Author's Note: Hello again! See, I'm updating on time now! As always, I own the same things I mentioned back in chapter 1. Poor Seiko! I feel really bad for doing this to him, but it had to be done! Don't worry though, I make up for it in the next few chapters. It has to get worse before it can get better, ne? Thank you again for all of your reviews, and please do keep reviewing! Whether it be ideas or suggestions on how I can improve my writing or just telling me that I should go die in a hole, I'll be happy to get a review.

To Alex Bloody Rabbit: Thanks so much! It's so fun to write Kyoya evil, especially since I don't see many fanfictions that do it. That being said, I do worry sometimes about making him seem out of character. Kyoya has some…interesting thoughts about Kyoya, and vice versa. They'll be revealed eventually, but not in the super near future. I've written up to chapter 11, and they still haven't voiced their thoughts yet, so yeah, it'll be a while. But it's coming! xD

Enjoy the story! (Although, you might not actually enjoy this chapter…)

Kyoya slid the knife along Seiko's left arm, leaving trails of ripped cloth and blood in his wake. (They had drawn a line with fake blood on his arm under the long sleeves before they started filming.) Seiko clenched his hands into balls and uttered a nearly inaudible, realistic hiss of (false) pain.

"An innocent angel are you still?" Waiting for an answer, Kyoya retracted the knife.

Seiko spit at Kyoya's feet, barely missing on purpose. (Oh how he hated this; such a disgusting peasant he had to play. Being rude and outgoing was not his nature, acting or not!) "Aye, and a terrible demon are you still."

Kyoya's eyes flashed with rage. He (appeared) to lunge the knife into Seiko's stomach, twisting and causing an onset of (fake) blood to drip through the hole the knife had created. Seiko arched his back, attempting to distance himself from the knife that (supposedly) plagued his stomach.

Kyoya snatched the knife away and tossed it behind him on the floor. He retrieved a pair of copper boots from the table along with a bucket of water. Kyoya judged Seiko's reaction as removed his shoes and forced his shackled feet into the boots. Seiko looked unconcerned for the fate of himself or his feet.

Kyoya poured the bucket of boiling hot water into the boots. (It was actually room temperature water, with a few added effects from Kyoya to make it look like steaming, bubbling water.)

Had there been a contest to determine who was quicker, a strike of lightning or Seiko's eyelids bolting shut, Seiko would have won by a substantial amount. He released a scream through his teeth; he adjusted his breathing pattern to match that of someone in equal amounts of moderate pain and fear. "A-an angel still am I. I-I will be avenged by my brethren for your transgressions!" stammered Seiko while he struggled against his chains in discomfort.

"Believing something does not make it so." Kyoya removed the boots from Seiko's feet. They were red and blistered, and the skin was peeling off in some places. (This was also done by the twins. Seiko wondered if there was nothing they couldn't do with makeup.)

"Your mother must have told you that when you realized how ugly you are." Seiko cracked a half-smile, even managed a tired laugh that turned into a small cough.

Seiko could see Kyoya harboring a small grin from underneath his hood. It was quickly gone, however, as he adjusted his glasses and resumed his role of brutal torturer. He picked up a whip and The Heretics' Fork from the table, gray eyes dancing wickedly.

Knowing very well what was to come, Seiko set his chin firmly down so that it was resting on the base of his neck with little space in between. Kyoya, simply not having any resistance, pushed his chin erect, none too gently, but, of course, not hurting Seiko. He placed The Heretics' Fork underneath Seiko's chin. (The points of the fork were fake, plastic, and not at all sharp, but no one would be able to see close enough to discern the difference between it and a real one.)

Seiko kept very still, not wanting to worsen his situation by agitating the fork. Albeit, he had a feeling that was where the whip came in.

Kyoya cracked it against Seiko's body and withdrew it so quickly that one would not be able to notice it had not even touched him, only ghosted against his perspiring, bloodied skin. He haunted Seiko with it, nearing closer to him every time, more forceful every time. Seiko leaned back to avoid it every time, and every time was reminded of the fork's presence as it burrowed into his skin.

Seiko audibly whimpered when Kyoya feathered it within a second's length of his face. "I..."

Kyoya paused his whipping. "Yes?" the word slithered out of his mouth, convincing enough to fool even a snake that it was not one of them.

"Hope I you can do better than this. T'is not sufficient to frighten my grandmother, except perhaps your face. And blind she is." Seiko learned quickly not to speak as the fork nestled into his chin and neck, making itself very comfortable.

"That is your wish? Have you more? I will do as genies do and grant your wishes, then." Kyoya gripped the whip so tightly in anger that the handle shattered, sending a few pieces into his skin and drawing blood. Not a good sign, Seiko knew, as he knew that blood was not fake. There was a faint undertone in Kyoya's voice unrecognizable to Seiko, a pea underneath a mattress.

"Believe I it is in your best interest to wish for a new face first!" Seiko stopped to think for a moment. "As well as a brain. An innocent angel cries from the pits of Hell for someone to save him for surely this demon will devour me, life, soul and all!"

Kyoya wordlessly released Seiko from his chains and dragged him to The Rack placed in the direct line of sight of the camera. Seiko once again found his arms and legs bound, but he was laying horizontally on his back this time.

Seiko began to worry as Kyoya placed his hands on the crank. This one looked very real. Kyoya wouldn't...would he?

"Your fellow angels"—he spat the word—"are unable to hear you over the wails of the damned. Any last words before you join them?"

Seiko would have said, "Only that I am sorry your face will be the last thing I see," but he was too preoccupied with other thoughts. Other thoughts such as whether he actually would join "the damned." Seiko did not trust people. Period. He just didn't do it. And now, Kyoya standing with his hand on a crank to a possibly real torture device, he sure as hell had another perfectly good reason why people couldn't be trusted.

He turned the crank. Seiko waited, body tense in anticipation. Nothing happened—

And then Seiko felt his limbs being slowly stretched apart. His eyes widened. His breath hitched. His brain travelled back to a memory in the past with every deliberately slow crank of the wheel. A memory Seiko did not want to revisit. A horrible memory that would inevitably seem so much less awful in comparison to this one being created painfully slow now. Up until now, Seiko had not felt pain, physically, merely slight discomfort. His arm popped, cutting through the silence like scissors through paper.

"That which is broken cannot be broken more."

"See we shall."

And Kyoya and Seiko both knew that the shivering, wide-eyed boy laying in The Rack was all the proof anyone would ever need. No no no no. He refused. He was not a tree. He would not bend in the wind. He would neither bend nor break. No no no no no. "No no no!" he screamed, he shouted, he writhed, he seethed! "No!" But what other options were there? None but yes.

"'No' what? 'No' could mean a lot of things. Please do specify." Kyoya, intent on playing his part to the end, said emotionlessly. There was no smirk, no chuckle, no relenting in this nightmare. There was nothing, as there had always been and would always be. He was nothing. But he felt everything.

"No, I will not break! I am angel! My wings have been shredded, my body has been mangled and marred, but I am still and angel and no one can change that otherwise!" Seiko bellowed; it was possibly the loudest he had ever spoken in his life. He was no longer acting. Had he ever been? Yes, at the beginning. But when had he slipped from a doomed peasant back into his own tortured skin? Mother, Father—

"What will break first, I wonder? Your body, your mind, or your soul?" Kyoya did not release his death grip on the crank.

Seiko's arms and legs were stretched taut. Even the smallest shift in the wheel vibrated through his body, bouncing around and magnifying the pain. He closed his eyes and titled his head up to the sky. Mother, Father, "Let it all end!" he cried to the skies, he cried to his parents, he cried to the lost and broken pieces of his former and current self. "Please, God, just let it all end!" he raved until his throat burned raw.

Simultaneously, a clap of thunder shook the building harshly enough to knock the wood off of one of the windows, and Kyoya jumped back from the crank like it had hurt him and not Seiko. Seiko's superficial breathing was nearly nonexistent as he gently turned his head to the window. The sun was shining. Laughing at him. Mocking him.

"Shall not even you cry for me, rain, my tears, my friend?" he whispered to the window. "Shall not even you cry for me, my parents, when I cried for you?" his voice quieted with every word breathed. "Shall the world rejoice at my passing? Can not even the oceans spare a tear for me? Must I die as I have lived, with nothing?" His questions were answered by the silence, the shadows, his dry face. They said nothing, yet they said everything. And, having his answer, he was still.

"Let it all end."

Seiko would not sleep. He would not eat. Would not do anything, speak to anyone. He had helped Kyoya put away the supplies out of courtesy, but did not attempt to make conversation, and pointedly ignored Kyoya when he said anything, which was uncharacteristically often for him. But what did Seiko know about Kyoya? Not much before, and now, after the project, nothing, and he would prefer to keep it that way. In fact, he would prefer that everyone know nothing about him, and he nothing about them. In his solitary world of nothing, there would be nothing! No pain! No disappointment! No...nothing. No people. Just solitude. He would be utterly alone.

Seiko's heart trembled. Nothing. The word frightened him, he realized. He had fallen into a bottomless void, floating between the entrance and exit. Far away enough not to be saved, but not close enough for it to end. He had always had the impression that Kyoya was an opaque person, but what of himself? Who was he?

Seiko covered his ears. He did not want to hear what the voices, the shadows, his parents would say. Nothing. You are nothing.

Suddenly, Seiko did not want to be locked alone in his room with his thoughts any longer. But human company would hurt him, he worried. Not anymore than the voices would hurt him; not anymore than he would hurt himself. Seiko did not know what he wanted. But he knew it was not this.

He was thankful for the distraction when his cell phone rang. He answered without checking the caller ID. "Hello?" Was that frail, feeble sound really his voice? He felt as though he was observing himself from outside his body. Detached. Withdrawn.

"I assume you did not check your phone before answering it." Seiko could hear a condescending, know-it-all voice smirking on the other end.

"Correct. Is there something you require, Kyoya-senpai?" Seiko inquired flatly.

"I was calling to inform you that Tamaki has announced an unexpected club meeting in the music room in half an hour." Kyoya's voice turned slightly agitated when he mentioned Tamaki. "He says, 'It's important so the whole family has to come.'"

"I see. Thank you for alerting me of this. Of course I will oblige 'Daddy's wishes."

"Seiko-san."

Seiko did not want to talk about the project. For this reason alone, Seiko knew Kyoya was going to bring it up.

"We recorded excellent footage yesterday."

"Why did you call us here, Tono?" the twins inquired grouchily. Tamaki and Kyoya had been the only ones there when Seiko arrived. Seiko was surprised at how quickly Kyoya had gotten rid of all traces of their project from the room. Seiko wished he could eradicate it as cleanly and easily from his memory.

"You'll see." Tamaki sang while purring. Seiko raised an eyebrow at the Frenchman, but didn't comment. Seiko was thankful for the distraction of the other members entering; he did not trust himself to ponder over what Kyoya had said to him on the phone.

"They dragged you here, too, Seiko?" Haruhi sat beside Seiko on the couch, effectively sandwiching him between Tamaki and herself.

"I came on my own, but, had I not, I am certain that they would have dragged me here." Seiko mustered a meager smile.

"What's wrong, Seiko-chan? You look sad!" Honey and Mori sat on the other couch with Kyoya. The twins pulled up chairs on the empty side of the table.

Seiko unconsciously rubbed his arms. He wore long sleeves to hide the bruises. Seiko caressed the head of his cane, as he always did when he wanted to return to a familiar place and escape. He rebuilt the mask he had carefully constructed after his parents' death. Only, this time, it was a mask reinforced with iron and steel, and would never come off, never break. Seiko smiled at Honey. "I am quite well, Honey-senpai. I apologize if I have worried you. I simply did not have a pleasant"—a meaningful glance at Kyoya—"day yesterday."

Seiko's glance did not go unnoticed by even the densest host in the room. Sensing the tension, no one dared speak.

At length, it was Tamaki who broke the silence, of course. "I bet you're wondering why I've called you all here today!"

"Actually," Hikaru shrugged.

Equally as indifferent as his brother, Kaoru finished, "Not really."

Tamaki's face fell like a puppy refused a treat. "B-but—"

Haruhi groaned. Seiko imagined she wanted to return home as much as he did. "Come on, out with it, senpai!" she demanded, none too gently. But then again, you could never be gentle with Tamaki.

"Yay!" Tamaki whipped out an elegantly decorated box from behind his back. It was purple velvet swirled with gold decorations. He pulled the top off of it, and everyone peered curiously inside.

The box was empty.

"Tamaki-senpai, you dragged me all the way here for a damn empty box?" Haruhi glared at Tamaki.

He covered his ears, screeching, "Noooo! My children should not use such naughty words!"

Haruhi smirked. "Well, if you don't hurry the hell up and explain yourself, then I damn will."

Seiko laughed despite himself. He did not know Haruhi could be so...evil. He actually felt bad for Tamaki...a little bit. Just a little.

Tamaki laid scraps of paper and colored pencils on the table. Pointing to the materials, he expounded, "Decorate these slips of paper and write your names on them," he gestured to the box, "and then we put them in here and shake it."

Haruhi was not the only one growing irritated. Kyoya leered at Tamaki before pushing up his glasses and shielding his eyes. "Tamaki. Get to the point." he barked.

Tamaki squeaked a quick "eep!" before continuing with his explanation. "A-and after we shuffle it, you draw a name and whoever's name you get will be your partner."

Now even the twins looked ready to jump Tamaki. "In what?" they growled.

"I'll tell you after we have drawn names!" Tamaki threw paper and coloring utensils at them all. "Now make them pretty!"

They all followed his orders without complaint, in hopes that they would be able to go home sooner if they did. Seiko stared at the blank paper. What should he draw? He looked over at Haruhi and Tamaki's papers. They were both decorating it in ways that described them. He figured he would follow suit.

Seiko shaded the edges of his paper in a hazy gray-ish black fog. Lined the inside of the fog with brown and gold cogs, fitting into each other so perfectly that they appeared to be in motion. Inside of the cogs he drew music notes dripping in blood. Within those he soaked the page with rain, and through the clouds of them peered out a pair of eyes, one blue and the other covered by a veil of dark, depthless shadows. From a pair of lips whispered "Seiko," fading into the shadows and blending into the clouds and downpour of rain.

Seiko gazed fondly at the picture. For someone who did not know who he was, he had described himself rather well.

"Is everyone finished?" Tamaki looked up from his own drawing. The room had been silent save for the persistent tapping and brushing of pencils. Though they were all adamant on not participating in the beginning, everyone seemed to enjoy the activity. Or at least pretended to.

Upon their collective confirmation, Tamaki held up the box. "Show everyone your picture and then put it in here!" Tamaki held up his paper. "I'll go first."

It was framed in red roses, and inside of the frame was a piano keyboard and sparkling crowns. Very Tamaki-like indeed. He dropped it in the box. "Who's next?"

"We'll go." the twins both stood in front of the box. Hikaru held up his. A simple picture. It was covered in snow and said "Hikar" from left to right.

Kaoru smirked at everyone's confused expressions. He connected his slip of paper to Hikaru's. It too was covered in snow, but it said, "Kaoru" from right to left, so that the 'u' was joining both of their names.

Seiko smiled. It was comforting to have evidence that not everyone was alone in the world. They both released their papers together, allowing them to float down into the box.

"Haruhiiiii! I want to see yours!" Tamaki said excitedly.

She sighed and held it up for everyone to see. It was covered with drawings of fancy tuna.

The twins burst out laughing, and Tamaki hugged Haruhi, crying, "Aw my poor baby! We'll get you all of the fancy tuna you want!"

Honey's paper was adorned with childish pictures of assortments of cakes and Usa-chan. Mori's paper was...a stone wall. Seiko supposed it made sense, since Mori was the strong, silent type. Kyoya's was a sheen, plexiglas wall hiding a faint outline of a man in shadows. He unceremoniously dumped it into the box.

All eyes turned to Seiko. He delicately picked up his drawing, casting it one last glance. Then, he crushed it in his fist.

"Seiko!" Tamaki rushed toward him, trying to take the waded paper. "Why...? Why?"

Seiko unclenched his hand. The sheet of paper lay crumpled and torn in the center of his palm. "Why, you ask?" Seiko unfolded the worn paper as gently as one would handle a premature baby and held it out for them to see. "It did not properly describe me. Like me, it needed to be broken."