Hey, at long last I put this scene up! I'm so sorry to all those people I expressly promised it sooner to, I'm non-to-reliable it seems. Have been doing lots of Uni stuff and haven't had a chance to do anything. The next and would be last update may take forever but I hope now that I'm back at it I'll be able to stick with it.
Kimra
PLEASE don't forget to review.
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Innocent's Violence
By Kimra
Part 7
Usagi woke with a shiver a cold draught running across her bare feet and legs. She didn't move at first, despite the cold. Her neck was throbbing, her head was fuzzy and there was an odd sense of isolation that emitted through the cold air around her.
She wet her lips and let her eyes peak open pretending to ignore the unarguable knowledge that resonated through her senses telling her she was not safe. It took only a moment, however, to surrender to herself and admit that she was in far more trouble then she had ever wanted to be.
The dizzy sensation that seemed to bubble around her head did not stop her from noticing she was underground, in a room made of stone. There where decorations about, beautiful trinkets and candles she could only imagine the origins of but they took nothing from the cold feel the looming walls gave. She was on a bed too, that took her only a moment to realise, sprawled across white silk and dressed as she remembered being before Dema-
Her mind clicked into memory and she cursed herself for a fool a hundred times over. Her fingers tentatively touched at the sore spot on her neck, feeling the welts that had already begun to rise. She had lunged at him. As if she had the strength to fight him she had lunged. Even if she had been able to beat him an uncoordinated unplanned attack as she had executed would never have been the way. But her mind hadn't been in it, just like it had for so long now it had betrayed her, falling back onto primal instincts not strategic battle plans.
Luna would have killed her.
Usagi froze, all thought suspended for a moment of older memory that was far to painful to linger on. It had been years and her mind still hadn't really overcome it. On instinct Usagi pushed the thoughts away, knowing her focus needed to be cantered on her surroundings not on the broken past.
She was thankful as she slid her bare feet to the icy stone floor, that Demando hadn't taken much blood because even as she walked she felt the weakness of months of ill feeding and the last few days of vomiting and cravings.
There was the sick feeling that made her want to retch again when she thought of the violation that had occurred to her. She hadn't been drunk from before, not since the beginning and she knew with a hot certainty that if she had the chance she would kill Demando for touching her. For a second her mind flashed back to that first time, when she hadn't known what was happening when the man had just smiled at her and like an idiot she hadn't moved and it had all gone to hell.
Her stomach lurched at that thought, at the realisation that it had happened again and once more she had been powerless but she refused to be weak, refused to allow her body to follow the urge to vomit through and instead punched the wall. Her feeble strength was shocking, the stone was barely marred, she hadn't even broken her skin and she had struck with her full strength.
Worry set in. Panic a step behind it.
Demando had bit her, he had drawn from her and she had fallen pathetically unconscious. It wouldn't have been enough if she hadn't already been skimming the lines of starvation, two months before and she would have had the strength to fight back. But she didn't and she was here, in his room maybe, maybe someone else's room, the particulars didn't matter, what she knew was she was in the male sector. A part of the city her friends and she had avoided since knowing of it's existence, and it was the last place she ever wanted to be.
But she was here. She thought about that. It meant he had seen it then, she was close to mating, she had been close to mating with-
No. She wouldn't think it. Wouldn't allow herself to realise what had happened, but some part of her began to shut down retaliating against the closing of her walls and setting into motion a reaction that she refused to realise the reason for. She needed to forget, needed to escape. She couldn't think about it because there was no way Demando had let him live.
She didn't know what she was thinking, what she was feeling, but she knew she was crying silent hot tears that traced down her checks splashing red against the floor.
A door opened, but Usagi didn't turn. She was trying so very hard not to think, trying so very hard to stop the tears escaping her. There where soft footsteps approaching her, bare feet on the cold stone, but she didn't turn to face the stranger. Could barely move to breath. Someone stoped before her, but she did not raise her eyes to meet the face.
A hand touched her chin and raised her head lightly. She meet a pair of violet eyes with an empty stare, there was nothing but the need to ignore. If she didn't allow herself to realise the reality of the moment she would never have to realise the loses that reality had forced upon her. Her eyes clenched away from the moment, pushing those thoughts away again. She needed to get out, needed to escape, but she could barely move.
"Your weak." Was whispered by the young girl before her in a voice of superior knowledge.
Smiling bitterly up at the girl Usagi waited for the axe to fall. She noticed the girl withdraw a blade before slicing it's own wrist, saw the red cut drawn across the pale skin and felt the light touch of flesh and blood against her lips before she was aware what was happening.
"It will help." The girl stated with detached mildness.
Usagi wanted to pull back when the taste of blood infused her mouth but the strength was beyond her. Moving, thinking, they seemed too hard in the face of what had already happened. She didn't care, suddenly, if they forced her to feed, if she was sick from it all. It was irrelevant.
She couldn't help but notice though that there was something strange about this girls blood, something that didn't upset or appease her. Her human mind compared it to eating a bowl or rice, no flavour, but filling, and the rest of her wasn't quite sure what to compare it too because blood had never been flavourless. She drew it in though, took the offering the young girl was giving and let the weakness of her limbs subside although they still shook, although her mind still remained unfocused on the moment, and she still couldn't bring herself to comprehend.
When the wrist was drawn from her mouth, when the girl was moving away, only then did Usagi bring herself to react. Emotion held no place in the moment.
"Who are you?" Usagi interrupted and the girl met her eyes with the same clear violet eyes as before.
"You must dress."
"Who are you?" Usagi demanded with more sharpness and animosity then before.
"I am Destruction." Was the simple reply.
"Why are you here?" Usagi probed further.
"I hold the castle."
"This castle? How can you live with the men?" Usagi was frowning at the girl, confused, anxious, and uncertain. There was a lot she didn't know and she would readily admit it when the need arose but she had been sure no female lived near the males. Even those who had begun mating kept away from the central area of the male quarter.
"I am an ancient." Again the stony simple reply came.
"What does that mean?" Usagi demanded, her patience thinning.
"I do not mate."
"Lucky you." Usagi retorted bitterly not bothering to question the statement.
"You must dress." Was repeated.
Usagi didn't look as the girl moved across the room, retrieving something, instead replied steadily, "I don't want to."
"It is not an option."
"I'm not going to dress up so they can play games with me!" Usagi screamed her eyes fixed on the girl, anger coursing through her veins. If they had thought she was unstable before-
"He is still alive."
Usagi stopped, anger slipping from her and she stared at the girl walking back to the bed an armful of white cloth. "What?" Her voice cracked around the whispered question, a sense of horror and loss inside her tightening. If this was a joke she'd kill them all.
"They will kill him if you do not comply."
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"The beginning is sketchy." Haruka began as she examined the four girls seated about her apartment. They where on edge, frightened little children who had just walked into her lair. It would have been amusing if it hadn't been so disheartening. They may have killed, they may have fed a hundred times but they where still so human, so innocent. "Saturn was first." She continued leaning back against the glass window. "Pluto followed."
The beginning had been sketchy, for all of them. Hotaru had been first, Setsuna had followed. All there stories had been complicated, all of them had been littered with moments for freedom, for escape. But the ties that bound them had locked their fate in place and they had followed their own into the dark.
Haruka didn't say that, there wasn't time for the whole story. "Michiru and I, we got drawn in together. A long time ago, that was."
"Michiru?" The brunette, Makoto, asked quickly, interrupting the story.
"My mate." Haruka replied that streak of protectiveness that always emerged when talking about Michiru dominate in her voice and presence suddenly.
"Isn't that..." the black haired girl, Rei, hesitated only a moment before pushing on with the question "a girls name?" Haruka only nodded her head in reply. They didn't have time for the lengthy story that also involved.
"How long ago?" The blue haired girl, Ami, asked tentatively but with a streak of assertiveness that made her noticeable.
Haruka continued glancing only once at the Blonde, Minako she assumed as she had with the other girls names to make sure she was as wrapt as the other girls. "This isn't our first re-incarnation since the Silver Millennium."
"The what?" Minako asked with a sound of disgust in her voice.
Horror overcame Haruka at the realisation of what those words meant. They didn't know... they didn't even know. She caught herself, forced the knowledge in and pushed on. "We all came from the same place. A pervious life, it was at the end of the Silver Millennium that we all died. But that was many thousands of years ago." It hurt to talk so casually about the memories that where fresh within her. Always fresh, those sort of memories didn't go anywhere in a hurry.
"Is that when you where turned?" Rei asked a frown on her delicate features.
"We think Saturn survived, became infected and-" She shook her head at her own lack of knowledge but there was only so much that could be done. "The beginning is sketchy, it's guess's not truth. But Michiru and I came after... maybe five, six lifetimes after that."
"This Saturn? She must know right?" Minako demanded, sitting on the edge of her seat, looking violent.
"Saturn holds the castle that is the centre of the male quarter." Haruka replied, as if to explain the ineffectiveness or impossibility of trying to question the girl.
"There's no castle in the centre of the city." Rei scoffed apparently offended.
"Not that you can see. Not above ground, but a castle does not have to have turrets and battlements to be guarded and strong. It still has a throne and that's what matters." Haruka replied sharply.
"Why does she hold it?" The blue haired Ami asked calmly, analytically taking in the information provided.
"We don't know. We've not even seen her. Pluto we've had contact with, but it was brief and cryptic. She has not forgotten her duty's but they have become convoluted and now bad must happen for good to occur. I think."
"She was very cryptic?" One of the girls asked and Haruka did little more then consider the impossibility of explain to anyone just how cryptic the Senshi of Time could be when she didn't want to reveal something. She did the logical thing therefore and moved the conversation forwards and beyond the question.
"I've sent my mate to retrieve Usagi and the human."
"Human?" Was the confused question.
"The one that smells like her." Haruka pushed on.
"No one smelt like her! We would have killed them." Rei, that was Rei snapping violence with ease.
"I don't know his name, all I know is that her scent is fresh on him and it isn't anywhere else. But you where talking with him, in that arcade some time before I intercepted you, you must have noticed." She watched them carefully as she made the words form, wondering how they had missed something so obvious to her.
"What?" Minako looked shocked.
"Tall, dark hair. I did not see him properly, my mate followed him."
"Ehh... Mamoru?" One of them asked tentatively.
"Did he not smell like her to you?"
"But." Ami tried to say.
"Kind of I guess..." Rei muttered.
"But he always has!" Minako snapped suddenly, her eyes ablaze her attention focused just like the other girls. Haruka knew protocol well enough though, Minako was in charge of the trope before her and Minako would do what had to be done to protect their Charge even if she didn't understand why.
"Hmm..." Haruka murmured. "She must have made a claim on him much earlier then she realises. I do not know what his place is in this. But one does not receive and survive from wounds like his lightly."
"Wounds?"
"The one's on his neck? Did you also not notice those?" She was a little surprised that they hadn't scented the blood on him.
"She bit him didn't she? I'll kill the ditz!" Rei jumped to her feet, eyes blazing with fire.
"I don't believe you." Makoto growled dangerously. "Maybe you have Usa! Maybe this is some ploy-"
"Do I smell like her? Is her scent anywhere near me? I've not even seen this girl."
"Oh yeah? If your one of us which planet are you?" Makoto demanded.
"Uranus."
"And can you prove it?" Ami asked with a deadly voice, her eyes examining, scrutinizing.
"As well as you can." Haruka shook her head, tired of the rounded questions. "How would I know this? How would I know anything about your ties, your powers if I was not a part of it."
"You can be a part, that's fine, but what kind of a part you are is yet to be known." Minako interrupted icily watching still with perfect attention.
"I'm not lying to you. And if you paused a moment to think it through you would realise there is no part of you that truly believes I am lying."
The four girls looked to each other and automatically Haruka knew they where reaching for each other. She chose not to show them that she could join, that she was part of there exclusive group and instead let them come to their own decisions.
It took time, there expressions changing flickering trying to decide on which decision to choose. But in the end, their need to protect their friend, to find answers so they could help her made them faster then they would have otherwise been and it was less then fifteen minutes before they turned back to her. There eyes when they locked on her where alert, weary but willing to listen.
"We are the same. The part of us that connects us to the planets has protected us against the full change of the vampire species. We cannot nor will we ever be entirely their's but we are no longer human." Haruka told them solemnly, knowing they already knew that, knowing they would have figured it out long ago when they where turned. It occurred to her to ask how they had all been turned but in the end she did not want to know. It had happened and that was all she needed to know.
"This happened to you? You needed to mate early?"
"Michiru and I looked after each other. We had to, or we would be dead." Haruka went to say more when the door was flung open.
All feelings of calm swept from the room in a tidal wave of fear.
"Where is she?" Haruka demanded of her out of breath mate. The aqua haired girl shook her head once, leaning up against the door frame. "Where are they?" Haruka demanded harsher then before real fear making it into her system. This wasn't good and they all knew it.
"Where is Usagi!" One of the girls cried, maybe more then one. Haruka was focused on only one thing. Michiru was out of breath but safe, the girl, Usagi she wasn't safe she wasn't where she should have been.
A second, maybe two was all it took before Michiru answered and it was an answer none of them wanted to hear.
"I found only blood, and Demando's scent."
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Usagi stood alone. The only female allowed admittance in the castle's ancient battle grounds during the ceremony. By her side Demando stood, lording over the gathered men, keeping them in order.
Her stomach knotted, bile in her throat but her eyes where dry. She was not going to cry because this was not over, she refused to accept this as an end.
The men where looking her over, sizing up their opponents and the value she represented to them. Those that considered her worth the effort would battle in the arena for her body, for the right to take her through the mating ceremony, the right to bind her unwillingly to them forever.
She didn't listen to what Demando had to say, nor the names that where called as men began stepping forwards. Her eyes didn't follow the blows and blood that where thrown about the marbled floor. All her thoughts cantered on what had brought her to this moment, what had made her travel the path to this room without even a word of discontent.
Somewhere within the depths of this castle, perhaps somewhere else entirely, Mamoru was imprisoned. Mamoru who she hated, Mamoru who she couldn't remember a day without, Mamoru who made her blood pound in her veins like there was real life in them again, Mamoru who had fallen because of her.
So she let it all wash over her, let the ceremony proceed without interruption. It would be over soon. The room cleared and the victor left to make his claim on her body and soul. Fear pounding within her. Fear for what would happen, fear for what she could not stop, fear for how it would all end.
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Mamoru had woken hours before, or what felt like hours. There was no light in the room to judge time by, no movement beyond the iron door to judge the seconds or reality. All he had were his thoughts and they flew by at the speed of light, never settled, never sure.
He had strained against his restraints. He had explored the room with hand and eye as much as was possible. It was cold, stone, and dank. There where chains on his wrists and ankles, and a wall as solid as a castles holding them in place. He had explored every link in the chains, trying to find a weakness, rust or ware that may have made them more susceptible to breakage then the others. But there was none, the chains felt new, fresh and entirely solid.
So he sat against the stone wall, the damp seeping in through his clothes and sending shivers through his body. Then he tried to think but found himself instantly distracted.
There was fear in his veins, pounding through like a warning signal, but it wasn't his. He had his own fear, but it was controlled, like always. This fear in him was familiar and unrelenting, and he had no control over it.
He had felt it before, years before, and he had never expected it to return, especially not now. There where too many things to think about, too many needs to satisfy. He needed to save Usagi. That man, Demando, had taken her from him, had harmed her and being too weak and shocked he had done nothing to stop the demon until it was far beyond too late.
Mamoru hated himself more at that moment then ever before. He should have done more, he knew he was capable of it, but for her he had not reacted fast enough. He knew the possessiveness he felt for her seemed abruptly new, but it did not matter. She had always been there, a part of his life that he relied on that he looked forwards to in some ways, and it made sense to be protective of things that where a part of you.
He considered that, wondered what she would think of such an assessment and decided he didn't really care, because she had started this mess and it was her fault he felt like he would kill any creature that tried to hurt her, and die for her a thousand times over.
A jolt of fear snapped through him, and he jumped to his feet. The intensity shocking him, the familiarity becoming more familiar. It wasn't the fear of a girl he didn't know like he had suspected it was at first, it was hers, Usagi's.
Moments of time slipped together, he'd felt it before, it was the same and he knew it with shocking realisation. He acknowledged in horror he had overlooked everything that lay before his eyes and that the answers he had searched for had rested so neatly in his grasp. The particulars he didn't know. Why had she stopped? Why had she disappeared? What had happened? There where answers he couldn't know, but what he did know was that she was scared, this woman-child he was bound to, this creature he had made a claim to was afraid and in return he was petrified because she had not been scared for many years now.
On reflex he dug down into his being drawing forth the strength of a world. A strength he had not summoned since last he felt such fear resonating through his soul. He felt it flood his veins, filling him with a near overwhelming sensation of insignificance and majesty blended so perfectly that there was no distinction.
And with that strength as a part of his being he once more turned his attention to the chains that bound him, using muscles fuelled by inhuman power to strain against them. He felt them pull, felt thing stretch ever so slightly under his demanding attack, but they did not break, they did not bend or weaken. Franticly he kept trying, desperate to do everything he could to rescue her, to protect her, but knowing somehow in the back of his mind that he did not have the strength to break the bonds made to hold a vampire.
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"He has her." Haruka stated in shocked horror. There was silence for only a few seconds as the realisation sunk into the minds of the girls.
"His taken her to the castle." Michiru added, her thoughtful tone's miffed by the worry she could not conceal.
"We have to get her back!" Minako stated and the three nods that accompanied her words proved there would be no dissention in the ranks of the group.
"We can not." Michiru whispered.
"Nobody asked you!" Makoto snapped with fierce anger.
"No we have to." Haruka stated to her mate and the two women stared at each other, worry and concern so obvious, but so too was the determination in one's eyes and the fear in the others.
"Where is she?" Minako demanded of the two women. There was silence to answer her as the two women continued to stare each other down. "Where damn it?!" Minako demanded her voice a shout that resonated through the room waking the two fighting women from each other.
"You can not go." Michiru told them sternly.
"Fuck you!" Rei attacked. "We do what we want. I don't care what you think you are, you can't tell us what to do."
"I can not let you leave this building, it would only put more of you at risk." Michiru reiterated.
"She's more important then them." Haruka interrupted harshly and the two women once again faced off. Only a second and Michiru's face softened into defeat.
"We would give everything for her." Ami told the two women and when they faced her she knew they agreed though she wasn't sure how.
"The tunnels." Haruka stated first, quickly her eyes calculating. "That's the way to go."
"Where are these tunnels?" Minako demanded.
"No." Haruka shook her head. "I'll lead the way."
"We don't need outsiders." Makoto ground out.
"She's our Princess to." Was all Michiru had to say to silence the protests.
