The Faerie Chronicles of Kenshin & Kaoru: Immortality, a Rurouni Kenshin fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 10
She couldn't stop shivering. 'I'm in jail. I'm in jail. I'm in a freaking jail cell, with bars and I'm trapped and I didn't do anything...' To her surprise, they didn't make her wait long. Sort of. She had only been in the jail cell for about ten minutes when they pulled her out again and walked her out to a car and drove somewhere and dragged her out again, then brought her up to what looked like someone's office, into which they locked her. She knew because she tried to open the door and all the windows, and they wouldn't budge.
Then she was apparently forgotten for a couple of hours.
Kaoru curled up under the desk and hugged her knees, unable to decide whether to cry or to manfully hold back tears. At first, she thought she'd done enough crying for one night, and tried hard to act like an adult; but then the terror and confusion and the plain unfairness of it all got to be too much for her, and no one could see her, anyway. She pressed her face against her knees and sobbed.
There was only so long one could cry, though. Eventually, Kaoru climbed out from under the desk and wandered despondently around the room, looking around.
There was nothing personal about the place, no photographs or unfinished paperwork or anything; just some generic, boring-looking books on the shelves, and various office supplies and blank forms in the drawers. The carpet looked and felt clean. The furniture, when she experimentally moved it aside, had made deep depressions, so apparently they hadn't been moved for a while.
The view from the window was unexpectedly calming. Kaoru stood there for a long time, watching the two visible stars twinkle calmly in the violet city sky, watching the cars on the highway flow along like lifeblood in the city's veins, staring down at the sidewalks and wishing so, so badly that she could be free. "Dad...Mom..." She slid slowly into a crouch, pressing her face into her hands. "K...Kenshin..."
The door opened.
Kaoru scrambled to her feet and stared warily at the officer who entered. "I didn't do anything," she said shakily. "I don't have anything to do with Batt-" The name caught in her throat, because they had come to arrest Kenshin for being Battousai. 'No, nonononono...' "Y-You have to let me go."
The officer said nothing for a long time, merely stood in the middle of the room, surveying her coolly. Kaoru's cheeks flushed, though she didn't think the expression on his face was lustful or anything. Rather...it reminded her strangely of the looks she had been getting before, when everyone at Himura Castle had seemed to inexplicably know her. The only difference was that those looks had all been incredulous and delighted - this guy looked as if he had been expecting her, and wasn't exactly impressed with what he now saw.
'Yeah?' she thought defensively. 'Well, you're not exactly eye candy yourself.' The flesh of his face seemed to be too thin, throwing the cheekbones into stark prominence. His black hair was slicked back, except for a few strands that fell down into his face; his eyes were disturbingly wolfish.
Then he smiled, with an utter lack of humor. "Kamiya Kaoru. The chancellor's been looking forward to seeing you."
Kaoru swallowed, feeling like she was about to cry. Kamiya. That had been her family name, that princess of Western Japan.
That had also, terrifyingly, been what everyone at Himura Castle kept calling her at first.
"I'm Arai," she insisted, wishing that she could get her voice above a whisper. "My name is Arai Kaoru. I'm just an ordinary girl. There's nothing special about me. The chancellor can't have any interest in me...please." That last was a desperate plea, though why she should feel as if she might expect a speck of mercy from this cold-eyed enemy was beyond reasoning.
Unsurprisingly, he was completely unmoved. "This way. And don't get any stupid ideas, because there's no way you can escape."
Kaoru bit her lip, knowing that he was right. Turning things into fake gold, glowing in the dark, floating...this magic seemed to be pretty useless no matter how you looked at it. What was the point of turning into a fairy if it wasn't any help in a horrible situation like this?
Kaoru was marched down quiet, elegant corridors until they reached a set of large double doors made of thick, sturdy, beautifully-carved wood, which were opened with a slight flourish. Kaoru was ushered almost politely inside, where she stopped dead at the sight of the frightening figure waiting to greet her.
Completely swathed in bandages, looking entirely out of place for the huge lush office, the man sitting behind the desk smiled. "Well. Long time no see, and all that."
Kaoru stared at those cold, cold eyes, rigid with horror. Something about this man had her wanting to scream at the top of her lungs and run for her life, yet her legs seemed almost too weak to even hold her up. "Who...Who are you?" she whispered. There was a soft click as the door closed behind her. She looked around wildly to find that everyone else had left, and she was alone with this nightmarish figure.
"Eh? How rude, Princess," the man said casually, propping his chin on his fist as he grinned. "Not recognizing your own vice chancellor, not to mention your one-time husband-to-be."
That was the last straw for her legs. Kaoru collapsed to sit on the floor, stunned. "Wh...What?" She couldn't believe it. "It can't be...you can't be...!"
"Oh, don't let the bandages fool you." He stood up and stretched, and came sauntering around the desk towards her. Kaoru scrambled away towards a chair and tried to use its support to haul herself up. "I've had these burns for...heh, for centuries, depending on how you look at it. It's only the glamour that gave me my great good looks again."
There was something horrifying about the way he briefly flashed to the vice chancellor's appearance, the healthy and coldly handsome image that Kaoru had seen on television and in magazines for years. For a moment, he looked like the Vice Chancellor Shishio she knew - in the next instant, it was back to the bandages, with dark, heavily scarred skin peeping out in the spaces around his eyes and mouth.
"You...there was a fire," Kaoru stammered dumbly. "The chancellor...you were hurt..."
Shishio waved his hand dismissively. "That fool's time was up the moment everything was ready. Fires are an easy enough thing to start..." He chuckled. "I should know, seeing as fire is one of my most powerful attacks." He sighed and flexed his hand thoughtfully. "Pity that husband of yours figured out how to use it against me. Nearly killed me." He laughed and sat down in the chair Kaoru was holding onto for dear life. She couldn't back away, because she knew she would not be able to stand on her own. She found herself staring into his eyes like a bird into the eyes of a snake. "Though, as you can see, nearly is the key word there."
Kaoru swallowed hard. "I don't have a husband," she said hoarsely. "I'm only seventeen."
She shuddered when Shishio reached forward and carefully tugged on the chain around her neck until the little rose pendant hung free. This he took in his fingers and inspected thoughtfully. "Only seventeen, eh? Interesting."
"Don't touch that." Unexpectedly angry, Kaoru yanked the necklace out of his fingers and clutched it as she backed away, finding that she was finally able to stand on her own after all.
They watched each other for a while without speaking. Then Shishio said conversationally, "I've caught him, you know. He could very well have escaped, if not for that soft heart of his - one of the little girls was in danger, you see."
"What did you do to him?" Kaoru snarled, somehow having no doubt whom he was talking about.
In answer, Shishio casually waved one arm, and a TV screen in the room flickered to life. Kaoru jumped back, then stared in fascinated horror. It was a security feed of Kenshin, his hands shackled together, slumped in a small cell and looking as if he was either unconscious or too tired to move. There was blood on his face, and his clothes were torn. "What did you do to him?!"
"So far, you mean? Nothing, except the usual damage a man might sustain during capture."
"He looks sick! You poisoned him, didn't you!"
Shishio laughed. "True enough, in a way."
"Stop it!" She was so furious that she thought the emotion was going to start seeping out of her skin, uncontainable. "Leave him alone, let him go!"
Shishio arched an eyebrow. "Let Battousai go? Release the terrorist who's been a thorn in my side for over twenty years? Release the man who did this to me," indicating his charred body, "who snatched victory out of my grasp when it was close enough to taste? I don't think so."
Kaoru was about to lose her strength again in a minute. She staggered over to the desk and leaned against it for support. "Battousai...he really is. Battousai."
Shishio shrugged. "Of course."
"But he can't be!" Kaoru exclaimed desperately. "Battousai has black hair and yellow eyes, and he's much bigger! Battousai doesn't-"
"Glamour." Shishio said the word as if to a kid who was being stupid. "His own looks are far too noticeable - of course he disguises himself these days when he's on the job." Shishio shrugged.
Kaoru licked her lips. Then she asked, very carefully so that her voice wouldn't crack, "What are you going to do to me?"
"Heh. I'm actually not sure yet. But don't worry, I'll figure out something interesting soon." He was leaning back in his chair, studying her again like he'd just gotten a cool new video game he was looking forward to playing. "Have you said all you wanted to say? Because next time we meet, it'll be all business."
Kaoru shivered. She couldn't ask. She couldn't. She couldn't even ask Kenshin, much less this monster. 'I'm only seventeen. I don't even have a boyfriend. Marriage, husbands...it shouldn't be like this, it shouldn't.' "Please, let me go," was what she said out loud.
"I'll let you go to your cell," he said cheerfully, as if he was granting her some huge favor. "Fujita!"
The door opened again, admitting the wolf-eyed man and some other officers. "Take her away."
"Yes, sir."
o.o.o.o.o
They locked her up, not in an ordinary jail cell or in the office again, but this time in what seemed to be a big metal box. There was nothing, no window and just a hatch at the top as a poor excuse for a door; inside, a thin mattress and a strange, floor-level toilet. A very dim, flat light seemed to be embedded in one wall, flickering occasionally.
Kaoru soon felt sick and tired. She just lay on the mattress and stared blankly at the ceiling, her thoughts fuzzy. She didn't sleep, just stared. Eventually, it occurred to her that she felt exactly like how Kenshin had looked earlier, dazed and zombieish.
'Stop it, Kaoru. Don't lose yourself. Sit up. Think. Move.'
She couldn't move. She could barely think. Lifting her hand, she tried to concentrate and make her skin glow, wondering if it was the darkness that was making her so lethargic.
Instantly, a wave of nausea ran through her, and she rolled over onto her side, retching. 'Okay,' she thought dizzily, 'okay. No magic. Okay.'
"Crosses, too, at least for some of them; same with iron and sometimes silver..."
Kaoru frowned. Iron? Silver? What...
Oh, Yamato. The fairy stuff.
Frowning, feeling like she was on the brink of understanding something important, something frustratingly elusive, Kaoru laid her palm flat against the metal floor. Her skin tingled unpleasantly.
'I...I'm a fairy. This stuff...the salt was starting to bother me...iron, silver...'
Had they made this whole strange prison out of iron? Was Kenshin locked away in one of these awful boxes, too? 'Maybe Kenshin's my fairy godfather.' She had thought that, a while ago, back when things were still blessedly normal compared to this nightmare. Kenshin...the paper clips. The unfairly beautiful looks and the apparent immortality. Of course he was a fairy.
"You're poisoning him!"
They were poisoning him. They'd trapped Kenshin, and now Kaoru, in a prison built to take advantage of their specific weaknesses.
Gritting her teeth, Kaoru clenched her fists and at last hauled herself up. "I am NOT a fairy," she hissed.
But soon she couldn't stand it, and she lay down again, feeling exhausted. "Mom..." Tears began leaking down her face. "Dad, Mom...Yahiko...someone, come save me..."
She called for Kenshin, hopelessly; she called for Yahiko as if she could summon him by the power of his name alone. Soon it was a dull, slow chant, every name she had ever heard Kenshin utter, as if by reciting their names she could somehow gather their protection around her. "Michiko...Akira...Chou...Enishi..." Over and over again. She might have forgotten some of the names a few times; occasionally, new ones would occur to her. She kept going. "Tomoe...Yahiko...Enishi...Michi- Gah!" She struggled to sit up then, for she was suddenly not alone.
A young man had appeared crouched in her little prison, an annoyed look on his handsome face. Kaoru's breath caught at the sight of him - the terror that was rising up in her at the sight of his smoldering eyes was choking out her relief.
"I hope," he said, very softly, "that you have an excellent reason for calling me." He rose slowly, surveying her with the same kind of knowing, cold look that she had gotten from that wolf-man. Kaoru couldn't breathe, much less speak. Then he lifted his eyes to the ceiling, which was a little too low for his height, and he reached up to tap his knuckles against it. "Looks like you've gotten yourself in a real mess."
"Will you...help me?" Kaoru managed to whisper.
He glared at her for a long time, and Kaoru wondered if staying stuck in this prison would be preferable to trusting herself to this man's mercy. Then he spoke. "I suppose I have to, or Neesan will be angry. You've been driving them nuts over at the castle...calling them all when they have no way of reaching you."
"You - you're with Kenshin?" Kaoru gasped hopefully.
It was the wrong thing to say. His tiger's eyes narrowed instantly - one of his hands shot out to grip her by the front of her clothes, yanking her to her feet as she pushed at him helplessly. "I don't have anything to do with that man," he hissed. "My loyalty lies with my sister."
"Th-Then...please thank her for me," Kaoru stammered, desperate to get into his good graces.
His grip on her loosened and his eyes slid away, the expression draining into apathy. "Fine." Then he suddenly shuddered. "We're getting out of here, this place is a nightmare. My own sister would have trouble breaking out of this brig, much less some brainless fledgling who'd be lucky to out-magic even Kenshin at her full potential."
"Are you calling me brainless?!" Kaoru gasped automatically, but before she could do more than bite her lip in chagrin, his attention had shifted fully back to her again.
"Don't let go."
"What-?"
They were off.
Kaoru tried to cry out, but couldn't.
To be continued...
Author's Notes: Lol, I've actually been comparing Enishi's eyes to a tiger's eyes way longer than I have with Saïx. XD
Uggghhhh, does anyone else in this fandom ship crack pairings besides Ned and I? Anyone? Is anyone in this fandom besides my two friends okay with the fact that I now hate KK? Or are the only people I am ever going to hear from going to be the ones who love anonymously trolling me like idiotic junior high schoolers just because I ship differently than they do? -.- I hate this fandom so freaking much, I hate posting more of this story and making the haters think they've won, but whatever; it'll be done in a few chapters and I won't have to freaking worry about it anymore.