Author's Note: HAHAHA!!!!! I'm sooo happy!! Er, nothing else much to say...
Review Responses:
Xxoro-chanxX: o0 runs away screaming in fear Thank you though! I'm glad you liked it.
Shiomei: Arigatou! IF you can call three days 'soon'!
Goddess-Hope: laughs This chapter and all the others will be even more interesting, I hope...
Arteme: Oh, don't worry! It was stupid of me to do 'Poetry' in the first place. And the eyebrow thing-I always did wonder, because his bandages covered his brows. And thanks! I really wanted it to make sense... my fics almost never do!
rurouni madness: Yes, me too-Shishio is so awful! - Even though I'm the author, I can't wait to see what Kenshin will do also. And, thank you! (to my #1 reliable reviewer)
d2k3001: Yes, but maybe there'll be a switch in the story... you never know! (I don't know either -)
Disclaimer: You know the drill. Must I repeat it?
A Cloak of Protection
Chapter 3: Restrained Terror
DAY ONE--3:45 pm
Kenshin gradually slowed down as he neared the dojo's wooden gates, finally slowing to a stop in the shade of a willow tree and dropped his pale hands onto the knees of his white hakama (A/N: the pants, I think) and lowering his head. Fiery red hair tumbled down around his ashen face, hiding a spark of gold amber suddenly bursting to life in his amethyst eyes.
Breathing hard, he stayed in that position for a long time, until he was able to straighten up and turn around, away from the dojo and facing the town.
Kenshin glanced up at the calm blue sky, tinged with the faintest brush of white cloud. The glaring white of the sun still hung overhead, lower in the sky than it had been when he was about to start his large load of laundry. When Kaoru-dono was still here, at the dojo, telling him about Tae's birthday.
The fresh thought sent a wave of pain and dizziness through his head. Kenshin snapped out of his thoughts, eyes flaring amber and then quickly reverting back to amethyst. The change was so sudden that one wouldn't have registered it.
Staring ahead at the dirt road, he started forth to see where Kaoru-dono had gone. There were two ways she could have gone: the regular dirt path down to the shops, or into the shady, nearby woods for a shortcut. Kenshin tried out the dirt path first, planning to search for anything, ANYTHING, that might signify where Kaoru-dono had gone to. He just knew something bad had happened to her, his Kaoru-dono.
A glint of amber flashed gold in his usually calm violet eyes, blazing with anger toward anyone who even dared tried to touch a dark hair on Kaoru's head. They better know that they were about to deal with the wrath of the hitokiri Battousai--had brought it on themselves.
This time, the amber glint didn't fade back to amethyst for a long time, blazing like the fires of hell as Kenshin started down the dirt path.
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4:30 pm
She swam in a sea of the deepest black, tinged with raven blue. The pressure pressed down mercilessly, pounding away, throbbing. It was like being at the very bottom of the deepest ocean in all of the galaxies. A fog of dark black concealed everything to be seen in this ocean of pain and confusion.
Suddenly, the deep black dimmed to a pale gray fog. Her eyelids struggled to open, feeling like 500-pound weights. Finally she wrenched them open, to be confronted by bright white light.
"Ah--at last, you're up!" Kaoru vaguely heard someone to her right exclaim. A young boy, she thought foggily.
Blinking in the bright light, she turned her fog-filled head to the right and saw a boy of around her age. He had dark floppy hair and wore a huge grin on his face. Pulled tightly onto his ankles and up to his knees were long knee socks. His western-style breeches complimented the strange outfit. The boy wore a blue jacket, whose left arm was tinged with a faint smudge of blood, and the chest was smeared slightly with more blood. Somehow, Kaoru felt that the blood wasn't the boy's.
Kaoru observed all of this without really comprehending things, or what they really meant. Her eyelids, framed by dark thick lashes, started to close again, despite her valiant efforts of trying to keep them open.
A muggy, cloudy thought ran through her numb, pounding head. This strange room, so unfamiliar to her, vibrated with such heavy, evil vibes... definitely evil.
The thought snapped her eyes open again, sapphire eyes widening in horror.
Then she finally remembered.
The exhausting, frantic chase; the exploding, fiery red pain. The cobalt blue ribbon unknotting from her hair as she ran from the black-clothed masked men. Why are they after me? she vaguely remembered thinking, as she ran with all her might, as fast as her trained legs (from the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu training) could take her. But still, they had caught up to her.
Someone, a teenager around her age, had caught up to her, while the slower black-clothed men had lagged behind. Then he had-then he had-
Oh, kami-sama. That burst of red pain, as he had deftly shoved his sharp- pointed sword through her right side. That explosion of white-hot agony, as he pulled out the sword, flicking aside the blood. Her blood.
Kaoru's right side and left shoulder began to throb, searing with pain. Oh yeah-she had gotten two pretty intense wounds. She was ready to bet that that teenager who had skewered her through the side like a piece of steamed tofu had also given her that painful shoulder slash.
"Can you hear me?" a male voice asked her. The voice that belonged to that Western-dressed boy that had exclaimed over her awakening. That familiar voice...
Kaoru stiffened again. That boy had practically KILLED her, had given her unbearable pain, had taken her to this Godforsaken place-Shishio's own headquarters and lounge!
She angrily twisted her head to the right to glare at the smiling boy, and winced sharply, a lightning bolt of white-hot pain slicing through her left shoulder. "Wh-who are you?" she managed to get out through a cloud of pain.
The boy's continuing smile infuriated her. How dare he grin at her pain? "My name is Soujirou Seta," he answered, placing a pale hand on her cheek, eyes twinkling in merriment. Kaoru noticed that he was kneeling beside her, on the green rug, while she lay on the soft couch, a washed-out yellow sheet draping it. She could see the wooden double doors from where she lay.
Kaoru struggled to sit up, pressing the back of her left hand against the couch's back and placing her right hand flat onto the couch's seat. As she got up, her vision swam and pain erupted once more in her wounds. The room seemed to tilt crazily, and she fell back, dizzy.
Kaoru's eyelids fluttered and opened, to see Soujirou leaning over her with that stupid grin still plastered on his face. He smilingly offered his right hand to her, which Kaoru took with her own. Finally, with Soujirou's help, she boosted herself painfully up to rest against the couch's back, feeling faint.
"Ouch!" Kaoru whimpered, wincing, as her left shoulder banged against the couch's back. She turned her head to look at the deep gash in her left shoulder, still slightly bleeding. Blood caked on the shoulder and arm of her blue kimono.
Directing her attention, she glanced down at her right side. This wound hurt the most of the two, as Soujirou here had pierced through her whole right side. Grimacing, she gingerly touched the lip of the wound, and jerked her hand away suddenly as waves of pain shot through her side. The blood was still flowing there, the wound too deep to close off yet.
"That's a lot of blood there," Kaoru heard the boy say, and she lifted her sapphire eyes to throw him a quick glance. To her horror, he was staring at her bleeding, deep side gash with something like pride in his sparkling eyes. Swallowing her anger and disgust, she opened her lips to ask him a single, important question: "Where are we?"
She just wanted to throttle him when he gave one of those awful grins again.
"This is Shishio's headquarters--where he mainly is, if he isn't out conquering villages," Soujirou said with a slight smile. "Destroying the villages," he added, after a moment. Bloodlust flashed in his eyes.
Kaoru, shuddering, tore her attention away from the smiling Soujirou and scanned Shishio's room with her eyes. Even now, she couldn't believe that she was here, actually here, in his headquarters. This was the place where Shishio made all of his horrible plans, which usually involved the murdering of many people. In this room, Shishio had also planned on how to defeat and kill Kenshin, Kaoru thought, a shudder passing through her pained body.
Kaoru craned her swan's neck to see what was behind the couch. Behind, heavy red drapes hung on the wall (she wasn't even sure if that was really a wall, or if the red drapes were covering a secret passageway). Consecutive to the red-draped wall were the other three wooden walls.
The room's rug was a shade of green, the rug covering a hardwood floor. Next to the cloth-draped couch stood a beautifully carved side stand. A large burning candle stood on the stand, offering the only light in the dim room.
Then came a sudden, loud noise at the doors.
Kaoru snapped to attention, fixing her eyes on the wooden doors directly opposite of her. A painful throb was again pounding in her left shoulder and right side, as her heart thudded loudly. She was sure Soujirou could hear her; perhaps even the people on the opposite side of the wooden doors could hear her too.
The doors creaked open, and Kaoru kept her suddenly terrified gaze on whoever was to be revealed behind the doors. Soujirou's face had now acquired a beaming smile, but Kaoru's face was fearful, cerulean eyes large in her pale face. Her long dark hair fell around her shoulders, framing her pallid complexion.
A long, dark shadow fell into the room. Shishio stood there, framed by the hall's light, silhouetted brilliantly like the feared demon he was. Bandages wound all around his lean, muscular body; tufts of hair sprung out from between the bandages at the top of his head; much of his body was covered by a dark blue robe. He held an aura of horrifyingly dark power around him, frightening to behold. Behind him, a beautiful pale- complexioned woman wore a sweeping red gown, edged in a yellow and black sash.
Kaoru felt her heart thud quicker, in time to a 300-beat song.
"Shishio," she whispered, finally managing to find her voice.
TO BE CONTINUED
Author's Note: I didn't like this chapter much, really. My mind kept drifting to other things, and I couldn't seem to muster up details. But here it is, and I hope you guys will be looking forward to the next chapter! (Hopefully, it'll be much more interesting than this one.)
-Twilight Sky