Author's Note: Hey there guys! I really hope you like this chappie, and if things are getting a little confusing, then the main plot will become clear in the next chapter beacuse if I keep this up, I'll confuse myself, lol! Anyways, please let me know what you think!! XxxxxxxxxxxX
Light footsteps reverberated along the cavernous hallways of the castle. Only minimal sunlight penetrated this fortress, and even that was limited by the high windows and muting blizzard raging outside. No noise penetrated the thick, almost-black walls; only intensified the sounds within.
"What's wrong … Toboe?"
Tsume looked to where the pup had only just woken up, cocking his head to the side and staring rather intently at the floor of the cell they were still trapped within. Hige was awake now aswell and looking to the youngest of their pack too.
"I thought I heard something …"
There it was again. There was no mistaking it; an echo of footsteps radiating up the halls. It was light and far away, but Toboe's hearing could clearly pick up on the noise, but it didn't seem to be getting any closer; more like further away to his perceptive hearing.
"This is the wrong way, I'm telling you!"
Karasuke cringed as her hiss seemed to bounce off the walls and snap back at her. The empty ornamental suits of armour watched blindly as the two intruders paused, the female pointing the opposite way to which they were walking. Casting a glance up at the high window they'd managed to get through, Kiba looked down to Karasuke, still wearing his jacket.
"How do you know?"
"I told you; I've been here before - up that way are the main chambers and family rooms, back my way leads to detainment cells, now come on!"
Grabbing a hand and sounding like a frustrated child, she yanked until Kiba followed, but immediately paused as she caught sight of familiar double doors. Dark stained wood that reached from floor to ceiling with ornate polished handles and intricate carved designs.
"Karasuke-"
"You go ahead … I'll catch up."
Despite the obvious want to question her motives, Kiba went ahead anyway; they had gotten this far and Jaguara would most likely soon be at the Keep aswell. So far they'd been blessed not to run into Darcia, but that was only luck; sooner or later he'd make an appearance and the white wolf wanted Toboe, Tsume and Hige running with them again should that happen. He just hoped Karasuke would be quick and catch up soon.
The handle was familiar under her trembling fingers and the creak of the heavy door rang numerous bells within the labyrinth of her muddled memory. She remembered running through that very doorframe many years ago in what felt like another lifetime. The huge room wasn't the same though …
Gone were the beautiful chairs and seats; covered in fabric sheets that had once been white, but now grey with time. The paintings and photographs were all shrouded in a film of dust, except one. A lonesome photo stood weakly against the wall. No frame to protect it and crumpled as though held in a hand one too many times. The shelf seemed to loom before the seventeen-year-old as she reached up and took down the frail picture. It was yellowed with age, but the image still shone like a beacon.
Three faces looked back up at her, all three familiar, yet foreign to her memory at the same time. There was a young woman with blonde hair and striking violet eyes, and an equally young man - blue eyes that matched the hue of his hair. But what caught Karasuke's attention was the little baby - only about two or three - that was sat on the woman's lap. The infant's emerald eyes stared out of the photograph, up at their older self.
"Lord Darcia, Lady Hamona and Miss Karasuke."
The elegant handwriting on the back told the tale of the photo, giving each of the faces a name and identity. The only problem was the more she learned, the less the teenager knew of her own identity. Her eyes darted around; that ornate two-seater in the corner, shrouded by a greying sheet, was the same one the three had sat upon for the picture, and that small rattle on the floor was the one the infant held.
Bending down, the seventeen-year-old picked up the silver baby's toy. It was heavy, but quant- small ceramic beads held within made the device produce the telltale rattling sound. She shivered; knowing by the dust that it was the first time in an age the item had been moved and also knowing the sound in all its haunting familiarity, or so it seemed. Her thumb gently wiped away at the marring film of dust.
"Karasuke…"
There was that name again; her name. Carved quite intricately into the revealed silver. Quiet beeping noises immediately made the girl stand upright, dropping the heavy rattle onto the cold tiled floor. The sharp noise that rang out seemed angry at her for intruding into this frozen vaccuum of a room, and yet Karasuke found herself to be walking slowly towards glass-paned French doors; the quite beeping becoming louder as she got closer.
Wires were strung everywhere, connected to small machines lined up along the walls of this large anex room that opened up unto a balcony. Red-coloured wires … all radiating from one source in the centre of the room. A somewhat pedestal-like bed, with white satin sheets reaching the ground like a torrent of fabric. And lying within the centrepiece of a bed was the woman from the picture; Hamona. Cascading blonde hair spilled from the bed, at one with the satin sheets, but the striking violet eyes were a thing of the past.
She was a shell of the mother in the photograph - machines lifted her chest up and down, fuelling her existence. A few items lay on a table to the side of the bed, but one thing drew the curious, yet apprehensive former-thief to the table; a silver locket. In sharp contrast to tarnished golden one hanging around her neck, this one was a lustrous silver, as though it had been polished on a daily basis. Her name - the one thing that tied her to this place over and over again - was seen to be engraved into the surface of the locket.
"I'll thank you to leave things where they belong."
And with that telltale undertone voice, did the third face allow for the photograph to be acted out once again, albeit fourteen years later. Lord Darcia III was standing no more than ten feet away from her, his eyes boring into her own. Karasuke felt frozen to the spot; in all her years stealing and pilfering, she'd never been caught and yet here she was, red-handed and not knowing how to react. The youth looked to the woman in the bed, and then to the locket she held in her hand, asking the first question to come to mind.
"Why do you keep her alive, even though there's no hope?"
"My Lord Darcia, Lady Jaguara has reached the Keep."
"Kaori?"
The teen narrowed her eyes slightly, almost doubting herself as the name fell from her lips in a confused tone. The haunting green eyes looked to her and softened somewhat. She knew this small-built woman with her dark hair and clothes. She … used to care for her, more than the blonde … but …
"Miss Karasuke, you've come home."
The petite woman, Kaori, was slowly walking towards her now, smiling. Home … she had had one of those, but that was in Kyrios with a simple Sheriff's family and in a simple little village. The locket spun on its chain, hanging from her grip as memories finally managed to break through; free of the mental block the girl had kept them behind since the age of four. Her head shook slowly, at the same time a large explosion rocking the entire castle.
"Kiba …"
Desperate to leave this room full of released memories behind, Karasuke put her thieving skills to use and made a hasty exit out the French doors and through the shrouded tiled room that held the picture of her and the two strangers. She should have forgotten the door and went with Kiba earlier; they would've been outside already and now Jaguara was here and … she was standing right in front of her, with half a dozen of her troops.
"Shit!"
The youth cast a glance over her shoulder; no use going that way, towards the family rooms and main chambers - that'd only lead her to a dead end. The girl had absolutely no idea how she knew the layout of the castle so perfectly, but Karasuke figured she might aswell make use of the knowledge as situations called for.
"And where do you think you're going, little one? I must say; you turned out prettier than I imagined."
More explosions, beyond the speaking Noble woman, down by the detainment cells. The guys were down there, and probably Cheza too. This wasn't supposed to happen this way - get in, get the guys and Cheza, then get out and far away. Paradise.
"This one needs your help …"
Cheza. Karasuke looked to Jaguara; the violet eyes staring through the mask at her were strikingly familiar, as were the stray strands of blonde. A memory swam into focus, piecing itself together amidst the shards of her childhood, but never given the time to form completely as the teen shook her head, annoyed.
"I really don't have time for this right now!"
As much as she loved her human form, the blonde wolf with the translucent blue eyes could manoeuvre much more easily around the Noble and her bumbling idiots of troops. Before she knew it, the teen was back running on human feet, clambering this way and that over fallen debris from the earlier explosion. A fall here and there caused a cut knee. And Cheza was being hurt aswell; that much she could tell from the pain in her ribs and the extra cuts gained from no trip or fall of her own account. Great, now there was a troop on his way up the hall towards her.
"Karasuke wait; we have the Flower Maiden and three civilians detained. We have orders to take them to Jaguara's Keep, but the truck's gonna stop halfway there for three days. Get to the halfway point at Orkham's dome city and we'll … eh … get raided? Just focus on getting your pack away from here."
The voice speaking from behind the troop's helmet was one she recognised. A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth as she stopped and looked up at the troop, nodding her thanks before running on again and shouting her gratitude over her shoulder at the apparent enemy.
"Thanks!"
That'd been one of Claire's older brothers; the youngest one at twenty-four, Caleb was his name if she remembered correctly, but that wasn't really important at the moment. More clashes and growls were coming from the area of the detainment cells until finally the youth made it to the location. An armoured truck was just heading away through a rather large hole in the wall, with a white wolf hot on its tracks. If he followed he'd be shot.
"Kiba, wait!"
The light green eyes looked down with surprise as her hands pushed back against his chest, stopping the leader in his tracks; preventing him from following the vehicle and getting to Cheza. Those light green eyes were livid with anger when they glared down at her.
"Karasuke, what the hell?!"
"They're stopping at Orkham's; Claire's brothers are manning the truck - we get to the stopping point and we get Cheza back!"
Upon hearing this, the anger faded from his irises, replaced by relief as the dark-haired youth sighed heavily. Kiba then closed his eyes and leaned his forehead down, against hers, speaking in a low genuine tone.
"Are you okay?"
"Mmm hmm."
But while she said it and nodded slightly, Karasuke's hand had slipped the silver locket surreptitiously into her jeans pocket; better to save past mysteries for a later date. The somewhat tender scene was timely interrupted by an all too familiar voice and ill-placed pun-like wolf-whistle.
"Kiba, you dog you!"
And as Hige walked over, laughing as he placed his hands, customarily, inside the pockets of his yellow hoody, Tsume surveyed the duo with one of his smug grins and a raised eyebrow; having noticed the overly-big jacket Karasuke was wearing, and the lack of said jacket on their pack's Alpha male.
"So what really happened while we were stuck in this joint, huh?"
The sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath saved the two from answering, but left the reunited pack with bigger problems in the form of an irate Noble woman. One look shared between the five wolves meant it was time to be out of this place. But one member only made it a few paces before she crashed to her knees; memories flashing though her mind like a distorted kaleidoscope of her past, and one shrill crying voice piercing through the confusion as the Flower Maiden screamed inside her head. Gasping, Karasuke clamped her hands to her ears, desperately trying to drown out Cheza's intense cries; surely the guys must hear her too.
"Ahh! Cheza please … stop; I can't … ahhh!"
Shaking her head form side to side and letting loose a cry of pain that paralleled the Flower Maiden's, Karasuke felt her grasp on consciousness slipping. All the while the sound of heeled boots got closer and closer as the world was momentarily cast askew at a sideways angle, and the teenager's head collided sharply with the ground.
"I'll do what I should have done fourteen years ago!"
The sword was raised high and aimed straight for the exposed neck of the ex-thief, but never connected with its intended target, for a white wolf had leaped for Jaguara's own exposed throat, missing my centimetres as the woman pulled back sharply. The protective growl that emanated from the wolf was chilling as he stood square in front of the limp girl.
"Tsume!"
"Got it!"
The white-haired of the group had already taken the initiative and held Karasuke in his arms, already half out into swirling snow, instructing Hige to lead the way with his nose; Kiba would catch up later, but the pup was still staring at where their leader was getting ready to square off with the human.
"Move it runt!"
"I was getting ready to!"
A/n- Thanks again for taking the time to read my fic guys; you know it means the world to me!! XxxxxxxxxxxxxX
-Side Note- To prevent any confusion; the character "Kaori" is based on the maid/oracle kind of servant Darcia had in the actual anime. The dark clothes, dark hair and weird green eyes. She was never given a name in the anime, so I just expanded a little.