side.
"You can go to the kitchen and scrap out all the burnt bottoms if you insist. And no – " she savagely cut off any gesture of protest, "it's not the best food but I promise Salar won't die from eating it. Gees!"
Lola turned on her heels and stalked towards the front door, slamming it behind her. She hopped into the front seat of Karasu's black Mercedes and puffed like an angry bull in front charging up for the annual Spanish Bull Run.
"Easy there Lola, what's got you so upset at this time of day?" Karasu easily asked, oblivious to the homicidal anger building up in his wife and set the car along Fame Court.
Lola threw up her hands in utter helplessness. "I don't get it. My brother beats the kid to pulp and he still wants to cook his breakfast! If it were me, I'd be throwing every type of poison I could lay my hands on."
"You would, but we always knew that Salar was a manipulative bastard – he'd just never used it on people until now. Poor kid, he was defenseless when he met Salar."
"Yes," his wife echoed, eyes ostensibly glued to the road but her mind
focused on entirely different things. "Poor kid."
The car was parked on the curb in front of a two storey house with a white picket fence and neat boxes of flowers doubtlessly arranged by a hired gardener. Karasu narrowed his eyes at the deceptively pleasant surroundings for he could feel an unearthly chill emanating from the building. An aura capable of destroying the bravest hearts lapped about his feet, warning him on pain of death to approach no further. Even in Salar's weakened state, he was no less menacing, and possibly twice as deadly. His narrowed eyes sunk into a frown of incredible dislike.
"It's always about appearances with him. If he weren't my brother, I swear I would have gutted him and left his body to rot in Northside."
"What stepped on your tail?" his wife threw him a puzzled look.
"Just about everything that I'm seeing right now. I'm just sick and tired of Salar's mind games. He suddenly leaves Anime City without a word then comes back and sticks up the biggest tent since Cirque du Solei, messes with his own protégé and now lives in this…house!"
Lola shook her head and rolled her eyes. "And what's wrong with the house?"
"It's not him. They should build one of ice just for him, and he'd be comfortable in it. The walls should be scaled by poison ivys and his front garden infested with venus fly traps. People who don't know him for the heartless freak-show that he is will fall into his trap."
"Stop worrying about Kurei, and keep you voice down damnit! I know you're angry about what happened to the kid, but don't even hint at it or else my brother will know."
"You're right Lola," Karasu tested the front door and found it surprisingly unlocked. Hell, even if you were the most desperate thief, it would be in your best interests to steer clear of Salar no matter how dire your circumstances. "Lets just get this over and done with."
Both took a deep breath and entered into a disquieting and eerily silent room. All the curtains were closed and the grey light of the morning didn't reach far into the corridor. Karasu and Lola's shadows were brutally cut short by the suffocating darkness which held the light at bay and husband gave wife a nervous look.
"I feel like I'm about to step through the gate of the Underworld. And before me, nothing but eternal things were made, and shall last an eternity. Abandon all hope, all ye who enter."
Lola shivered and glared at her husband. "Please, I'm trying to be brave for the both of us, and your morbidness is not helping. For god's sakes, we're only here to visit another family member."
"There is no god in here," Karasu continued to murmur, hysteria filled eyes fixated on the infinite darkness ahead of him. "We're bloody damned."
From out of nowhere, a ghostly pale hand settled on Lola's shoulder. She screamed with fright and swung the nearest thing at hand – which happened to be the canteen holding Salar's breakfast. She took one step forward (still screaming) and bought the slingshot around with strength a woman shouldn't have and clobbered whatever supernatural creature that dared to sneak up behind her.
"Ow…"
Something or rather someone crashed to the ground, stunned from the blow. In the overwhelming darkness, Karasu fought not to shriek like a woman and fumbled for the closest light switch whilst Lola gave the fallen foe another sharp kick, just in case it did turn out to be some supernatural being from the dark side. She had a lovely son to go back home to and she wasn't going to die without fighting.
"….brother….me…."
Her hands instantly flew to her mouth. "Oh. My. Gosh! Salar….is that you?!"
"No, I'm what remained of your brother, the undead, a walking corpse – a lich jealous of your vibrant life."
That said in the most terrifyingly horrific whisper, Karasu lost it and screamed for Lola to run whilst he grabbed a vase from the nearby stand and threw it in the general direction of the voice. After a resounding crash and an eternal moment's silence:
"I was….being SARCASTIC!"
"It's a nasty trick!" Karasu said breathlessly, the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. "Turn the lights on Lola – we're going to put this fiend back into the depths of hell."
"I…I was just kidding. Me. Salar. Alive….well, barely. I think I'm bleeding…"
Lola finally managed to find a light switch and both husband and wife beheld the spectacle of a tragically pale man collapsed on the floor amongst a heap of broken porcelain. There was a nasty purple swelling already showing up on his forehead and a thin trail of bright red blood trickled down the side of his face from the cut just above his left eye.
"I know you've always been jealous of my good looks, brother," Salar spat as Lola helped him to stand, his entire body shuddering from the effort, "but did you need to go so far as to disfigure me with ceramic shards?!"
Karasu mumbled some half hearted apologies and made a move towards the living room to draw apart the heavy curtains. Salar, half limping half leaning on Lola, visibly shied away from the sunlight, causing his brother to suspect that he may have traded his immortal soul for an immortal life as that of a vampire.
"It's a small scratch. Act like a man and deal with it," he said without much remorse.
"Small scratch?!" Salar's voice went up two octaves, but that effort bought about a session of unhealthy coughing. After it subsided, his ice blue eyes glared at his brother's nonchalant back. "Small scratch," he muttered, "I'd like to see you react to a 'small scratch.'"
Salar's bed was the reclining chair situated in the middle of his living room. Karasu's expression remained neutral but he was quite surprised by the spartan surroundings and the lack of luxuries or refinement. He was a firm believer that Salar indulged in all the finest things of the world – from cuisine, his sharp attire to the fiber optics of technology; an opulent lifestyle if you will. But this house was plain beyond plain. There was one coffee table on top of a brown rug, one blanket on a couch, one television and just four bare walls. Not even a Picasso or Van Gough painting!
His brother painfully settled into his recliner and closed his eyes in a way which reminded Karasu very much of a dying man. Scratch that – he'd seen dying men who looked healthier. For a bizarre moment, the fact that he was able to see his brother dying gave him a picture of how he would look if he ever befell such unfortunate circumstances. Seeing your own body at your own deathbed – Karasu's blood turned cold and he fought the impulse to study the invisible specks of dust on the cuffs of his jacket.
"Look Lola, if cooking breakfast for me was such an unlikable chore, just so 'no' next time ok? I don't want to have the living daylights beaten out of me for asking again." Salar's long and slim fingers, the perfect hands of a cello player, caressed his aching ribs where Lola had kicked him when he had fallen down. Judging by the way he screwed up his eyes at the slightest touch, it was obvious that Lola had cracked at least four ribs. She looked away guiltily.
"I don't mind brother, seriously I don't. But you sneaking up on us like that…"
"Sneaking up on you?!" Salar's head arched back onto the recliner as pain shot through him, snapping at his nerves, and he bit his lower lip to prevent the scream from escaping. Droplets of tears squeezed past his eyes and his face lost even more colour, if that were possible.
"I was NOT sneaking up on you," he whispered, voice cracked and hoarse, but he was still determined to have the last say. "You should have known it was me – no one else can get past the laser network."
Karasu looked at his brother, aghast, "Shit Salar, you still playing with those dangerous things?"
Salar waved his hand dismissively, silently indicating that he wasn't going to answer. His hands fell to his sides and his breathing gradually resumed a normal, steady pace.
"Just leave the breakfast on the table. I'll eat it when I'm hungry."
"Brother, you really don't look well. I'm going to call an ambulance and we're going to get you to hospital."
Those fine fingers lashed out with uncanny speed and gripped onto Lola's wrist, instantly numbing the area. She flinched at the cold but did not pull away, amazed that despite his wilting condition, he still had the reserves to hold her back.
"I already said," Salar hissed, ice blue eyes furiously cold, "that the hospitals won't know what is wrong with me. I just need rest."
The standoff lasted an entire minute and when Lola retrieved her hand, she realized that the entire forearm had gone numb. Rubbing to get some blood running again, she did as she was instructed and placed the canteen of porridge on the coffee table.
She looked around at the sparse surroundings and sighed. "Very well then, is there anything else that I can do for you before I go?"
"Yeah," her husband added by the window, staring intently at the road outside, "there's this parking inspector who's getting too close to my car. Is this a no-parking zone?"
"Permit zone. Get the car revved up Karasu, I've just got a few more words to say to Salar."
Karasu nodded, sparing his brother's fragile form one last glance before he left the house. As his footsteps dimmed, Salar turned to Lola with a slightly apologetic look.
"Didn't mean to snap at you, you know that right?"
Lola closed her eyes with weariness and nodded.
"I'm really glad that you came Lola. Truly. I was afraid that you wouldn't help."
"I'm just slightly pissed off that you never called during the month that you've been back."
"I was busy Lola, just damn occupied by work."
She looked down on him with passionless eyes, telling him that she didn't believe him. Salar turned away, unable to endure her severe gaze.
"That CD in the drawer over there – it's got everything that I've been working on the past month. I'm showing you highly confidential information Lola, because I've never hid anything from you before. Take it and see what I've been up to if that will erase these tensions between us."
"What have you been working on, brother?" she went to Salar's work table and pulled open the first draw, finding the disc in its plastic cover on top of an envelope that was addressed to her. She knew that he meant for her to see it, and so she took it without bothering to ask.
"Recruiting people for my department. Aren't you proud of me Lola? I've become a General of Vallanor."
"What does being a General mean?" she asked softly, taking the blanket from the couch and gently draping it over her brother's prone form. There was a glitter of boundless and burning ambition in those ice blue eyes for a fraction of a moment and then it was smothered, so quickly that Lola wasn't even sure if she had imagined it or not. It was a new light, a pale and sickly coloured light that she had never seen in her brother before. It could make the most hardened Northsider shiver at an ambition so ruthless and brutal. She never thought that she would come to describe Salar this way – ruthless, merciless, hell-bent on achieving one's own desire regardless of the cost or consequences.
This person….wasn't her brother. He was a twisted and malformed creature that took the shape of Salar. Or, as the cold fist of dread gripped around her stomach, someone had ripped every shred of compassion and humanity in him and left a void which he filled with an insatiable craving for power. Her brother never needed power – he had no use for it. He was a man who dabbled in anything, idle and carefree, not some workaholic who didn't even have time to see her anymore.
Get rid of that smirk! she wanted to yell at him and slap him across the face, hoping that alone would be enough to salvage him from the frightening depths of emptiness that he found himself drowning in. For the sake of elevating his power and position, he could distance her and hurt his protégé who worshipped the very ground that he stepped on. And even if all his friends and family had abandoned him, he would still smile and delicately laugh. She could easily imagine him saying that he had no need or use for them anymore – so long as he had Vallanor.
Vallanor changed and destroyed him, that much she knew. In the years that she had drifted apart from her brother, this organization, Lord Vallissa, began to defile and pollute his mind with filthy ideas. But Salar was a highly intelligent man – surely he could see through the futility and fickleness of power, and how that power destroyed more people than it had propped up. What did they give Salar, what did they allow him to taste that was so addictive that even a man of Salar's nerve and self control would cave in to?
"….Everything…" was Salar's final response. And after that, he began to speak in a different language, a lilting and beautifully musical and lyrical language that just slipped off the tongue and flowed onto the next word like the gentle lapping water of a small brook. His voice strengthened as he continued his recitative and whether by a trick of the vocal chords or the deception of her ears, they began to ring in consonance, stronger and stronger until it sounded like a band of silver trumpets all holding the one note. Lola succumbed to the overpowering music and the deeper she fell, the more the words began to make sense to her. She did something that she hadn't done for a long time.
She fled, bolting for the door with Salar's mocking and triumphant laughter behind her.
If there was a God – please pity those marked for Salar's recruitment,
for he would damn their souls and drag them to the inescapable depths of
everlasting horror.
* * * *
Lola didn't tell her husband about what she had heard. She bravely put on a smile, hoping that he wouldn't be able to see the slight tremors in her upper lip, and suggested that they find a place for breakfast. The CD and envelope were stuck to her hand, the paper crunched piteously in her iron fist. She put them both in the glove box and decided to look into them later. For now, she tried to keep her mind vacant and free of every single issue and problem in her life and looked forward to a warm meal.
Karasu parked the car and they walked over to Ukyo's Delhi, but Karasu abruptly stopped, his attention fixed onto some people across the other side of the road.
"Well I never. That's Legato and his sisters!" he remarked.
Most people didn't like to remind Legato that he had two sisters. They tended to avoid talking about his other sister who was not as respectable or as well-to-do as Machi. Machi was the youngest of the three siblings and Legato the eldest. The middle child had a good life to begin with, was contracted with SNK to produce a hit, teen arcade-type fighting show called King of Fighters. SNK cautiously began with the game, modeling the characters on the real actors themselves to test the receptivity of the market. After the game did so well as to spawn three sequels, the project of making the KoF series was well under way.
But the project was abandoned mid way and the series never came to be broadcasted because one of the actors had turned feral. Iori lost himself to his part and couldn't separate the reality from fiction, thus became psychotic and homicidal. And his illness infected a handful of other colleagues at SNK who also fell into the depths of madness, and together, they breached their contracts and sought haven in Northside. Leona was one of the people who followed Iori into the liberating subconscious and unreality, and from that day onward, Legato and Machi both lost a sister.
And here she was, a Northsider dressed in tattered and dirty clothes standing on the pristine roads of Anime City with a helpless look on her face.
Legato had decided that Machi needed a complete makeover before Hisoka returned from the mountain shooting and so started the day early and dragged her out of bed so that the two of them could refit her wardrobe. Only minutes into their campaign, their disowned sister Leona confronted them on the very streets.
Legato snarled. "What do you want?"
Leona's blue hair was matted and oily, straw like and lifeless with none of its once wondrous shine and volume. Her eye bags sagged prominently and her face was hollow and gaunt, her skin a pale, sickly yellow. She whipped some hair back from her face with bony fingers and looked pleadingly to Machi.
"Machi dear, would you listen to your sister please?" Leona said in a slurred, lazy speech that you would only hear from intellectually handicapped people. Her 'I's sounded like 'Ahs' and very much reminded Machi of the southern, Texas accent. Leona's signs of deterioration were alarming, and her abusive drug use was beginning to ruin her brain. Every now and then, a muscle involuntarily twitched on her face and her right arm flexed without control.
"I need help – I can't stay with Iori in Northside anymore."
"Why is that?" Legato glared at her darkly, "I thought you were having the time of your life in there."
Leona fervently shook her head, eyes wide with terror. "You don't know what's happened! Iori's gone crazy! He doesn't seem to recognize us anymore, and he keeps on talking about the most horrible….foul things."
Legato was impervious to her pleading, "Yeah, I kinda gathered that when he took half of SNK with him into Northside. I have nothing to give you that you want. Get out of my sight before your stink rubs off on me."
"Please brother, I have no place to stay anymore. I can't go back to Northside – everything's changing and I…and I….was so lucky to escape. There aren't any more people in there…just demons and monsters."
"Lee," Machi held out her hand to her sister but Legato slapped them away.
"Don't touch her – she might be carrying a disease. Get out of here Leona. You chose this path, so deal with it. We've got more important things to do."
Leona glared at her brother through wet eyes. "Aren't you gonna tell Hisoka about what happened to his baby cousin? Iori's gone mad – after he spoke to some strangers, he's all into cutting up people and lapping their blood off the knives and tables. I saw with my own eyes and I fell sick at the sight. He had cut up Vice the last time I saw and her head….I can't get her head out of my mind. Something's possessed him and I can't do anything about it so I ran. Please, brother," her harsh, angry voice dipped into a soft tone again, one filled with vulnerability. "Please, I got no place to stay…"
"Legato, Legato," Karasu sang mockingly, his wife grudgingly at his side as he decided to interfere with the family reunion, "how can you so harsh to your own – "
Machi couldn't care less about who had come to make fun of them, but the rapid changes of emotion on Leona's face was astounding. At the sight of Karasu and Lola, she changed from forlorn misery to unbelievable shock, then appalling anger so that her face was bleached a ghostly white.
"YOU!" she screamed, pointing a shaking finger at him. "IT WAS YOU!"
Leona whipped out a grubby looking gun from the small of her back and immediately raised it to point at the stunned Karasu. Lola's reflexes were faster and no sooner had Leona produced the gun, Lola had already kicked it out of her hand. Karasu's closed the gap between he and Leona in the blink of an eye and landed a heavy blow to her gut that crushed every molecule of oxygen out of her lungs. Then whilst she was bent over wheezing and spluttering, he violently bought down his fists onto her back so that she crashed onto the hard pavement.
Karasu immediately held bent her arm and held her down in the arm-lock whilst Lola crushed the gun to pieces beneath her boots.
"All right bitch," he spat, "who paid you to take me out?!"
He ground her face into the concrete ground, but she struggled, screaming and crying until Karasu relaxed his grip slightly to let her speak.
"IT WAS YOU! Iori went mad after you spoke with him. I'll recognize your face and hunt you down to the ends of the earth you – "
"Silence!" Legato sharply interrupted, "Karasu would never go into Northside."
"And that bitch by his side as well. The pair of you spoke to my Iori," she wept hysterically, "and he became crazy afterwards. It was you."
Karasu slowly removed his knee from Leona's back and hauled her to her feet. With surprising gentleness, he looked into her face. His violet eyes shimmered with intensity.
"Tell me Lee, what colour were the man's eyes?"
Leona stopped crying and sniffed, puzzled by the strange question. But the man in front of her was somehow…different. He wasn't as cold and he certainly didn't make her afraid. His eyes were gentle and firm...but...
"They were a pale blue, like chips of ice," she moaned, stepping away from Karasu's gaze. "And cold, just like an iceberg. He made me scared and nervous when I saw him talking to Iori. And he was also with a woman."
"Listen lady, I haven't been back in Northside for ages. I don't get involved anymore," Lola said defensively. This gave some time for Leona to study her as well, and she realized that although there were some strikingly similar features – black hair, deep blue eyes, distinguished features. The other woman that she saw reminded her of the keen edge of a blade. This woman…was much diminished in comparison, and…rounder…for a lack of words to describe her.
"You are not the one either. I'm sorry – she just looked a lot like you."
Legato let out a trembling sigh and he moved forward to fix Leona's clothes. "Sorry Lee, I didn't know that Salar had been stirring things up in Northside. He's a dangerous man now – not the one I used to know ever since he returned as an agent of Vallanor." He turned to Machi, "Lets get Lee home first and find her something to wear. Perhaps we should all get together some time later to…"
"Further discuss this matter," Karasu finished off, fists clenched by his side. His brother was using his face to commit all sorts of crimes.
"Machi," Leona wiped away the last of her tears, "you should tell Hisoka…about Iori."
The petite actress gave a small nod. "I will."
Author's notes:
Wow...what a delay - sorry about the wait peoples. Well, due to divine
inspiration, I just came up with a new subplot and was able to successfully
incorporate it into the main part of the story. *cheers*
Anyhow, this chapter is a bit short compared to the others, especially lacking in the Hisoka x Illumi department, but I'm getting there - just so close to the first climax now. YES!
So please - leave a review and tell me the things you liked and disliked.