It's been almost a year, hasn't it? Wow. Sorry everyone, especially those of you who have been reviewing!
I know I've been asked to translate the chapter titles, and no worries, I will, but not for a while . . . .
Chapter 10: Coniurationem Tiberius Invenit
Tohru screamed and was ripped from her sleep once again. She shot up straight in her bed and half-crashed into, and was half-caught by Shigure, who had been sitting on the side of the bed, waiting vigilantly for the nightmare to end. He pulled her promptly into an embrace, patting her head and murmuring, "Shh, it's alright, it's over." It took her some time to remember where she was, but once she did, she collapsed again into sobs. Shigure rocked her gently.
Somehow, shame and embarrassment managed to prod their way through the choking fear. Tohru opened her mouth several times, and the word she struggled to produce wrestled with her sobs. "I-I'm - hic - s-so sorry. I k-keep – "
"What did I tell you about that word?"
Tohru sobbed meekly, and altered her last sentence. "I-I keep seeing a face. A terrible face!"
"It's ok. There's only you and me here." He paused, considering his next words. "Tohru-kun?" he asked, pulling back a little. "Is this the same dream as before?" Tohru nodded. "This face. Do you remember it?"
Tohru realised the importance of this question instantly. Before she had remembered nothing about her nightmare but the remaining abject terror. Now, she did indeed remember a few details of the face, and that there had been a face, but it had faded in her memory already. "It's a man," she began quickly, as if racing against an invisible tide of oblivion. However, Shigure still had to coax the words out of her. (She was still worried about being a bother). "A young man, with black hair. I . . . I forget most of the details, I can't see his face clearly in my mind, but he's . . . very beautiful. Very beautiful, but," she shivered unconsciously, "but it's hard to notice how beautiful he is because he looks so dangerous . . . . He looks like he hates me. He voice is . . . twisted somehow, as if there are two voices there instead of one, like a strange echo follows his. And – "
She suddenly cut off, and Shigure had to press her for more details. "And what, Tohru-kun?" She shuddered again. "Tohru-kun, speaking about it won't bring him here," he admonished gently.
"His eyes," the girl whispered. "His face is so gentle except for them. They're so cold. Freezing. It was as if all the warmth in the world disappeared." Tremors ran though her again. "He hates me . . . . He really, really, hates me and I've no idea why. He says – " she struggled to get her next words out, "such terrible things to me."
"Like what?" Shigure's response was lightning-quick.
Somewhat offput by his tone, Tohru nonetheless answered quickly. "H-he says he's coming. H-he says he's coming to get me, and do bad things to me. He says . . . it's all my fault." Once again, although the reason escaped her, a sickly wave of shame washed over Tohru's heart. "Your fault. All. Your. Fault." "It's all your fault!" She couldn't escape the feeling of culpability, bad memories of reality mingling with the memories of her dream. She remembered the fury in his face as he –
"What is?" Tohru blinked and stumbled, as it were, back into reality. Shigure had pulled back and was gently shaking her unresponsive form, his hand resting on her shoulder.
Once she connected meaning to his words, she answered furtively, as if she thought he could read her mind and detect the shameful memories she had been wading through. Her fear shape-shifted once again – it had not left her since she awoke, but had merely changed it source; first the man in her dreams, then him, and now the man from the dream, once more. "I-I don't remember. Something terrible, though. He says I've done something awful. He says I deserve what he's going to, to, to do to me. He says – "
"Hush." Shigure leaned forward and touched her cheek lightly once she began to become hysterical. "It's ok. I'm here to look after you, remember?" She didn't object at all to his gesture; a far cry from her cowering the night before. "And you haven't done anything wrong. Nothing. Remember, evil people and so forth?"
They both sat in the silence, both lost in the unhappy contemplation of Tohru's nightmare, both trying to conceal it (and only one succeeding). After a while, Tohru mumbled, "Shigure-san, may I ask you a question?"
"Go right ahead."
"Wh-why are you . . ." (Shigure could immediately sense she'd had a hard time deciding whether or not to brave asking this question) " . . . forgive me, I'm not implying anything at all, I was just wondering . . . . wh-why are you so kind to me?"
Shigure was (slightly) taken aback. "Kind?" He smirked. "I'm a kidnapper, remember?"
"B-but, aside from that – "
"Why? How are kidnappers supposed to behave? You'll have to excuse me, it's my second day!" He wasn't taking her question very seriously.
"N-no, I-I didn't mean it that way, Shigure-san. I . . . . I don't mean you as a kidnapper. I just mean you, as you. You and Hatori-san . . . If you understand what I mean." When she was met with silence, Tohru continued, "I mean, you've gone to so much trouble to make me feel safe, a-and you, Shigure-san, you've paid so much undeserved attention to me after my bad dreams, and Hatori wasn't mad at me after I broke the bowls, and you both say such nice things to me and I," (she realised she had been babbling, so she bowed, sitting half-covered in bed as she was, and lowered her voice with her head), "I don't do anything to deserve it."
Tohru raised her head to find Shigure staring at her in a most disconcerting fashion
Shigure turned his head off to the side, lost in thought. His arms had fallen away from Tohru. She misinterpreted his silence. "Ano, Shigure-san?"
"I'm not angry," he said a little too quickly. Tohru observed him, wide-eyed. "Really, I'm not," he said again. "I just . . . don't understand how you can keep getting it so wrong." Tohru cocked her head to the side, confused. "I'm the one who . . . ." He stopped himself and looked off to the side, but quickly recovered. "Why is Tohru-kun kind enough not to be angry with me?"
"Eh? I . . . I couldn't be angry with you Shigure-san, you – "
" – have done a very bad thing to you. Continue to do so. Will you forgive me for it, Tohru-kun?"
". . . . . O-of course, Shigure-san. Every time."
"Thank you." And he tapped her nose with his index finger. "So I'll make it up to you by being "kind", as you put it."
"I've troubled you terribly."
"No trouble, I'm still up. I'm trying to find my identity again." Tohru had nothing to say to that, and could only offer a wide-eyed, confused stare. Identity? Shigure laughed at her bewilderment. "Perhaps you could help me?"
The missing link had been dancing on the edge of her vision for some time – she finally caught sight of it. "The Romans? Shigure-san, do you want to know which one you are?" He nodded. "I'd love to help, it sounds like so much fun!"
"Fetch a dressing gown or a haori from the closet then, it's cold downstairs."
Sitting on the couch downstairs, Gibbon's book or bundles translated of Shigure's translated notes laid out on their laps, Tohru and Shigure didn't exactly accomplish the task, despite both being buried in their research, but Shigure's ulterior motive was satisfied; Tohru quickly forgot her anxiety and engrossed herself in the search with the characteristic devotion she found for the most menial, some would say, childish tasks. She was an endearingly inquisitive soul, and it was a pleasure to teach her about the various rulers and prominent figures of the Roman Empire. And although she never lost the timid hesitance which came before posing a question, Shigure felt that the wavers were becoming different – her natural bashfulness was a more dominant source than fear.
But fear, to his dismay, remained, even a small amount.
And her judgment, to his further dismay, was painfully inaccurate. Tyrant after tyrant was rejected by Tohru, as of course, those men could never represent a man as good as Shigure.
Rejected wasn't even a suitable word for her actions. Each time she ended an analysis of a despot and moved to place their notes and picture on the table, she stopped and scanned the image of the coin or ancient bust which portrayed (probably quite inaccurately) their long-dead-and-rotted features with sad brown eyes. She sat unmoving for some time in this manner. The first time she did this, it had taken Shigure a while to notice, as he was reading some notes of his own. He raised his head and took in her sad face. "Tohru-kun?" She was jolted out of her meditation, and turned to her companion. "Are you alright? You look so sad," he had said.
"Ano, I'm fine, thank you, Shigure. I was just thinking . . ." She looked back at the picture and attempted to change the subject. "Ano, you aren't Domitian-san . . . h-he was . . ." Her voice dissipated again, making Shigure wonder if she suffered a physical impediment to using those word which could describe "Domitian-san".
He didn't give up. "What were you thinking?"
Tohru stared at the picture, her eyes swimming in unfallen tears. "I wonder . . . . if there was something painful . . . . something Domitian-san was suffering from deep inside . . . . I wonder if there was something painful that made him do all those bad things."
Shigure couldn't even smile at that. The child put the papers on the table, on the spot where the "Rejected pile" (such as it was) would grow. "Um, I'm sorry. I say very strange things sometimes. I-I hope I didn't – "
"No, no." Domitian. Mailicious creature, you aren't satisfied by physical scars, so you haunt her nightmares even now, and yet she shows you such compassion without even realising it. "Would you like some tea, Tohru?"
The game continued until Shigure noticed the absence of her light movements on the edge of his vision, and the corners of his mouth curled up when saw that she had fallen asleep, her body sagged against the armrest. With a silent prayer to "whoever may be listening" that she would be free from her nightmares, he rose with the intention of carrying her back upstairs. He gathered her gently into his arms and headed to the door of the room . . .
And froze.
Perched on the windowsill outside, within the boundaries of the light from the window which tore the otherwise unbroken blackness of unihabited land, was a single small white bird. And tied to the bird's thin leg was a letter. The little creature had been observing him for who knew how long with keen black eyes, waiting patiently to be relieved of its burden. Almost challenging him to relieve it, or so it seemed to Shigure.
Tohru produced an unconscious whimper which brought his attention back to his own burden, and he quickly loosened his grip which had grown painfully tight. His fingertips had dug into her arm and leg at the sight of the messenger. To be so put off by a damn bird. He attempted an inward laugh as he set Tohru back down on the cough, and walked back to the window with a slow and measured step. He opened it, and was stung in unison by the cold and by the bird's small claws as it settled on his arm. The letter untied, the animal disappeared once again into the darkness.
Shigure turned back towards Tohru but didn't move away from the window, feeling the cold air pour upon his back. He stared hard at her for a long time before opening the envelope and thrusting his hand inside.
He pulled out a flower. It was lifeless and limp, and its petals were brittle and brown at the edges. More petals, all in the same sorry state, fell out of the envelope and littered the floor at Shigure's feet, and upon closer inspection, Shigure found rips and tears in them which had obviously been made by human hands. Human hands which were careful and calculating in their work, and which had produced many small gashes in each petal without completely destroying the plant. They looked . . . . painful.
Shigure held the flower up so that it was right next to Tohru in his line of vision. A blackness to rival the night had settled in his eyes, and had she awoken and seen him, she may have thought she was in another nightmare. More time passed before another whimper and a shiver from the child reminded him that it was getting cold, se he closed the window, pausing to gaze into the darkness solemnly.
Stroking one fragile, tattered petal and with a dark imitation of his usual levity, he chuckled, "Oh Akito, Akito. That boy really is too poetic for someone his age. He should get out more."
The sunlight, cloaked in iron clouds as it was, possessed the particular cold quality winter so often succeeds in infecting it with. Shigure shifted morosely, robbed of the few hours of sleep he had attained on the couch. I miss sleep. He pulled himself from his seat with regret and stretched without conviction.
The clock read ten o'clock. This was surprising for two reasons.
One: It meant that he had slept longer than any night since the unpleasantness.
Two (confirmed by a quick and quiet look into her room): It meant that Tohru had slept to a significantly un-Tohru-like time. He thought back to her pale appearance on her first day of captivity and wondered how long these nightmares had been affecting her. At least she was catching up on some sleep now.
It is a well-known and established fact that phones have an innate ability to sense when their shrill voices are least wanted. And, on cue, the phone rang at just that moment. Shigure hastily picked it up, mindful of the second phone upstairs which might wake Tohru.
"Have you heard?" Tiberius.
"How did you get this number, Mayu-chan?"
"It's called "Omniscience of the Ex-Girlfriend", Shigure, and it's a power as old as time itself. There was no answer at your house. So, have you heard about Honda?"
This intrigued Shigure. He had been sure no-one in Tohru's family would dare reveal her whereabouts. He had been certain no-one would find out. This was, quite honestly, a development he had not foreseen. Which intrigued him. "Elaboration?"
"She was kidnapped, Shigure. The day I last saw you."
"By who?"
"Well obviously if we knew, this wouldn't be a problem."
"And who told you this? Have the police been called?" He (very successfully) tried to speak without a trace of concern and only with mild interest.
"Hanajima. Apparently she and Uotani went to the Honda residence looking for Tohru, and were told that she'd been snatched the night before and that a private detective was on the case."
"Private? Doesn't that mean you shouldn't know?"
"Hanajima said she thought I should know, whatever she meant by that." Shigure thought about this for a while. Saki-chan always did seem about five steps ahead of everyone else. Could she have known Mayuko would contact him? . . . . Somehow he doubted it. Saki had a gift, no doubt about it, but it had never proven itself to be very . . . . . specific. "I mean, what the hell am I supposed to do!"
That little outburst halted Shigure's train of thought. At last he detected the underlying strain in her voice, like an elastic band stretched to breaking point. She was worried. Truly worried. And furious at her powerlessness. He knew.
He knew that feeling all too well.
"And why are you so quiet?" The elastic snapped.
"I beg your pardon? What are you talking about? What do you expect?"
"Just say something!"
Mayuko was now yelling. Shigure was surprised at how much her yelling surprised him. Mayuko did not yell. She had a very colourful array of method for getting her anger across, and yelling did not generally feature among them. "Why are you telling me this exactly, Mayu-chan?" he asked, injecting as much nonchalance into his voice as he could.
He could almost hear her gathering the shards of her lost temper together and holding them in place by sheer force of will alone. "I don't know . . . . I guess . . . some small, small, soon-to-be-carefully-disposed-of part of my mind thought you might be concerned. Or I thought you should know because you are . . . . you were her . . . ." she fell silent and exhaled loudly. "You know what, nothing. Nothing. Hell, I think I just wanted you to feel some-damn-thing. Alright? Do you feel anything? . . . . You know what, forget it. Just forget it. I've let you know, and if you hear or see anything suspicious call the police, and, so on."
"Well actually I do happen know exactly who has taken Tohru-kun."
"Who?" Mayuko was no doubt too nonplussed to react otherwise.
"Me."
After a few moments, Shigure heard the hollow yet assertive imapct of a fist against a wall (or possibly a table). "Yeah. Alright. Great. Either you've gotten even crazier, or your jokes have gotten even worse." Her sarcasm barely chained her previous raw fury.
Time for the "solemn voice", he thought. "I'm quite serious. It was me."
Shigure counted the drips the tap in the kitchen gave out in the following drawn-out silence. And when the teacher next spoke, her ability to hiss even the syllables which did not contain an "s" was quite astonishing.
"You have thirty seconds to tell me your extremely good reason for doing this, youmistake of nature, before I hang up and call the police."
"She was in danger."
"I beg your pardon?"
"When you say "thirty seconds" do you count the time eaten up by your many, many interruptions?"
"Shut up. What are you talking about?"
Shigure sighed heavily. "Listen, what I did, I would not have done had I had an alternative, alright? She was in danger, and she still is. That's a fact, by the way. I know that she is, and I know who from, as well."
Mayuko started several sentences which expired quickly in her mouth before at last, a few escaped. "That's insane. Do you expect me to believe that? In that case, why didn't you go to the police? You were certainly very insistant you stay out of Honda's life a couple of days ago."
"The police are not an option." He said it with a steely edge he was sure even she would not question.
"And what kind of omnipotent law-transcending being concerns itself with an ordinary teenage girl?"
"The same kind who concerns himself with pulling out the eyes of perfectly ordinary doctors." That produced the desired effect on her, needless to say. Mayuko said nothing. A feather-light thudding above the ceiling, so faint it was barely there, could be heard in the ensuing silence. "I've got to go, Mayu-chan. Tohru-kun's up."
"Ha-," a few moments passed while Mayuko's dry throat creaked back to life. "Hang on. Let me talk to her."
"I can't. Her memories are still gone. If she figures out that you and I know each other, she might start remembering other things. Her memories have to stay hidden."
"You . . . you really wanted to cut her out, didn't you? . . . . Oh, why don't I call the police right now?"
"I don't know. Why aren't you going to?" He knew why, though. He had struck her Achilles' heel. The memory of Kana's illness would hold her back for a few days at least. It would hold her back long enough, in any case.
A pause. "And you promise she'll be safe, right? Do you promise? Swear it. Promise me you won't let anything happen to her."
Tohru's footsteps met the top of the stairs. Mindful of this and somehow finding himself in an impossible situation, Shigure answered, "Oh, Mayu-chan. All the people I've promised that to, and somehow I can't promise it to you. No idea why. You're too incisive, I suppose . . . . . . I'll do my best. Is that alright Mayu-chan? Can I do that? Terrible things are going to happen, and by the end no-one will trust me, not even her. Already I don't trust myself. So will you, Mayu-chan? If you trust me to do my best, that's more than any wise person should. Will you?"
The phone was hung up, and dirty, ragged petals danced around his feet.
So sorry everyone!
I said before and I'll say it again – it may take ages, but I'm finishing this story! But do tell me, how is Mayuko coming across? I found her chacter a little difficult in this chapter. Is she in character? Does she sound right? Thank you!