The Labyrinth
Chapter 4
Rociel, as he walked away from the entrance of the labyrinth, hummed a tune to himself. It had no words unless one was to count 'la' as a word which Rociel didn't, no discernable logic or even any real tune, unsurprisingly given that he was making it up on the spot. He was in one of his rare good moods, partly because he had gotten away from the almost immediately exasperating Sara for fifteen minutes (why had he kidnapped her?) and advanced the plot somewhat at the same time. Okay, maybe he shouldn't have done exactly what he had just gone and done, but it had been necessary. Watching Setsuna blunder round like that all by his little self had been so boring. Not to mention rather sad. Besides, he didn't want to keep Sara that badly and was only doing it so that Alexiel-neesan would play with him. He supposed he could tolerate Sara if in so doing he got to see Alexiel.
Now that was done, he consulted his watch. Hmm. Setsuna should have fallen down The Hole by now, that meant it was about time for him to show up again offering him more cryptic advice and-stroke-or taunting depending on what kind of mood he was in by then. Looked like there was just about time to change his clothes again before his next appearance and as the only person who actually got to change his clothes it was, he supposed, almost obligatory for him to do so. So… let's see…
Ah. He'd known that door was round here somewhere. Walking up to a stretch of utterly nondescript exterior wall, he pushed at one of the bricks slightly and wasn't even surprised when it slid to one side to reveal a small corridor. Well, that was one of the perks of being the Goblin King, he supposed, even if he did also have to put up with the wretched goblins; there wasn't a secret passageway in this place that he didn't know about. Even if the passageway in this case was not so much a passageway but a secret small changing room. So he was vain, so what? Rociel was, he knew, worryingly pretty and saw no point in not flaunting it.
If Setsuna had been in a slightly more self-aware mood, he would have probably have been almost embarrassed by the hysterical scream he had let loose as he plummeted down The Hole, necessarily cut short by his landing heavily on the floor and disturbing a quite immense cloud of dust which had him coughing like someone on fifty cigarettes a day after their morning smoke. Having finished coughing his lungs up for Rociel's amusement, he lay on his back on the horrible dusty floor.
"Or maybe it was the other door." He said to nobody in particular.
Having just fallen down a horrible dark hole, Setsuna decided he needed to run a quick mental inventory in an attempt to ascertain his physical state before he tried sitting up. Okay, it felt like everything was still attached to his body, that none of his limbs were in any imminent danger of, or had already broken, and judging by the fact that his toes still hurt somewhat where he had kicked the wall he hadn't broken his neck or back. His knowledge of medicine thus exhausted, Setsuna sat up - his head swimming somewhat alarmingly, but that he supposed was to be expected - and looked round himself, in an attempt to ascertain what he had fallen into.
Okay. This didn't look promising. Horrible dirty and nasty back hole. No light. No doors. No ventilation. Terrific. How was he supposed to rescue Sara when he was stuck in a hole in the ground?
"Well, damn." He said, again to nobody in particular.
Setsuna knew that laugh, he knew that voice. Dropping Alexiel's sword and little caring about the fact that there was now a sharp pointy object lying unregarded on the floor in a small, cramped dark room, Setsuna launched himself in the general direction the voice had come from and, unusually for him that day, actually struck his target head-on, knocking the both of them back to the dusty floor again. Setsuna didn't much care though if it meant he got to cling helplessly to Kira. If Kira was here he'd be fine, he knew. More to the point, Kira would probably know how to get out of here. And so he clung to his best friend in a way that he desperately hoped would still count as a buddy hug and not condemn him to yaoi doujinshi for the rest of his life.
"Kira-sempai!" he said, once his heart rate had returned to normal and Kira had stopped muttering curses under his breath, "where are we?"
His only answer was more shifting and inaudible mutterings. If Setsuna hadn't known better, he would have sworn Kira was embarrassed and, in all likelihood, blushing. But Kira didn't blush. It was very lucky for Kira that it was so dark in the oubliette because he was blushing even though men like him didn't. He was embarrassed and flustered and didn't know what to do for the best. And he didn't like Setsuna's line of questioning at all and hoped he'd lay off.
Setsuna didn't. "What?" he asked, blinking twice in surprise. "I can't hear you."
Once he was sure he had calmed a little, though, he pulled away from Setsuna a bit and begun patting his pockets, hunting for his cigarette lighter which he inevitably discovered in the last one he searched through. Pulling it out of his pocket and giving Setsuna a painful nudge in the ribs in the process, he flicked it alight and peered round the room.
"It looks even worse than it smells," was Setsuna's only comment as he stretched to retrieve Alexiel's sword and wondered how he got the stupid thing to go dormant again now he no longer needed it. "Any idea how we get out of here?"
Setsuna sighed. He didn't have anything on him that would be likely to appeal to Kira. No cigarettes, no motorbike magazines, the only sword he possessed had been Kira's until Kira had given it to him anyway and there was no trinket shop to buy him a cheap ring from, not that Kira would have wanted it anyway. And he'd left his money at home.
"I don't have anything." He said finally. "Just, well, me."
Setsuna could tell from the rustles of Kira's clothing and the sudden upward movement of the glowing end of his cigarette that he had stood up and, within a couple of paces, had crossed the room to where he stood. Had, in fact, backed him against the wall in the way people always did in manga and TV when they wanted to corner someone they had a crush on with a view to either seriously menacing them or- what the hell did Sempai think he was doing? Setsuna screamed mentally; that was about all he could do considering that Kira was, to put it delicately, shutting him up effectively. Or, in less diplomatic language, was kissing him thoroughly and in a way that Setsuna could certainly not claim not to be enjoying and… WHAT? No, this wouldn't do at all!
(Even if he was a better kisser than Sara… no, no, no, no, no! Don't even go there Setsuna!)
Finally Kira pulled away from him with a diabolically sexy smirk that was quite obvious even in the darkness, leaving his friend backed against the wall and staring at him, or where he thought he was, in utter shock. Actually, Setsuna was gazing wide-eyed at nothing more alarming than a load of bricks since Kira was now moving purposefully round the room, but he didn't realize that. Having claimed his 'payment', he was no more eager to stick round than Setsuna was. After all, he'd probably annoyed Rociel no end.
"What was that for?" Setsuna said, when finally he managed to locate his voice.
Setsuna couldn't see what Kira had found until he discovered that his irritating friend had bent down to the floor and pulled, with some effort, one of the slabs up using a handle that was attached to it for no reason. He slammed it against the wall, agitating yet more dust and grime, where, much to Setsuna's surprise - but not amazement since he was, as he had said, beginning to get the hang of this place even if he wished it were not the case - it stayed. Now they had a door. After admiring his handiwork for a few moments, Setsuna stood looking on, Kira yanked at the handle and pulled the door open.
"Maybe not," he said. Instead of the dark dank passageway out of here that Kira had been expecting, he had instead discovered a creepy-looking corridor, lined with huge vats of some suspicious-looking fluid in which floated, well, things. Kira wasn't too eager to get up close to the vats of liquid - bubbling slightly too he couldn't help but notice - and discover what they were or where the passageway led to, so he decided not to take that way out. Setsuna peered curiously over his shoulder, frowning when he noticed the drums.
"What's going on down there?" Setsuna asked.
He pulled on a small doorknob on the opposite side of the door, this time revealing the way out he had been expecting, a somewhat better-lit stone passageway to… well, wherever it was, at least it wasn't lined with vats of stuff with suspicious-looking things floating in them and had nothing to do with bizarre research projects to create bigger and better violent lunatic angels. "That's a bit more like it." He extinguished his cigarette lighter again and pocketed it. Setsuna pushed gently past him and hurried down the corridor, relieved to be on the move again. How much time had he lost in that oubliette, apart from too much? Why did everyone he met up with insist on subjecting him to long, rambling discussions before they would deign to help him? Kira followed at a slightly more sedate pace.
They hadn't been walking long before they discovered the first stone face. These were, as the name suggested, pathetically laughable-looking faces carved into the stone that, as Setsuna passed, started hissing out diabolical, dreadful warnings in what was probably supposed to be a sinister tone of voice but which was actually more nails-scraped-across-a-blackboard irritating than anything approaching scary. Looking up the corridor, Setsuna was somewhat irritated to note that there appeared to be a veritable gauntlet of the things lining the corridor, all of whom started chanting their supposedly baleful and terrifying warnings as he hurried past them, trying to make himself look as unobtrusive as possible. Not that, Setsuna would have been at pains to point out, because he was afraid of them, but because the faces and the warnings they were chanting really were annoying as hell.
"Don't go on!"
Growling to himself, Setsuna stalked back off down the corridor, Kira following, but still sticking close. He didn't want to activate any more of those damn faces twice, they were annoying enough the first time round without having to hear them once as Setsuna set them off then set them off again himself when he walked down. Bloody things. Next time one started out he'd probably stub his cigarette out on it, he thought, it was nearly all gone and he'd have to put it out somewhere - and, if in so doing, he got the faces to shut up would that not be a very positive sign?
"So," Setsuna said once relative peace had been restored, "where are we going? This had better not be your shortcut to the outside of the labyrinth."
That did it. Kira, his expression murderous, turned to the stone face that had so unwisely interrupted him and stubbed out his still-burning cigarette on its forehead. The face gave a gravelly shriek and Kira a look that, for a wall carving, looked shocked, betrayed and hurt.
"I did warn you." Kira said coolly, dropping the cigarette to the floor.
He walked quickly off down the corridor again, Setsuna a couple of paces behind him. This corridor was beginning to get on his nerves. Surely it couldn't go on for much longer? Surely… ah, his shoelace was coming undone. Setsuna bent to tie it up again as Kira made his way round a sharp bend in the corridor up ahead. Ah well, no matter, he could catch up with Kira later, it wasn't like there were any other ways out of this corridor so he could just…
"Oh no."
That was Kira's voice, and he sounded shocked insofar as Kira ever sounded shocked. Hastily finishing tying his laces, Setsuna hurried round the corner after his friend, stopping short next to him when he caught sight of the thing that had made him say 'oh no.'
"Rociel!"
It didn't sound like he thought it was sweet though, in fact it sounded like Rociel was quite royally pissed at this fact. Setsuna had no idea why this would be the case, after all he had far more of a reason to be mad at Rociel than Rociel could to be equally angry at him. Still, it was never a good sign when he started frowning like that. Maybe he'd seen what Kira did in that oubliette… he'd almost definitely seen what Kira did in that oubliette, Rociel had an uncanny knack of noticing when people were trying to get intimate with his sister and, by extension, when they were interested in Setsuna. Oh, dear.
"I'm called Kira." Kira said coldly.
That said he turned away from Kira with a small, enigmatic smile which Kira did not like the look of one little bit, transferring his attention to Setsuna. If anything, the disturbingly mild expression on his face was more alarming than the irritated frown had been. It was never a good sign when Rociel started looking mild at you either. "Alexiel."
If Setsuna had been feeling a little less exultant at what he saw as his own conversational skills - he had, after all, succeeded in ruffling Rociel somewhat, even if he wasn't quite sure what he had actually done to achieve this - he might have noticed that Kira had looked around himself, then directly at Rociel with an expression which, if it wasn't alarmed, was definitely verging on 'troubled'. Kira clearly felt that the best thing to do in a situation like this was not to provoke a clearly psychotic individual whose sense of humor could only be descried as abnormal. Setsuna didn't notice Kira's unease, however, and stayed blindly oblivious to the fact that he was in a rather more precarious position than he might have imagined - or at least he did until Rociel broke the short and uncomfortable silence that had followed his last remark.
"You know, I said I'd… ah… bend the rules somewhat when we started this game." He said, picking his words carefully. " I think that now might be the time to begin."
Rociel's smile, now totally humorless and nothing if it wasn't plainly alarming, told Setsuna that he was using the word 'interested' in a rather unusual way. Maybe it wasn't wholly surprising. Setsuna suspected that, where Rociel was concerned, 'keeping things interesting' was nothing more than a euphemism for 'unleashing pain, suffering, humiliation and complete and utter pants-wetting terror on the nearest victim' and he was of course completely right.
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