Far Gone

See disclaimer in the Prologue

Watching me, wanting me

I can feel you pull me down

Fearing you, loving you

I won't let you pull me down...

Evanescence, "Haunted"

"DAMN IT!"

Kiri's ragged cry tore through the empty air, twisting and reverbating through the chill left in the wake of Oscha's disappearance.

"Damn it... damn it... damn it...!"

Lisa knelt tentatively beside him and hesitantly put her hand on his back as his angry shouts dissolved into desolate sobs.

"Damn it... I could do nothing, again... Kumo... why...!"

"There's no trace of either of them," Cid reported. "They just... they disappeared into thin air... I suppose they have some way of warping through Wonderland's network of worlds. They've probably returned to Gaudium..."

Gritting his teeth, Kiri grabbed Lisa's upper arms and stared into her eyes. The black-haired woman almost flinched at the intensity of his crimson-eyed, tearful glare, but couldn't force herself to look away. "Listen to me... you have to help my brother...!"

"There's no way...," Lisa began uncertainly, but Kiri cut her off, glaring all the fiercer.

"Those bastards... you have no idea what they'll do to him...! Chaos will use him until there's nothing left of him... then kill him, horribly. I... I would do anything to stop it, but I... I can't help him... not in this state...! I can barely even hold a physical form... I have nowhere near the strength that would be needed to get him out of that place...! Please! You have to help Kumo...! Save him!"

"What's going on here?" Lisa whispered. "How did this happen to you?"

Kiri shook his head, his eyes darkening. "I was prepared to sacrifice myself to save my brother when he needed to escape from Gaudium before... but I didn't expect those bastards to capture me instead of destroying my soul. They tortured me and kept me to blackmail Kumo into going with them. And now... I won't let him die alone and afraid... I won't...!"

Kaze stalked over to the fallen swordsman and whipped the Magun from beneath his cloak. "He shall not meet such a fate. The sins of the past upon their backs... the chain binds them to my wrath. They will not escape our confrontation, nor the justice of the gods."

Kiri looked up into Kaze's angry blue eyes, pain on his face. "Promise me," he whispered.

"I swear it on my love for him," Kaze said softly, the edge in his voice easing.

"I can't hold this shape much longer," Kiri said softly, and Lisa realized that his form was beginning to flicker, becoming transparent. "But I will follow you, and hold you to your word. I will not let you abandon the only one I ever loved to a barren future of torture, rape, and death as long as you have the power to help him and I do not." And his astral projection vanished into mist.

---

Kumo looked up defeatedly as the door to the antechamber creaked open. Even before he saw, he knew who was coming.

Devoid of his heavy iron armor--devoid of all clothing--the man before him, with cold blue eyes, short and thick orchid-colored hair cropped an inch above earlobe-length, golden studs in both ears, unnaturally pale skin, and a sardonic smile, seemed to have walked straight out of one of Kumo's worst nightmares.

"Hello, my foolish little Makenshi."

Chaos.

Kumo was bound by Chaos-thread that covered his forearms at the center of the room, placed so that he could stand on tiptoe if he had to but couldn't gain full purchase against the floor, held in open space so that even in exhaustion, he couldn't destroy any internal organs with the weight of his ribcage as he would if tied against a wall. There were other reasons too, of course, but those didn't bear thinking about. He'd been stripped almost completely before being tied; the only thing he still wore was his choker of ribbon. Naked and vulnerable, he knew that the half-week-old scars on his chest and inner arms were still raw and angry and all too visible.

"Stay away from me," Kumo said tiredly, a note of wariness creeping into his voice. "I don't belong to you anymore."

"Don't you?" Chaos asked drily, walking brazenly up to him and kissing him harshly, forcing his lips apart and advancing greedily as Kumo tried to edge away within his binding. Pulling back, he stared at his captive, nose-to-nose with him. "You're a slut. A whore. A prostitute. As long as there's a man between your legs, you're happy, no matter who it might be--me, my servant, the Black Wind, or your own brother."

"Happy?" Kumo whispered, shaking his head slowly. "All you ever did was hurt me."

"But it doesn't have to be that way, does it?" Chaos said mildly. "Let me show you."

He hadn't been expecting the touch, or the teasing stroke that went with it. Kumo gasped, reeled, and nearly passed out from shock.

"If I remember correctly," Chaos commented, "you liked it when your brother played with you."

The unnervingly gentle teasing continued as Kumo struggled to back away, out of the monster's grip. This was wrong, so unbearably wrong. As his body responded helplessly to the erotic stimuli, his mind screamed at him in warning. Even the suggestion of Chaos' touch made him sick... and why... why wasn't he acting like he usually did...?

"Stop," he moaned, feeling tears prickle at his eyes. "Stop..."

As if in answer, Chaos' hand reached to brush against, then firmly stroke the soft skin of Kumo's apprehension-taut belly. The swordsman whimpered as his abdominal muscles twitched reflexively, still desperately trying to back out of Chaos' strange hold on him.

"Don't... please, don't... stop... stop..."

"Shh," Chaos murmured, leaning down. Kumo shrank away, closing his eyes and turning his head.

The warmth, then the suckling sensation, made the swordsman go rigid, shuddering in twinned nausea and traitorious pleasure, fighting to keep still.

"Stop," he cried, feeling his face flame. "Stop...!"

But of course, Chaos didn't stop. Kumo hung helpless, still struggling weakly, fighting Chaos and the natural reactions of his own body and his terror, his breathing ragged and uneven, sweat starting to bead on his skin. If only. If only he could make himself believe that it was Kaze or Kiri kneeling before him... if only he could resist the compulsion to slide further down the greedy, desirous throat... if only.

Finally, Chaos released him, and the taut strands of mottled reddish wickedness loosened, letting Kumo sink to the ground. Chaos stared down at him, showing no emotion other than vague satisfaction, wiping his face with the back of his hand.

He pushed Kumo onto his back, crouching over him. "Now it's time to return the favor," he said with a smirk, looking decidedly evil.

---

"But we should at least consider it," Lisa protested, shaking her head desperately.

"Absolutely not," Knave replied. "Without Kumo's power, we won't have a chance of storming Gaudium and making it out alive."

They, Kaze, Lou, the twins, and the rest of the Comodeen had retreated to the ship with the Flying Water they had recovered, managing to push the sub back into the water and take off.

"If we had Silvia, my flying machine, we might be able to launch a guerilla attack to rescue him," Cid put in, staring at Knave with obvious disapproval. "And with my new installations to Jane's hardware while we've been traveling, we could get back to the base in time! Why won't you consider it?"

"I will not allow Kumo to die like that," Kaze said softly but angrily. "I will not allow it."

"If we go there, we will die--that's exactly what he was trying to prevent by sacrificing himself," Knave pointed out, tracing his thick eyebrow irritatedly. "If we try to rescue him... mind you, it may already be too late to do so... what he's done will be meaningless."

"But we can't just leave him there," Miles shouted, standing up angrily. "He's our ally... and more than that, our friend! Can we really leave him to the same kind of suffering that brought him to us?"

There was a tense silence.

"We have to go," Ai said suddenly. Everyone turned to stare at her, but she didn't falter. "Kumo is a good person... he always did his best to help us, no matter what it meant for him. And... he's just going to get abused again if he's left at Gaudium." When the stares became incredulous, the twelve-year-old crossed her arms. "I know that Yu and me aren't supposed to know what happened to him, but come on! It was obvious enough. We do have sex ed in school, you know."

"Sis is right," Yu seconded, although the shadowed look of fear was slowly creeping over his face again. "We can't knowingly leave Kumo to something like that..."

"I haven't known him for long, but..." Lou began. She looked down at Crux, who was asleep in her arms, tears of despair and wild grief on her small face. "He was nice to me, like all of you are. I think we should help him."

"We must," Kaze said again, a growl rumbling through his words.

Knave sighed and shook his head. "I still don't think it's a good idea, but... it looks like I'm outvoted. Go on, Cid. Be the hero. Show us what it is you have in mind."

"Thank you!" The blonde inventor ran over to Kaze's side. "It's time to unveil the Elenium Cannon!"

---

As soon as Chaos withdrew, Kumo reeled helplessly to the side, choked out a cry of despair, and threw up, letting a stain of blood and the remnants of his last meal with the Comodeen and something that looked almost, but not quite, like mucus spread over the cold steel floor. His thin frame heaved, and he bent again, disgorging more blood and more of that mucus-like substance. Chaos, standing a few feet away from him, walked off, leaving him broken and sobbing next to the mess.

Kumo was red-faced, trembling, sweating, and crying, his throat raw--and not only from the suppressed screaming and traces of digestive acids. He still felt sick and achy and nauseated, but he had nothing left to throw up. The entire contents of his digestive system, along with what felt like half the blood in his body, were spilled in an uneven spatch beside him, choking him with the combined scent of pain and vomit and orgasmic release. He wanted to die. He just wanted to die so that it could be over...

Hearing padding footsteps, he looked up. Chaos was back, with a wet cloth in one hand and a flask of some clear liquid in the other. An oddly patient look on his face, he knelt on Kumo's open side and used the cloth to gently wipe the traces of blood, vomit, and semen from the swordsman's face. After he was done, he tossed the cloth away and held up the flask. "Rinse out your mouth first, then drink."

Kumo found the liquid to be water, cold and clear, as Chaos set the flask to his lips. Obediently, he used the first mouthful to get the taste of vomit--and, of course, what had sparked it--out of his mouth and throat, spitting it to the side, then emptied the flask, feeling tired.

Chaos hauled him up and started to pull him over to the far corner of the room, away from the bloody, nightmarish mess. Kumo was so out of it that he didn't notice for a few minutes that the threads that bound him were tracing across the ceiling at Chaos' command.

Deposited in the corner, he looked up at the man who had done this to him, tears beginning to form in his eyes once again. "Why...?" he asked brokenly. It was all he could bring himself to say.

Chaos set a finger to his lips, the cold expression still not changing. "Hush. It will all be over soon."

Within moments, the antechamber rang with the echoes of hoarse, broken screaming.

---

Cid pulled open a panel at the center of the main chamber and hit a switch on some control device, letting some kind of mechanical creation rise from the belly of the submarine. It was a little higher than Kaze's waist, just about tall enough for him or one of the taller Comodeen members to rest their hands on while standing. It seemed to be some kind of control panel, and at its center was a clear cyndrilical socket for something to be placed.

"It's up to you now," the inventor told Kaze, who nodded.

The gunner held out his right arm and gave the Magun a desperate look. Now is not the time to disobey... hear my summons and answer me...!

The crew and passengers stared as Kaze tensed his entire body, beginning to shake, forcing the green stone set in the golden cylinder to glow by sheer will. Slowly, almost hesitantly, the drill and black blades formed as the screws set into the sides of the heavy metal retracted, letting exhaust shoot out. The glow of the cylinder itself flickered as sweat began to stand out on Kaze's face and arm, plainly resisting the gunner's demand for his broken Magun to take shape.

But the demand wasn't a request. It was an order. And so the gun began to form, twisting around Kaze's wrist as a tourniquet and shaping the spherical chamber that held his black-veined heart, which was plainly racing at almost double its normal rate. The triple barrels solidified, and the Magun was complete.

Kaze closed his eyes, clearly exhausted, sweat dripping from his bare skin. The effort that summoning the gun had cost him was almost frightening, compared to the ease he had in calling it during dire battles. Lisa shook her head inwardly. There had to be some condition that wasn't fulfilled in this situation... something that would have to make Kaze strain so hard just to bring his birthright into existence.

The gunner extended his left hand, and Cid placed in it three bullets, each with liquid inside. "After studying your Magun, I've reached the conclusion that these should work well," he said, scratching his head. "These contain purified Elenium... as you know, firing it into this device will give Jane the power to move at a speed exponentially greater than usual. It's the only way we might make it in time, if what Kiri said was true."

Wordlessly, Kaze slipped each bullet into the gun, then locked it into Cid's power device. The inventor ran up to the cockpit and waved a hand; Kaze tightened his finger on the trigger and the Magun went off.

In an explosion of light and energy, the submarine leapt forward, and almost everyone fell over. The Magun disengaged from the machine, converting back to cylinder form. Lisa was on her feet again in time to see that Kaze was swaying just slightly where he stood--in time to catch him as he collapsed from exhaustion.

"Kaze...! Are you...?" He was still breathing, but his skin was a sickly shade of gray, covered in sweat. Touching the side of the Magun hesitantly, Lisa realized that his heart was still racing. If Kaze had stayed up any longer... it probably would have burst. Sighing in relief, she gently removed his shades and loosened the clasp of his cloak, letting him lean on her, lost to dreams. "He's only asleep," she murmured as Lou dashed to their side.

"We should be back at the base after about three hours," Cid called. "After that, though, Jane's gonna be useless until she gets repairs. We'll have to load Silvia's fuel and run if we want to rescue Kumo... it'll be about another hour from the base to Gaudium, which is around the halfway mark between Teros and our northern factory... just be ready."

"I just hope we make it in time," Lisa whispered, looking down at Kaze's sleeping form.

---

"No... NO!"

Kumo pressed his back to the wall, standing with his thighs clamped together. "No! Stay away!"

Bruises were starting all along his hips, shoulders, upper arms, and throat; blood was already tracing down his legs, gathering in a sanguine pool beneath his feet. After he had struggled to keep Chaos away before, the cold-eyed man had beat him, and the marks were starting to appear barely a minute later.

"You're growing tiresome," Chaos hissed, pinning Kumo to the wall with one hand and trying to pry his legs apart with the other. "Just give up already!"

"No!" Kumo stood firm. "Don't touch me!"

"Shut up." Chaos slammed him against the cold steel; Kumo's taut stance went slack for a bare moment, which was all that was needed. The cold-eyed destroyer shoved against him, penetrated him, and slammed their hips together with all the strength in his body.

Shrill cries tore from Kumo's throat without his having any knowledge of it. "KAZE! NIISAMA! KAZE! SOMEONE! PLEASE...! SOMEONE... SOMEONE...! NIISAMA! NIISAMAAA! KAZE! KAZE! Please... help me..."

But no one was there to help him. And the only reality...

The only reality was Chaos, filled with deadly anger and just-as-deadly lust.

The only reality was tight grip, twisting, grasping hands, the agony that vaguely suggested a cracked pelvis, harsh greedy kisses, the sickly mixture of sweat and blood, and the driving horror of pain.

Pain, where Kaze had shown him that one could be so gentle, so loving.

It was wrong... wrong.

Chaos stepped back, looking down at their bodies with an upraised eyebrow. "I'll be back once I've cleaned myself," he said pointedly. Both of them were streaked in blood from the waist down. And he walked away, leaving rust-colored prints on the ground.

Kumo sagged against the wall, bowed his head, and sobbed.

---

Feeling a twinge of sharp pain in his chest, Kaze shot an insistent glare at Cid. "Hurry."

"I'm flying this girl as fast as I can," the inventor replied distractedly, his eyes glued to the window before him. "We're almost there. Be patient."

"He doesn't have much longer," Kaze insisted. "Hurry."

Down in the galley, Miles and Knave were speaking to Lisa.

"Once we've docked, you, Kaze, and--against my better judgement--the children will infiltrate the structure, guided by Crux, who should be able to tell where Kumo is being held. Ideally, this is just a grab-the-hostage-and-run-like-hell operation, so we won't send any big force with you. We'll remain docked so that you can hurry back once you've got Kumo." Knave nodded. "That's the plan, at least."

"We'll be trying to get rid of those damn defense satellites while you're busy with the kid," Miles continued. "We're going to have to dodge their attacks to get in, because we won't have the time to destroy them if we want to get Kumo and get out. Got it?"

Lisa nodded. "Yes. Will you be alright with everything?"

"Don't worry," Miles told her, waving a hand. "Cid can take care of any machinery, no matter how advanced. Those defense satellites had better start praying, if they can."

Lisa smiled worriedly; she was about to speak again, but Cid's shout of "Hold on!" interrupted her.

The Comodeen braced themselves.

"This is it," Miles yelled. "You'd better get ready, Lisa! You and the others will have to get off the instant we stop!"

---

It was an odd group that ran through Gaudium's halls, one unlike any that the castle had seen before. A man and woman, along with three young children, followed Oscha's creation Crux as she led them quickly and efficiently through the labyrinth of passages that formed the castle interior.

"Kukuriyu..." Crux paused at the entrance to a long hall, pointing down to the door at the end.

"There?" Lisa asked, but Kaze was already tearing down along the thick red carpet that had been laid down the center of the room. She, Crux, and the children followed him.

Ai stopped short at the doorway, making a face. "What is that?" she asked incredulously, shaking her head. "It smells like somebody threw up in here...!"

Yu pointed to a dark spot at the room's center. "Someone did," he murmured.

"Come on," Lou whispered angrily, pulling both of them inside.

Kumo was hanging in the far corner of the room, standing on tiptoe in a deep pool of blood. Some dark substance was wrapped around his forearms, holding him in his position as he slumped forward in despair, letting his soft hair fall into his face. The insides of his thighs were coated in blood, which was also streaked across his abdomen and groin. Scratches and bruises once again covered his body, the worst of which was a dark angry bruise that stretched across Kumo's right hip.

Biting her lip, Lisa pulled a Swiss Army knife from her belt as Kaze ranged anxiously behind her, using it to cut the dark webby substance that held the swordsman from the ceiling. Once it fell away, she put away the knife while trying to support Kumo with her other arm, pulling him out of the pool of blood to sit down. As she took linen from her belt and wiped at the blood that covered his body, Kaze knelt on his other side and gently touched his shoulder. "Shiroi-chan. Wake up."

With a faint moan, Kumo opened his eyes, staring up into Kaze's cerulean ones in confusion and disbelief. "Ka..ze...?"

"I'm here," he whispered, stroking his love's hair.

"You... came for me...?" Weakly, he turned to see Lisa and the children. "All of you...?"

"Kuu," Crux said quietly from behind him.

"We're getting you out of here," Lisa said softly. "Don't worry about anything."

"We couldn't just leave you here," Ai added staunchly.

Kaze, meanwhile, had busied himself undoing the clasp of his cloak, and was now pulling it off. "Here," he said softly as Lisa pulled Kumo up. "You can't walk around this place with nothing on."

Lisa nodded and helped tug the black cloak around Kumo's unresisting form. As she tightened the clasp, she grimaced. "It's too big, but it's better than nothing." The cloak's tall collar fell from Kumo's throat to his shoulder, exposing a few of the bruises he still suffered from. "Come on, now."

And they fled.

But as they returned to the place where Cid's airship had been docked...

"What!" Lou stared. "Where are they!"

Ai stabbed a finger towards the horizon. "It looks like they're fighting something," she pointed out, straining to see. "What do they think they're doing? We've gotta get out of here!"

"An astute observation," a voice behind the seven of them simpered. They whirled, Kumo clinging desperately to Kaze's side and beginning to tremble in fear.

Oscha.

(TBC)