Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author Notes: My apologies for updating so late. I will do my best to be more regular and update weekly but I did not imagine my story to have this much support. From this chapter, this fiction's plot moves into AU. I hope the OOCness can be excused, please.
Replies to anonymous reviewers
Snowy1219: Thank you so much! :3 I'm relieved this rambling was not a waste of your time! I hope this chapter does not disappoint you, and if it does, I'm sorry :\
Guest: I'm so sorry I could not update sooner. But I will try from now on! Thank you for giving this rant a chance!
Guest: I really was not expecting so much support! Thank you very much, it means a lot!
Big thanks to Lord Nayrael, Awesome DT, Rose Rain 7, Dennou Writer, Guest, Guest, Snowy1219, Crossover to the Dark Side, Thantos the Forsaken, Izzywalz1999 and Uchiha Sakura 193. And I really appreciate all the other readers who are managing to put up with all this!
I really think I am going to mishandle this though. Again, apologies from an amateur! :[
The lights were brightly lighting the luxurious hall whose walls were bronze and engraved with panels and designs. In the middle stood a throne like sofa on a lavender sheet spread on lime green, square paned floor, surrounded by people in suits. People whom the still conscious girl had now understood to be rats in disguise. The only reason she had opened her eyes at all was because a lime green curtain was drawn over the container in which Yura and she were kept. The container gave her a horrible feeling of possible lifelong captivity since it was exactly like the one where zoo animals were kept.
Her eyes kept widening more and more at what she was currently hearing: the voice of her childhood friend and in fact, the person she had not expected to see until morning.
"Y-You tricked me…" the weakness in his tone drifted clearly through the muffling effect of the curtain. A contrast so stark with his cheerful, helpful light tenor that the brunette wanted to rush out to check on him, ask him what on earth he was doing here
"Sorry," began a falsely oily voice she was now unpleasantly familiar with, "I told my men to give you a warm welcome but they misunderstood,"
It became clear to the twelve year old that the next parts would require more attention. Ever since she had had the whim to just play along with her kidnappers, she had resolved to use her brain like never before as she could obviously do nothing with her body, not against youkai especially. She was losing the will with each passing moment, her hold on the tiny sliver of hope that they would make some kind of advantageous mistake, slipping.
"No matter how cowardly and useless you may be, you're still, after all, the future Third Head of the Nura Clan,"
Kana Ienaga's mouth flopped open in shock and was about to emit a sound when she hurriedly covered it with her hand. She went over and over the twelve fated words as much as possible in the gap of his speech, her eyes trembling. As an innumerable amount of questions passed in her head with each repetition, she started letting out tiny, meaningless gasps out of sheer speechlessness.
"Let the girls go!" exclaimed the earlier new arrival, preceded by a gasp of pain.
"The emblem of the Nura Clan no longer has the power to satisfy the desires of our clan," went on the voice of the kidnapper, smoothly.
At this point, Kana's head was no longer being stormed by the questions. It was reduced to focusing on selected keywords in the dialogue and trying to make sense out of them. The word 'clan' was also now added to that process.
"No one cares about honor or about loyalties anymore. Those are all things of the past. Do you understand?"
He must have given a signal, for at that moment, the curtain was opened on both of them, seemingly unconscious. The light of the room seeped in, threatening to make the brunette, who had in the nick of time assumed a swooned pose, furrow her eyebrows.
"Kana-chan! Keikain-san!"
The shouts of her childhood friend rang in her ears, bringing a confused mix of new sensations into her already packed mind. If she had to prioritize and was given the chance to say something, it would be different than how she would have reacted if the black-haired onmyouji was not with her. Rikuo-kun, please, just… stop...this was not helping her. But, for some reason, his yell made a feeling of relief pass through her which she could not explain.
Through her ears, she caught him making his way to their prison when a soft thud followed by stuttering sounds from the boy. A harder thud indicated that he had fallen to the floor. Before she could ponder much over that, the leader of this group went on.
"I do this for the sake of your clan. It won't be able to survive with the old school youkai you lead. I want you to announce that you will not become the Third Head."
"O-Okay," stammered Rikuo Nura, still out of breath, "You'll let the girls go if I do, right?"
"By tonight I want you to inform to every clan leader in the country of your decision. And if you fail at completing what I just asked of you, I will kill both these girls at the very first light of dawn."
The rustling of clothes indicated that he was getting up. The brunette could hear her evidently hurt friend leaving the premises with slow, unsteady footsteps. She waited with baited breath for more to happen, all the while overloading her frightened mind with more questions. Only after she heard the doors clang shut did she start thinking about all of them one at a time.
'Send someone to inform the Third Head,' this rat had said back then. While thinking about it, she had assumed he would be someone who needed the young Keikain or herself for something. And this Third Head turned out to belong to a clan called 'Nura' and was her old friend 'Rikuo'. She considered whether she had mistaken his voice but she concluded that she knew it far too well.
"My grandpa's the Supreme Commander of youkai!" exclaimed the young brunet, raising both small fists into the air and standing up amongst all the seated children in his class.
Kana nearly gasped in disbelief. It was unnerving, how the memory from so long ago had popped up at such a sudden time. If she put this and the recent events together…even then it seemed nonsensical to her. More faces of the same person flashed in her head over and over again until with a grimace, she shut them out. If she did not accept this fact without questioning it for the time being at least, her whole farce would get discovered as her restlessness would force her to shout his name at thin air.
The rat talked about 'clans'. Youkai clans. His was one of them and (ignoring another shocked mental yell) Rikuo's was one of them too. She tried to focus on what was more important for her and Yura because she doubted she would understand much of this by thinking about it in her state. She went over that conversation with her future involved – what the rat demanded from her classmate. He had agreed, that much was easy to see but…
"…you'll let the girls go if I do right?"
"By tonight I want you to inform every clan leader in the country of your decision…"
Her paranoia must have increased manifold as she found so many uncertainties in those words, she was amazed the brunet had not seen them too. Had he actually said yes to his question? He had said he would kill them at dawn, but there were plenty of other things he could do with them. He may even keep them alive but not give them back as his words had only talked about killing, only giving his orders…with no guarantees, not even a simple yes.
How could he fall for this?
Even she was able to tell – his rat face with bared fangs and dilated pupils, alight with savage hunger…all of their faces, even those of the little ones'.
Smooth clanking of multiple pairs of shoes against the ground grew steadily louder. There was someone approaching them, another one of the rats here.
"What a waste!" his lazy drawl of a voice said, "I mean you're not really going to hand these kittens to them are you?"
The question of truth…knowing he was looking straight at them did not make it any easier to keep an impassive face.
There was a louder thud of flesh against flesh heard, immediately followed by a breathless choking sound. Kana felt an eerie shiver pass through her as she realized that the sound, the groans did not stop but kept growing fainter and lower as though 'fading out' of the place. Then the hall was silent.
"I don't want to hear stupid questions," the remorseless leader commented, "These beauties are too good to let go. Don't worry; we're all going to have plenty of fun with them."
The reality of their situation, once again, sank in with horrible gravity. At that moment, she berated herself for even trying to see a ray of hope. All she was doing was being cruel to herself. What did it matter who they were, what they wanted and how could she even think that playing faint would help at all? All of his subordinates were just as excited as him, and were not solely obeying orders but also instincts. Why would they ever let them go? She was going to be chewed up just like a rice ball and nothing was going to change that. If this was not bad enough, Yura would be with her till the end, an onmyouji stronger than a normal human girl but driven to the same end by trying to save the human.
Her childhood friend (whoever he was or was not anymore) had tried the same and had been kicked out and likely forced to give up something big. It had to be big or these impatient, ravenous looking youkai would not have waited this long. No matter which way she looked at it right now, she was the one who had ended up dragging them both down. It had seemed so easy to call, plead and cry for help to her black-haired class fellow, finding her rescue in the Keikain's abilities. Little had she known that the onmyouji would be willing to go that far for her – reining back her shikigami and allowing herself to be captured, just to stop rats crawling over her. How preposterous a cause it seemed. What was she, compared to the ones who actually tried? Contrasting it to her near end now, she was hoping that she was back in that alleyway with smaller rat youkai creeping under and over her. How hard would chucking them away have been?
The atmosphere that Kiyotsugu Kiyoujuji so liked was prevailing for quite long. Jirou Shima's eyes darted back and forth as the wavy haired young man sat with both arms diagonally spread and eyes closed as though meditating. Yura Keikain silently stared at her surroundings with a sort of professional seriousness in her gaze. Their tea was in front of them, for the moment, steaming hot and requiring a little wait before it could be sipped.
"Yura-chan," began the brunette, simply to keep herself distracted until the expedition began, "Won't you need some help while you start out at our Middle School?"
The raven haired girl looked with a slight surprise at the brunette's smiling face.
"Well, I thought I'd get by somehow, but –,"
"Alright!" their 'patrol leader' loudly announced, breaking up their conversation, "Since we have some time before the tea cools a little, let's explore!"
Not responding with anywhere near as much enthusiasm, the members of the Paranormal Patrol got up together. As the two girls walked out behind the boys, side by side, Kana began once more.
"If you like, I'd be happy to give you my phone number! That way you can call anytime you need help!" she proposed brightly.
With her mouth slightly open and the placid look returning to her face, Yura stared at her for brevity. Then she smiled and reached in her pocket as they walked on the roka. Pulling out a grey money pouch, she handed it to the older girl and said:
"Just write it at the back of one of the receipts,"
As she was told, the twelve-year-old scribbled it at the back of the first receipt she saw. While she was writing, she realized they had fallen behind and the boys had already turned on the corner.
"Hey! Over here!" came the youkai fanatic's yell once again.
The onmyouji hurried forward to catch up with them while the student merely paused, contemplating that as big as this house was and as passionate as Kiyotsugu was, using the warmth of the tea had been a poor excuse to do an investigation. Yura had left her pouch with her too, left in such a hurry. The brunette shrugged, put the pouch into her pocket intending to return it later and went forward.
She had thought that she could be the one to help her friend. And to think this had all happened mere hours ago…
Lost in her fearful line of thoughts, she did not immediately react when she heard a soft female moan behind her. Then, there came a gasp.
"Ah, onmyouji girl," observed the rat leader, snidely, "Finally awake I see,"
"Huh? Ienaga-san!" gasped the onmyouji, sounds of her palms colliding with the floor heard as she crawled nearer.
The brunette groaned weakly. She had lost hope as soon as she had heard the youkai's instructions but now she could not continue this farce even if she wanted to. To be exact, there was no point in it.
"I told you she has nothing to do with this!"
How could the young Keikain still care about her? Her own life was in danger too or did she not realize that? But she seemed only concerned about getting her away. If this was an onmyouji's code or pride of some sort, then Kana did not have a chance of understanding it right now.
"Wishing you had this little scrap of paper?" asked the blond, disguised man and the noise of something being chewed and swallowed was heard, "I'm going to teach you that without your shikigami, you're just an ordinary girl."
Surprisingly, after that disturbing statement, footsteps indicated that he was walking away from them. She also guessed that from the sonorous ringing of steel, Yura had gripped the rods of the cage in desperation.
"Ienaga-san, wake up!" she whispered, her voice shaking.
When the brunette did not comply, being unable to face her after the end she felt responsible for bringing them to, the raven haired one crawled over to her again and tapped her head with her hand. Rendered unable to pretend any longer, the brunette, trembling, opened her wide brown eyes to meet another pair of brown ones, narrowed with worry. Blinking twice or thrice since used to black, she saw that the schoolgirl's face was pale, a single drop of sweat trailing on her cheek.
"Y-Yura-chan…" she still did not know what to say to her.
"I'm sorry, Ienaga-san," she gritted her teeth as she said this, "I couldn't protect you at all."
"Please, you can't blame yourself after all this," sniffed the older girl, tears threatening to fall from her eyes. I'm the only one who should take any blame here. We should have just gone home instead of wandering around. That's only one of the reasons you're in this mess.
"But I –" clearly, the Keikain heiress did not intend to just accept that.
"I-I didn't even get a chance to help you once and-and here you are, risking your life for someone you just met," it seemed very difficult to stop blurting it all out once she started.
Suddenly, Yura's eyes widened. Increasingly getting on the edge, Kana looked around frantically, expecting to see the rats surrounding their cage but it turned out that they were gathered around their leader, discussing something.
"Ienaga-san, my bag…you didn't give it back to me,"
Turning back to her, unable to understand why she would worry about the bag too more than herself, she fished it out of her pocket and handed it over.
"I-I'm sorry, I was going –"
"Hide me. Come in the front and put your face near the bars," hissed the onmyouji urgently, her face turning serious.
The brunette stared with wide open eyes, trying to figure out the intention. But the emergent gaze made her do as she was told and she crawled ahead and gripped the rods just like her friend had a few minutes ago.
Tears had begun falling down as she did not dare see more hope for their fate. This was all she could do, cry and scream…and apparently the former would cover for Yura just fine. These ayakashi seemed most enticed by a girl's distress. Wiping her tears, she gulped as she saw that horrendous natured, blond rat sneer gleefully at her face.
"Did you know?" he asked, walking toward her, getting up from the throne like sofa with his hands in his pockets, his subordinates also walking a little closer for a better look, "Human blood is at its thickest and most delicious, just before dawn?"
She blinked again, her mouth falling slightly open as he bared down on her, her shoulders shaking violently out of terror. In total panic, both inside and out, her eyes darted to the right to avoid looking at him. Here, she thought she saw a natto, bordering a wide eye that was staring at her, peeking from under the couch.
"No one's going to come to your rescue," she was forced to look at him again as he drew in a hand through the bars, which started making its way to her face. Cruel cackling escaped him as he savored her tear streaked face and she closed her eyes, unable to take much of it anymore. His hand had barely made connection with her skin when a voice behind her yelled:
"BUKYOKU!"