Chapter 16
"Fallen Angel"
He was lying on a thin medical bed, the kind that was cold against your back no matter how long you lay there. Come to think of it, he didn't think he was wearing a shirt. He'd have to look down to be sure, but for some reason, he couldn't move to look at his own body. At the moment, that seemed to make sense. Machines buzzed in the space above his head, and he didn't turn to look at those either. He knew what they were, understood the small beeps that sounded periodically from the sensor behind him.
None of that seemed worth looking at, because when Dark turned to try and inspect them, nothing moved but his eyes, just enough to catch a glimpse of cool metal in the corner of his vision. Instead, he sat up, and suddenly it was the most important thing in the world to get to the door, to get into whatever was on the other side. He couldn't see his legs as he pushed to his feet, but it felt like it had been a long time since he'd stood, like they weren't quite sure how to move. The harder he tried to run for the door, the more his body seemed determined to proceed at a painfully slow walk. The perimeter of the room glowed with machines and monitors. For the first time he was able to turn his head and look at them.
There was a man in the corner of the room. He sat on a stool, calmly watching, neither hindering nor helping his progress toward the door. Dark was surprised to see him there, but felt like he shouldn't be, like he'd known this person for some time now. He was confused by the instincts he felt toward the stranger, as if he represented a source of oppression, but was also a curiosity, not quite as frightening as he should have been. There was hope mingled with the feeling, and Dark resisted it. He was more comfortable viewing the man as a threat, couldn't quite trust any other feelings.
Again he pushed his feet harder toward the door, without taking his eyes off the stranger. He tried to make out his face, but the only things that focused were those pale, hard grey eyes that held too little emotion to be trustworthy. He could find nothing of meaning in those eyes. The rest of his face seemed vague and unimportant, the features blurring into insignificance around those silver eyes.
"I couldn't stop them, kid. Things took too long," the man said as he finally reached the steel door, and without looking Dark knew it was the man in the corner speaking. The voice matched those eyes perfectly. It seemed like there was honesty behind the words, maybe even emotion, but the voice didn't hold the right inflection to sound it, like it had no experience with such things.
With a surge of panic that Dark didn't think he should have felt, he reached out to the keypad just under the door handle. He knew with a dormant awareness that the lock had a twelve-digit key, and it was something he'd learned some time ago, but this was the first time he was actually using it to get out. His fingers struck the keys and the knob shifted down with a click that was too loud. He grabbed it and pulled. Dark took one look out into that hallway and knew immediately that the entire situation was somehow wrong. His own thoughts were wrong. As if the broken form lying on the cold tile in front of him wasn't already a disaster, his mind seemed changed, no longer under control.
It was undoubtedly Riku's body that lay in a loose fetal position, naked on the tile. Her small breasts were mostly hidden by her arm, and Dark could feel a pull of flesh low in his body, an attraction he knew he'd never had before. He stepped forward, disturbed by the sensation, but nothing was important compared to making sure she was still alive. He knelt next to her, his heart beating in his throat, and brushed the soft copper-red hair out of her face. Again, his fingers moved so slowly. He seemed too scared to know the truth, too scared to do what was necessary. Dark wanted to know. He wanted it over with. Suddenly he was in control, and he felt something alien within him begging him not to look - it was too much, he couldn't bear it. "DON'T!" a voice screamed inside him loud enough to make him wince. Dark ignored the feeling, frowning, and brushed the hair aside.
Risa's deep brown eyes stared up at him, wide and crusted with tears. Unblinking, unseeing. Dark could feel that voice inside his body screaming at him, sobbing pitifully while he took the girl's pulse and confirmed what he already saw with his eyes. The ground gave way suddenly, with a crash so loud his head throbbed. The room disappeared around him, shattering into a blur of blue as he found himself falling, collapsing through the air, surrounded by wind he couldn't touch, couldn't be one with, ever again. He stretched his wings wide, and felt nothing. No strength, no pain. Just falling, weak and useless. The voice was still screaming in his head, but he couldn't hear it anymore, because he was yelling too now, howling with wordless pain and anger and loss too enormous to express, except to scream and scream until his throat was raw. At last, the world blurred to darkness, like a giant merciful hand was crushing around him, and his senses dissipated into vagueness.
-oOoOo-
The first thing he was conscious of was the jarring ring of Risa's cell phone. It took several seconds to recognize it for what it was, and not confuse it for screaming. The angel's eyes snapped open and slowly took in his surroundings. He was on his back. A few tree branches blocked out the dusk-heavy sky above him, black against its bright orange and gold hues. He turned his neck slowly to the left and noted Risa's cell phone buzzing feverishly against some leaves, still ringing.
His mind wasn't fully working yet, but he rolled stiffly onto his side, stretching his hand out to reach the phone. His body protested the small movement, but nothing inside him screamed 'broken'. Dragging the noisy device toward him, he sank onto his back again. It seemed to take him an eternity to move the phone up to his ear and flip it open. He was moving mechanically, keeping his thoughts and sensations to a carefully controlled roar in the back of his head.
"Yeah," he grunted into the mouthpiece. He didn't recognize his own voice. The effort of speaking made him suddenly want to retch. He swallowed instead and waited for an answer.
"Dark? This is Dark, right?" Satoshi's voice shot out, waiting for an answer. When he didn't get one, he continued. "You've got a shitload of explaining to do. I'm not joking, Dark, there'd better be one hell of a reason why Krad's not sealed. Or did you just lie to me from the beginning? Start talking, damnit!"
"Yeah… 'Course I lied. You missed him, you would have gotten your ass killed," Dark said finally, needing to concentrate on the movement of his lips in order to enunciate clearly. His voice was scratchy and raw, like he was talking through someone else's throat. He made an effort to sit up, but quickly dismissed the idea. His body felt like one big ache.
"Missed him? Are you out of your mind! If you'd told me the truth, I could have made sure you two never met. Everyone knows about you now! Not just Dark Mousy, but Krad as well. Now it will take a miracle to get Daisuke back."
"How would you have prevented this?" Dark challenged. Satoshi was silent. "You don't have an answer. You would've tried to find him, talk to him. Right?" Dark heaved onto his side, trying to pull more air into his burning lungs. "Don't be stupid. He'd have killed you before he cooperated with your little chat."
"So now you know all there is to know about Krad's propensities?"
"More than you," Dark sighed.
"How do you know? Why do you have to look down on people all the time, you arrogant, underhanded jerk! If you don't need anyone's input, then don't expect my help from now on."
There was a long pause, long enough that Satoshi almost thought the angel had hung up. "Did you meet him?" Dark's voice finally came through the connection, so quiet and close to the microphone that Satoshi could hear something wrong with the angel's breathing.
"Yes," he returned coldly.
"Did he try to kill you?"
Satoshi frowned, thinking through what had happened in silence. "Yeah, he did."
Time stretched out for what seemed like minutes between them. Dark had won his point, but wasn't especially happy about it. He felt sick and disoriented. "Me too. Are you hurt?" he asked.
"Just scrapes," Satoshi sighed, leaning his head back against the wall of the brightly lit corridor he was standing in. "I'm at the hospital."
"Why?"
"I had to make a delivery. Some kid that got hurt in the quake. I called Riku, she's on her way to the school to look for you two, so just stay out of sight till she gets there," Satoshi said.
"Riku's still on crutches." Dark tried not to remember the bizarre dream he'd just seen. Why would he even dream that?
"Are you saying someone needs to be carried?" Satoshi demanded, his voice hardening again.
"I'll wait ten minutes."
Dark narrowed his eyes at the phone as it clicked off, then dropped it tiredly at his side.
Risa…where was Risa? He pushed himself up to a sitting position, his muscles shifting like a sack of rocks. His wings folded intact behind his back, the ends of his flight feathers curling against the cool ground. The angel sat still for a moment, wondering again if he was going to be sick right there on the grass. He shoved the urge aside in irritation, looking around for signs of the girl.
He realized in that instant that he wasn't just nauseous from pain; in fact, as sore as he was, he wasn't that badly hurt. He was scared. His head finally cleared enough to remember exactly what happened earlier. The earthquake, the building collapsing…and Risa was nowhere in sight. What did that mean? They couldn't have landed that far apart.
With a soft grunt, he pushed up onto his feet and looked around. "Risa!" he tried shouting, without much success. It sounded like a horse was standing on his chest. He straightened up and walked a wide circle from the place he'd fallen. Some bits of stone had rolled this far from the collapsed building, but for the most part, the grass was soft and unbroken. She'd definitely gone down with him, so where was she? He steeled himself and called out again, a little stronger this time.
"D….Dark?" a trembling voice came from over his head. Dark's gaze shot up into the thick branches above him. At first he didn't see her, but a rustling of leaves drew his gaze over to the end of a thick limb. Risa was on her stomach on the limb, clinging to it for dear life with arms and legs. She spotted him and smiled in embarrassment. "I'm having some trouble," she tried to wave at him, and wound up slipping upside down like a monkey. "Aw, come on," she muttered, hugging the limb fiercely.
The dark angel's eyes widened, relief coming so thick in his blood that his knees almost folded under him. Instead, his practical side took over. It usually did, and he was grateful. His eyes measured the distance up to her location. She was too high for him to ask her to jump into his arms. "Don't move, monkey girl. I'm coming up," he called to her, jogging over to the base of the tree. He grasped onto the trunk with his hands and walked slowly up the side, holding himself up arm over arm until he got to the first limb. His muscles protested the movement, but obeyed him as he climbed into the tree. He grabbed that first low branch and pulled himself up over it, drawing a few deep breaths before leaping up to the next branch and rising up swiftly toward her place in the tree.
"Be careful," she said as Dark took the climb much faster than she was comfortable watching. Within a matter of seconds, he'd made his way out onto the branch just beneath her, standing on it as if he weren't fifteen feet up off the ground.
"Let go," Dark said, reaching up and placing his hands around her waist.
"Don't drop me," she murmured as his strong hands encircled her. She slowly let go of the branch and sank back against the warm safety of his chest. "Jeez, you're calling me a monkey," she said.
"Sorry, that was wrong of me," Dark said, balancing himself carefully with the girl's weight in his arms.
Risa breathed in the scent of his skin, smiling at his apology.
"Monkeys know how to climb," Dark clarified, smirking. The girl narrowed her eyes, and was about to rebuke when the angel said "Put your arms around my neck." She blinked and did so slowly, tightening her arms above the warm, sweating muscles of his shoulders. His skin felt hot through her clothes and he smelled rather pleasantly of sweat and feathers and grass. Dark shifted her so that the front of her body hugged his side, his strong arm looping under her bottom to hold her against his torso like a seat.
Risa had a moment for it to occur to her that this was surprisingly comfortable, before a glare suddenly grew in her eyes. "You're touching my butt," she scolded, digging her nails into his shoulders because she didn't dare fight him beyond that while they were this high over the ground.
"I need my other arm to get us down," Dark defended, keeping his hand right where he'd put it and edging back over to the central trunk of the tree. "Jeez, don't get crazy ideas," he muttered, but he kept his face down as he crouched and made his descent one branch at a time, each movement jostling her soft weight against his bare side. He was blushing. Crap.
"Risa? Risa, we're down," Dark's voice said cautiously. They'd reached the ground at last. Dark had released his supporting arm so that her legs lowered and found the grass, and she was standing under her own weight, but she still hadn't let go of her fierce grip on his neck. Her warm contours were so real against him that he was on the verge of panic. "Risa…" he tried again, wondering if he should try to pull her off.
"I was scared," her voice came in a trembling whisper beneath his ear, muffled in the crevice of his shoulder. "I was so scared…" Her body shook, and he realized she was crying.
"I'm sorry. Were you stranded there long?" Dark said more cautiously.
"I'm fine, I'm barely scratched, you...stupid…stupid Dark!" she said, her voice distorted by tears.
Dark shook his head. "I don't understand."
"I saw you hit the ground. You…bounced, and then you were so still. For two hours, so still."
"You thought I died," Dark frowned. Her embrace was so intense that he felt nervous, trapped. She was trying to make him face things, emotions he couldn't handle right now. It felt like the ground would fall out from under him if she went any further. "Thank you for worrying about me, but I'm okay now. We're both okay. Lucky thing the ground here is so soft. Couldn't pick a better place to fall two stories, really."
"No, you're not," Risa said. Her grip eased, as if she could tell it was alarming him, but her hands slid up to cup his jaw, and she looked up at him with deep, deep brown eyes. "You're not okay."
Dark felt his expression wilt. "What do you mean?" he said, and he didn't like how raw his voice had suddenly gone, like his throat had been torn open and he was barely keeping the wound shut. He looked down at her, his expression locked down so tightly that it made her teeth hurt to watch.
Risa shook her head, keeping her chin raised toward his, but her eyes squeezed shut, full of tears. "I know, I know you aren't going to let yourself cry. So I'm going to cry for you," She said softly, leaning forward against him so that her head rested on his shoulder and her soft, tangled hair ran down his chest. A hot tear rolled off her cheek and scalded down under his arm.
Dark gave a short, proud laugh. It died on the air like sand. "It would be easier if you didn't do this," he said. Let me ignore it a little longer; I can't do this now.
Risa could hear the anger and fear in his voice. She knew he might not forgive her for disrupting his private pain. "Sorry, but I won't let you be alone," she said firmly.
And so she cried, cried for his sake, cried for things lost and things that could never be. She cried tears of frustration and loneliness for a solitude stretched so long that it might never be filled again. She cried tears of hope that fell in crystal trails across the tanned skin of his crippled body. She cried, and cried, and he held her very still, like a ship caught in a storm, while his dry eyes watched the sun set.
-oOoOo-
Daisuke groaned as the bright, antiseptic whiteness of the test room bled back into his vision. His fingers rose up in a half-daze to rub the sleep from his eyes, and found tears tracing his cheeks.
"Bad dreams?" Trap asked, his even voice drawing Daisuke's gaze to the chair next to the medical cot he was lying on. The scientist was wearing a black button shirt, his tan hair pulled back and neatly secured in a slender ponytail behind his head. As always, Trap's handsomely angled face and general demeanor reminded Daisuke of a snake. The endlessly calm, emotionless poise of the scientist's grey eyes served to calm the boy's struggling pulse somewhat.
"Yeah," Daisuke muttered. "You were there too," he teased. The man gave an odd look, as he always did when Daisuke spoke to him of feelings and dreams. Daisuke liked that look; it was one of the only predictable mannerisms the scientist had. "I mean you were in the dream," he clarified, and saw that his explanation didn't mean much to the man. As far as he could tell, the scientist saw dreams only as magnetic scratches on his machine's readout. If Trap understood emotions in any sense beyond the brainwave patterns they produced, he did a damned good job of hiding it. Daisuke had never seen him show so much as a flicker of emotion or human interest, despite spending hours each day cooperating with his experiments.
"I wasn't the only one in the dream," Trap said, holding out the readout for the boy to see.
Daisuke propped himself up on one arm, careful not to dislodge the IV that was running into his wrist. The drugs had been engineered to enhance the mental receptors that Trap had most closely linked with the boy's connection to Dark. Daisuke had had his doubts, but looking at the readout Trap was holding, his breath caught in his throat. He'd learned enough to have a basic understanding of what he was seeing. His thought patterns scrawled out in a wide, haphazard graph across the top half of the page. And there, at the bottom were the lower frequencies which normally ran flat, except for the occasional small fluctuations that purportedly represented his lingering connection to Dark's thoughts. Only this time, the bottom lines weren't flat. They scrawled and plummeted exactly in proportion to Daisuke's own thoughtwaves above them.
"What is this?" Daisuke almost whispered.
"Your readout for the last ten minutes," Trap said.
Daisuke gave the scientist his best 'Duuuhhhh' glare. "Yeah, what does it mean?"
"It means your thoughts synchronized with the Black Wings in the closest match recorded yet."
"You're saying we had the same dream?" Daisuke said, and the skepticism was sour enough to taste in his voice.
"Are you saying you didn't? The dream was completely your own?" Trap questioned.
Daisuke looked down at his lap. It was times like these when he was certain Trap understood more than he let on about dreams and emotions. "Some of it was definitely mine, but other parts…they made no sense. Like I was fighting myself."
Trap crossed his arms, his pressed black shirt wrinkling across the front. "I don't have an explanation yet, either, but this is noteworthy progress." At that moment, his eyes should have held that flicker of intensity that scientists invariably have when they realizing they're nearing a breakthrough, but Trap's remained empty of expression. "If the effects of the medicine are refined further, it's very possible the other consciousness could be drawn back to your body."
Daisuke's expression drained to something close to fear. "You said you wanted to separate his consciousness from my body, not rejoin it to me."
The man just looked at the boy with those empty silver eyes that explained absolutely nothing he was thinking. "You have come to resent the Black Wings' power. You don't view it as a gift?" he asked coldly.
"I want to see Dark again as much as anyone does," Daisuke said quietly. "He's trapped somewhere, and if there's a way to set him free, of course I want to. But not if it means being an alter ego. I never want that again."
"Because you wish to be the sole presence in your own mind," Trap said methodically, as if reciting something he'd been told before and memorized, not necessarily understood.
"Where is Riku?"
Daisuke's firm question made Trap blink, tilting his head in that brief confusion he sometimes showed. "Your female acquaintance?" he clarified.
"Is she dead? I saw Shira throw her over the cliff railing. I need to know what happened to her."
Trap frowned for a second. "Very well, I will have Shira-"
"Not Shira, Trap. She'll placate me. I need to know. He stared at Trap's vacant eyes sternly. "Please."
Trap frowned. Daisuke thought it was the first time he'd seen the man do so. Suddenly Trap's voice dropped so low that Daisuke had to hold his breath to hear it. "I will look into it," he said, his lips barely moved as he spoke, and something in his eyes told Daisuke not to speak or react to his words. "She is in our care until you serve your purpose. That is all you need to know," he continued, in his usual volume and tone of cold, perfect indifference.
"Oh," Daisuke said, because he was too stunned to think of anything better. Trap stood, moving away from him to check his IV and write some notes in his log. Some ten minutes later, when the scientist left, as always without so much as a wave, Daisuke had time to ponder what had just happened. For less than a second, Trap's eyes had shown something. He couldn't place what emotion it was, but something. There was something real inside Trap's head, be it virtue or vice, and Daisuke hadn't seen it long enough to tell what it was.
Then what was the rest of it? The unshakable coldness he'd seen flawlessly presented since he'd first encountered the scientist couldn't possibly be a show. No one could hide their humanity that well, not all the time. It would drive a person insane to deny their real nature that completely. Trap was more of a puzzle than ever, but real or not, Daisuke felt something his dream had almost deprived him of. He had hope.
Something big was about to change.
He could feel it.
-oOoOo-
There. It. Goes. Intense chapter to write. I hope some of it came through for you guys. I have fan art in store to go with this chapter that I'll link to later. Incidentally, if anyone else should ever want to make fan art of this story I would certainly link that as well/love to see it. Any takers?
DragonLadyRelena – You rock! Thank you for all your feedback! I'm thrilled you tried out that song; as far as I know you're the only one to test the theory. I know very little about earthquakes besides what anyone would get from a college geography class and a mild interest in architecture, so it's really interesting to hear what I wrote compared with someone's real experiences. Actually, if you feel like it, I'd love to hear more about your experience and what it was like. I don't know anyone who's been through an earthquake, but I'd like to add more details to that chapter if I had more hehe. Give me an email sometime if you can and tell me about it!
Farewell-Goodnight – Thanks for reviewing! I'm happy Krad's working out. I'm surprised myself at how much I'm enjoying writing his parts, as they got off to a slow start. And he's in for some action in the next few chapters (cackle).
Yeye – Thank you! Jirou's a little out of commission for now, but he'll be back hehe. So glad you like it, don't be a stranger!
"Silent reviewer Hisa" – I know you don't review that often, so thanks for taking the time to comment! Your point about Krad's history is a good one. So far, the story has sort of assumed, the way the show did, that Krad just happens to be evil for no particular reason, but I do have a theory now, so I'll try to get it in there at some point lol. Hope you continue to read, and I'll try to check out your story soon!
Iheartkenji – Wow, thanks! I better perform now to stay ranked with these people!
Stormshadow13 – I'm glad the Krad/Satoshi/Jirou scene worked out. It was a blast to write. Oh man, I know Dark's gonna see Hattori again but Krad? Now there's an interesting concept. And as for this – "I hope that Jirou talks to Sato and maybe Sato will change his mind about the blond." I like the way you think hehe. You can count on his playing a role in connecting Sato and Krad later hehe. Thank you for reviewing as ALWAYS!
Horselvr4evr – So good to hear you're liking it! Thanks for reviewing!
Bansheegrrl – Thanks for your review! Yeah, I killed that kid good (lol). I'm horrible. Poor Krad couldn't hold out his impression of the incredible hulk.
Bunny Grl – It's really good to hear that the change feels natural for Krad. Tricky developing new shades to his personality! Thanks so much for reading and for your comments : )
-Love, Kat