Notes: Sorry for the wait, that's all I'm gonna say. I won't go into gruesome detail, just know that I couldn't use my right hand for about four days. Other than that, I've had damn writer's block...!

The Imperfections We Weave

Chapter 10-Meshed Darkness

The lights had come on.

I mentally kicked myself for sleeping as long and hard as I had. It just so happened that when I turned over, Chihiro was no where to be found. In a semi-sleepy daze, I searched the bare and bland room for her. Maybe she had gotten up to go to the bathroom or...?

My fully awake, sober self tore through that thought quick enough.

No.

I trusted she would have woken me up to tell me if she were going anywhere. Something was very, very wrong.

As if on cue, a piercing scream ripped through the air that sent my mind reeling. What's worse, I recognized the voice...

"Chihiro..!" It was an outburst that I couldn't possibly stifle. She was in trouble! Maybe even mortally wounded! By that scream, there was no way to tell.

And only one person came to mind: Karu.

If there was one person I expected to go back on any and every promise, it was him. What a fool I was to believe he wouldn't make an attempt at Chihiro.

'Everyone you're near... You hurt everyone you're near...'

I shook my head rapidly, ridding myself of any untimely thoughts, flying out of the room with my dragon's speed.

There was already a mildly large crowd of curious onlookers forming, sifting through the pitch black night trying to find the one who had screamed.

"Look! Look there!" Screamed one of the workers with better eyes, frantically pointing towards a 'shadow' moving across the building tops with a cat's grace. There were many gasps that echoed as one, and I could hear Yubaba already bitching in her annoyingly scratchy voice the entire way over to the gathering group of workers.

But something caught my eye then, and I was surprised that I hadn't seen it earlier. Over the creature's murky-colored, slim-yet-muscular shoulder was thrown a slight person's figure...with long, dark hair...in a mid-thigh length dress...

I felt my eyes narrow dangerously and my insides churn with increasing ire.

"Karu! You BASTARD!" I bellowed at the top of my lungs, the winds picking up and carrying my angry words to him. I could practically hear him laughing at me inside my head.

I turned on heel, a cloud of unsettled dust flying behind me, and headed to Karu's room. I felt many pairs of eyes following me questionably, and caught a glimpse of Yubaba's deliciously startled looking face as I did.

My entire body was tense, and my hair had begun to bristle like a cat's. The room was in front of me, and hadn't realized until then how fast I had gotten there. I reached to slide open the thin paper door, my jittery hands shaking furiously from worry and rage.

My icy fingertips touched the paper ever so slightly and-

'What do...want!'

'...fool...all along...her soul.'

'...hate you...'

'Human.'

'KOHAKU! YOU'LL LOSE YOUR SOUL!'

I was curled against the ground, it being my only source of protection. I had forgotten to breath for the generous 15 seconds of pain, and my head screamed its protest against this torture. I unfurled my sweaty, aching body and pushed open the door tiredly.

The room was pitch black, but not just the kind of black you witness every other night. The heavy, sickening, diseased kind of darkness that was terribly suffocating. No matter how long I stood in the same place, my eyes refused to adjust to it.

I tried staggering a few wobbly, unsure steps only to hear a loud crunch! resonate throughout the cavernous place. I kneeled slightly, running my hand over the floor to see what it was that I had broken. It couldn't have been that terrible, right?

Right?

My fingers encountered something rough, yet smooth. A strangely shaped, large and sort of heavy object.. I picked it up, rolling it around between my hands like a blind person would. I stuck a long, graceful finger in what seemed like a relitively large indention and my thumb felt out a crack just to the left of the hole. Where I had stepped on the thing, I guessed. I removed my finger and trailed it just to the right, where there was an identical hole.

'..Strange..'

My ran my entire right hand down the front of the thing. I crept over to a tiny window that gave off an extremely dim light and held the creation in question closer to it.

And immediately threw it across the room.

A dragon's skull. One of my own kind. Disgusting.

Suddenly I sensed something coming. The darkness that had settled around me somewhat now clogged my lungs, and I began trying futiley to hack it up. Then I felt ice cold arms around me and a strange sensation of falling.

'Come and play, dearest Kohaku...' Karu crowed in a saccharine purr.

And my darkness was meshed with his.

Scene

Well, that one's done. Sorry it's so short, but it's really just to pass the time while I work on Chapter 11. And for anyone who's not getting it, the stuff written in 'these' is either something that Karu has poisoned Haku's mind by repeating to him every day or something that he's whispering to Haku through telepathy to tease him. Just so ya know. Anyways, reviews are much appreciated!