Chapter 9
Choice
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You may have noticed a lack of things such as action sequences in this fic. That is because, sadly, I suck at those. -.- I suck at coming up with them, and I suck at writing them. And to me, they're usually the least interesting parts anyway; I prefer to get right to the juicy stuff with character emotions.
:coughcough:
So yes. The reason why there's no action in this fic is... I suck. Thank you.
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He looked remarkably innocent, lying passed out on the floor. Yukito, looking through Yue's eyes, was glad for once of not having his own body; he was pretty sure that if he was himself, he would be throwing up right now. It was crazy, that someone so sick and twisted could just look so... so... normal.
He hadn't taken long to find. Kerberos and Sakura had suspected that he'd want to return to his base of operations, so they'd left some kind of alarm system to let them know when he returned. Yuki wasn't really sure how it worked, something about the Dash and Illusion cards. But because of it, they'd been able to surprise him. The long hallway leading to this room showed the damage from where the Wood card's branches had surged through, cracking the walls and smashing furniture, following Rand and tripping him up, crashing over him and knocking him to the ground.
Yuki forced himself to calm down, reminding himself that he was no longer in danger. This man couldn't hurt him again.
Sakura walked up to stand next to Yue over the body, the Wood card clutched in her hand. She took a deep breath. "Well, I guess it's time to do what we came here for. Tomoyo has our frog. I'm gonna go back and get it." She turned and dashed out the door, ostensibly to get the frog from Tomoyo, who had lagged behind. Yuki suspected that in reality, she had just not been comfortable standing next to him as he stared down at his rapist.
Yuki felt Yue clench his fists, as he continued to stare down at Rand. It was one of the only indications that Yue was angry, the only indication, in fact, that he felt anything at all. But Yuki knew Yue by now. He knew how to read the small signs. It was only because of his enormous amount of self-restraint that Yue had not lept onto the man and started gouging his eyes out.
This pleasant thought was interrupted by a throat-clearing from the doorway. Yue turned to look and Yukito saw Kerberos standing there, facing out the door in the direction Sakura had gone.
Without looking at Yue, Kerberos said, "If you do it now, and quickly, I'll tell her that you had to do it. I'll say he woke up, struggled, and you had no choice. But you have to hurry."
Yue turned back to the body. Yuki knew what Kerberos was suggesting. It wouldn't be difficult. But they would have to do it quickly, before Sakura returned.
Yukito? Yue asked. I could let you do it, if you wished. I would materialize the ice spear, then change, and you could do it with your own hands.
Yukito didn't respond. He felt... unsure. He knew that he should want it. He could imagine the feeling of triumph, rising like bile in his throat, as the ice spear pierced through the man's neck. For a moment he could almost feel himself pushing it in. The thought of victory burned in his mind like an angry wound, and he rode it out, imagining reveling in the feeling, letting it seep into his flesh.
And then suddenly in his mind's eye he saw Touya, and the feeling was replaced by icy cold as he imagined the disgust in Touya's eyes.
'No,' he told Yue. 'I just got this body clean, I'm not going to stain it again with blood, not even his. I couldn't face Touya if I wasted everything he did for me. Just... let him live. Why don't we just let Sakura do whatever it is she was planning. It... it wouldn't be worth it, to let someone die on one of her missions. She's so innocent still. It's the least we can do.'
It is your decision, said Yue. Are you certain?
Yuki took a deep breath. 'Yes. I'm sure.'
Yue bowed his head and said nothing, then turned to look over his shoulder, watching for Sakura's return.
There would have been plenty of time, if they had decided to do it. Sakura was away for so long that Yuki began to suspect that she was specifically giving them time to kill him if they wanted. Perhaps she was less innocent than she looked. By the time she returned, it was quite possible that Rand could have woken up; Yuki was a bit surprised that he hadn't.
Sakura looked a bit surprised when she returned to find Rand whole and still breathing, which supported Yuki's theory about the reason for her delay. But she was clutching the frog in one hand and her wand in the other and came forward resolutely.
"What took you?" Yue asked in his usual blunt, tactless manner.
Sakura jumped, and her face turned scarlet. "Oh, well, uh, um, it... it sort of escaped. So Tomoyo and I had to catch it."
Yuki doubted that, but Yue held his peace and didn't argue. Tucking the wand under her arm, Sakura drew out the Change card. Then she stepped forward and placed the frog on Rand's chest, hurriedly calling the card before the little creature could hop away.
"Change!"
A small point of green light, roughly the size of a marble and the shape of a tadpole, shot out of the frog and towards Rand. And the same time, a blue light of the same description left Rand, but this one was surrounded by a pale, glowing aura, a white sphere about half a foot in diameter.
The green light sunk into Rand without trouble, but the blue light, upon hitting the frog, seemed to shatter. The central spark, the tadpole-shaped blue light, shot through the white aura and into the frog, while the aura itself exploded. Shards of it drifted through the air, like glass feathers, and a large portion of them drifted towards Yue.
Yue closed his eyes and lifted his arms, and for a moment Yuki wondered what the hell he was doing. But then suddenly he felt the warmth returning to their body. He had been cold so long, he had forgotten that he had ever felt any different, but the sudden contrast reminded him of warmer, better days in the past. The stolen magic flooded back into him, and with a start, Yuki realized that he recognized it.
It carried a faint undertone, a special warmth and a barely noticeable flavor of peaches. Toya. Touya's magic that he had given to Yue, so much of which had been taken away. It flooded back into him, filling him up to the tips of his fingers, warming them and bringing life back, chasing away the lingering cold.
Yuki smiled to himself and gave a little shiver of pleasure. He hadn't been aware of how much he had missed the magic when it was gone. He couldn't use it himself, but the lack of it had made him feel hollow and incomplete. At the time, he had attributed it only to the rape, but now...
Now he could be warm again. He hadn't lost Touya's magic after all. He hadn't wasted the sacrifice.
Only now, as he released the worry, did he realize how much that had been troubling him.
"What do we do with the frog?" Kerberos asked.
They all looked down at it. It seemed to wobble around a bit woozily, as though it couldn't control its own body. Then suddenly it hopped forward twice, turned around, and hopped back onto Rand's body. Yuki tried to imagine Rand's mind in the tiny green body, but somehow he couldn't. It looked so much like a frog, moved so much like a frog...
"How can we be certain he is really changed?" Yue had read Yuki's thoughts and voiced his concern.
"Well," said Sakura, "the Change is supposed to be able to feel the results of its own spells. It should let us know if anything is wrong, and it hasn't."
Suddenly Rand's eyes opened. Yue took an involuntary step backwards, so great was the wave of Yuki's fear.
But Rand simply sat up and stared at the wall for nearly a minute. Then, startling them all again, his body jerked, twitching upwards slightly as though... as though he was trying to hop.
"I feel kinda sorry for the frog," said Tomoyo. Yue turned to look at her. When had she come into the room? She had her camera out as usual and was pointing it towards the newly changed pair.
"I'm sure he'll get used to it," said Kerberos cheerfully. The frog in Rand's body was now twisting his head around, trying to look around the room as much as possible. Then suddenly it spotted them and leaped backwards, or tried to, it's body sprawling in a heap as its new limbs failed to obey it.
"Hmmm," said Tomoyo thoughtfully. "Sakura?" she asked, "Can you make him little?"
"Why?" asked Sakura, though she was already reaching in her pocket for the card.
"I think I'm going to take him home," Tomoyo replied. "I'll take care of him, at least until I'm sure he'll be okay. It'll be fun, like having a pet." She smiled brightly.
This, thought Yukito, was certainly a coversation he had never imagined hearing.
Even Sakura sweatdropped. "Won't your mom think it's weird?"
Tomoyo continued to smile. "I'm sure she won't notice."
"Well, if you want," said Sakura, and threw the new card into the air. "Little!"
Moments later they were walking out the door, the new tiny Rand cupped in Tomoyo's hands. No one bothered to ask what they were going to do with the frog; they left him hopping around the room, looking distraught. As distraught as a frog could look, anyway. As they were leaving, Kerberos discreetly stepped on it, though not hard enough to kill it, Yuki was pretty sure.
Mostly sure.
Probably.
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