Preview from last chapter:
"Chan-chan? Leota-chan? Answer me!" Kouga yelled, begging for her to say something, anything.
"Hm," came the voice of the man Kouga guessed was Xavier, "seems she's passed out already. She's grown weak over these years, but we'll help her with that, won't we? Take her to her room and bring her down here the instant she wakes so that we can continue her punishment. For passing out, make the total two hundred!"
Nothing short of horrified, the link Kouga had slipped away from him, leaving him to faint just as Leota had.
Above him, Inu-Yasha shook his head, not even able to imagine what sorts of things Kouga was seeing and hearing, "I just hope Leota-san comes out of this okay. I'd hate for something like this to change her. Kouga'd be heartbroken if she suddenly refused him. I've gotta think of a way to make him feel better about all of this... but, how?"
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Chapter Fifteen:
Queen's Torture
She couldn't move.
Panicking, she opened her eyes to blinding light radiating from electric lamps. Closing her eyes tightly and waiting for the dizziness to pass, she tried not to think about the nagging of the feeling she'd learned to come to terms with years ago.
Pain.
You know the kind. The excruciating type that occurs right after doing something stupid. Like super gluing your hand to your inner thigh, (Tora's doing), or tying yourself to a semi, (also Tora's doing), or even stapling your finger to your forehead, (definitely Tora's doing). Yet none of those could compare, (or at least she didn't think so, she hadn't been the one to do it), to the pain she felt now.
Still not daring to reopen her eyes, Leota felt that she was lying on a cot. A piece of hair had fallen across her shoulders, and she knew that she was facedown, naked, and tied to the four corners of the cot with ropes.
A sound of a wooden door hitting a stone wall rang throughout the room.
"Stupid door." Someone mumbled as the door shut.
Eyes snapping open at the sound, Leota ignored the blinding light and tried to focus on the figure by the bedside table.
"Who are you?" Leota asked, her voice dry.
The figure turned from the table immediately, "Reika. My name is Reika."
"When did you come to this place? How old are you?"
"I am thirty-seven years of age and have been here two years."
"Then you know what goes on here, yes?""
"Hai, I have seen the workings of this place."
Leota took her time before asking her next question. It wasn't due to the fact she had to think, but rather it was a way of stalling so as to test the bonds that held her in place.
"Tell me, Reika-sama, what is your place here?" Leota asked, dripping water reaching her ears.
"Pardon?"
"What is your place here?" Leota repeated, "What is your job?"
"I am the one that heals the wounds of those tortured by Master Xavier."
Leota scoffed, "I don't see why they'd send me here."
Reika looked surprised, "To get healed of course."
"Why bother? I'm just going to be sent back as soon as those scratches heal. I've only been whipped eleven times."
"And how many do you have left? Surely not too many?"
At this, Leota laughed dryly, "Two years you have been here and yet you still do not know the complete workings of this place."
"What do you mean?"
"I have been whipped eleven times, Reika-sama. I have one hundred eighty-nine lashes left."
Reika's eyes grew wide, "What?!"
"I lost count at about five, since that was one of the harder ones, and I lost consciousness at number eleven. I was awake long enough to hear that an extra hundred was to be added since I passed out."
"Well what did you do for Kami's sake?!"
Reika saw the chest of the young woman before her swell with pride before she answered, "Reika-sama, I did what every slave dreams of; however my dream was shattered not too long ago. I found out that the deed I thought I had done was not so."
"Would you care to talk about it?" Reika asked, putting a warm towel on Leota's back.
Leota sighed, hoping the pain would leave just like her exhaled breath, "I killed Hakura, Takeda, once the best assassin in all of Asia. Prior to killing him, we talked, and I agreed with what he said. After he was dead, I met with Master Xavier, told him my accomplishment, and then chopped off his head.
"I found out yesterday that Xavier still lives, and the one whose head I took was merely a subordinate. One that looked, and sounded, exactly like the Master."
Eyes wide, Reika stepped back from the woman, "You…… what is your name? Tell me!"
Turning her head, Leota's dark green eyes locked with the terrified brown eyes of the healer, "While here I stay, you will call me Ota-chan."
"W-What?" Reika asked, extremely surprised at the demand.
"Just do it!" Leota yelled, her teeth bared and her eyes deepening in color.
"You're the one," Reika breathed, "you're the one they call Silver Death."
Leota sighed in despair. She hadn't wanted to hear that name, knowing the bad memories that it would arouse.
"I told you to call me Ota-chan," Leota growled, wishing she could break free of the ropes that held her, "if you value your job, you will do as I ask, understand?"
"H-H-Hai. I understand."
"Good, then you agree to call me Ota-chan while it is just we two in the room? I wouldn't want you to get in trouble for calling me such in public."
Reika took a moment before answering, "If I may ask, why do you wish me to call you that name? And why do you call me 'Reika-sama' when you know I am beneath you?"
"I call you as such because you remind me of someone dear to me," Leota said, thinking of the lovable Kaede, "and I ask for you to call me Ota-chan because it is my preference."
"All right, uh, Ota-chan."
Leota sighed, letting her head fall onto the pillow, "Arigatou, Reika-sama. You don't know how much this means to me."
"Please, Ota-chan, you don't have to call me 'Reika-sama' if you don't want to. I'll answer to just about anything, really."
"Why would you offer something like that?" Leota asked, looking at the healer as she uncorked a bottle.
Reika shrugged, pouring the contents of the bottle into a bowl filled with water, "I don't want to degrade you, Ota-chan. I'd rather we be on the same level than having someone like myself be above you."
"So you feel that just because I've killed and am allowed to call the Master by his first name that I am above you in status?"
Startled, Reika stumbled over her words, "N-N-No, Ota-chan! That's not it at all! I merely meant..."
"Sshhh!" Leota commanded, "There's someone at the door."
Turning in her chair, Reika wore a frown on her face. Putting the bowl down, Reika got up and walked to the door. Putting an ear to the wood, she tried to hear whoever stood there. Suddenly, Reika pulled the door open and both women watched as a young girl stumbled into the room.
"Who are you?" Reika demanded of the girl, who couldn't have been older than ten, "Why were you listening in?"
"Reika-san! Be nice to the poor girl!" Leota yelled, watching as the older woman backed down and returned to her chair after shutting the door.
"Forgive me, Ota-chan."
Not bothering to nod to Reika, Leota turned her attention to the young girl, who had turned around and was about to leave, "You, Child, halt."
Freezing in her tracks, the young girl stopped and looked at Leota over her shoulder, "Hai, Sama-sama."
"Come here," Leota beckoned, sighing inwardly, "what's your name?"
"Kitia."
"And how old are you, Kitia-chan?"
"Eleven."
"All right, so I was a year off," Leota thought, remembering what she had done when she had been Kitia's age, "how long have you been here?"
"Seven months."
Afraid to ask her next question, Leota decided to ask it at a later time, "Tell me, Kitia, why were you eavesdropping?"
"I heard some people talking a little bit ago. They said that Ookami-sama had returned to us, and I wanted to see if it were true."
"How did you find the room I was in?"
Kitia smiled, "The sign on the door says, 'Keep Out!', so I knew that you had to be in this one."
"A clever girl you are. Please, shut the door and sit with us."
"Oh I can't, Sama-sama, I have stuff to do. I'll come visit later, all right?"
Leota nodded, "Very well. I'll see you later?"
"Hai!" Kitia smiled, bowing before she left.
"What a sweet girl," Leota smiled, "now tell me, Reika-san, when do you believe they'll come and get me?"
Reika thought for a few moments, "I have no idea, to be honest. I heard talk of them coming to get you as soon as you woke; however, they would have been there by now if that were true."
"Hai, you're right. Ah well, let us not dwell on such matters. I'm sure there are other things we can..."
Three loud knocks interrupted Leota's sentence. Reika cast the young woman a look of uncertainty as she got up to open the door.
"Who is it?"
There was no answer. Reika opened the door immediately after that, knowing who stood on the other side.
"Hello, Dearest. It gladdens me to see that you are awake at last. I have had to postpone your whipping for an extra day, so much have you slept."
Leota had turned her head so that she looked down at her pillow, not wanting the Master to see the malice in her eyes, "What is it that brings you here, Master Xavier?"
"Nothing much," Xavier said, the smile apparent in his voice, "I have only come to offer you a deal."
"What sort of deal, Master?"
Xavier chuckled, "Please, Chan-chan, you needn't lie to yourself. I know what sort of look your pillow is receiving. You hate me, don't you? Come now, let me see it. Let me see the hatred you have for me."
"Well if you know so much about me, why don't you go have a chat with yourself and pretend that it's me?"
"But that wouldn't be any fun, Chan-chan," Xavier said as he took Leota's chin in his hand to force her to look at him, "ah, there it is. That look of unveiled disgust you hold in reserve just for me. How beautiful you look like this. Ropes binding your body spread eagle on a cot. Naked. If ever a goddess of beauty there was, she would have to be you."
"Bastard," Leota growled through clenched teeth, "I fear you have your mythology mixed around in your premature brain, if ever you had one. I am the goddess of death."
"I see, well then that makes you as beautiful as you are deadly, does it not?"
Angered that he had outclassed her feminine wit, Leota bared her teeth at him, wishing more than ever that she could break free.
"If ever you had a heart, I would have loved to be the one to rip it from your chest."
Xavier laughed, "You are so graphic, Chan-chan! Oh have I missed your quick wit and your musings of my death."
"Your days are as good as numbered, Xavier! One day shall I gather enough strength to curse you and any descendants you may have!"
"That, Chan-chan, will never happen," Xavier said, snapping his fingers, "for you will never be within your right mind long enough to do so."
After Xavier had snapped his fingers, six men walked into the small room, each of them wearing scowls on their faces.
"Who the hell are they?" Leota asked, watching as four of them grabbed each of her four limbs that had been tied.
"They are the men I gathered together shortly after I learned you had escaped me. They are to be your babysitters, if you will, and shall watch over your every movement. They are my way of keeping an eye on you without having to watch you myself. Not that it would be a bad thing, though," Xavier smiled, "but I do need to work, you know."
"And just what will I be doing with these 'babysitters' of mine?" Leota asked as she was carried, still naked, down the hall to a stairwell that led to the whipping dungeons.
As they approached the stairwell leading to the dungeons, Xavier touched a stone in the wall. He waited while a part of the wall opened into a cell larger than those on the bottom floor. The cell was made entirely out of stone, as was the rest of the building, and had shackles on every wall and even on the ceiling.
Leota could only hang her head as four of her 'babysitters' shackled her wrists in manacles that hung from the ceiling and her ankles to the floor.
Xavier smiled, "You remember this room, don't you, Chan-chan?"
"Hai," Leota said meekly, "this is the room from which I cannot see the moonlight nor hear the rain fall."
"Well now this cell is your throne room."
"Pardon?" Leota asked as she looked up.
"This cell, Chan-chan, shall be the place where you receive torture fit for a queen," Xavier said, a gleam of mischief shining in his gray eyes, "and now, let us begin Her Majesty's suffering."
And so, once again, did the whistling of whips serenade Xavier as he sipped his red wine and watched his rebel slave give in to the one thing he could now see plainly on her face and hear in her screams.
Pain.
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(December 23, 2004) A/N: Hi! Sorry for the depressing chapter… I decided that I had to show people just how cruel Xavier could be; trust me, he gets worse.
Anyway, enough on that… how did you like this chapter, or did you? Love it, hate it? I need to know, really. Also, if you have any ideas for "get Inu-Yasha & Kagome together" plots, I'd love to hear them; and if you have any "let's beat the crap out of Leota" plots, I'd like to hear those too… even if Leota wouldn't. Thank you! Only 2 more days 'till Christmas Day!
