My writing bgm for this chapter was Len Kagamine's "Sadistic Vampire."
Kaito: Finally, something appropriate, Master.
Aren't you going to scold me this time?
Kaito: No, I won't.
Huh... really? Why am I skeptical?
Kaito: *smiles mysteriously*
...
A splash of cold fluid shocked against Rin's face . Her eyes fluttered open; she was disoriented. The room didn't look familiar, but the angry looking face that loomed in front of her small face was familiar. Her breath tightened in her chest as she stared directly into Master's angry eyes.
"You've been a bad girl, Rin," Master's voice scolded her in a deceptively light tone that didn't match his facial expression or coldly furious eyes. His voice hissed in a threatening tone that she had never heard from him before. "You stole something important from me. My beloved, lovely Kaito. Where did you hide him, little girl?"
Rin stared, her blue eyes huge, suddenly terrified not only for herself.
"You hurt Kaito," Her shaky voice accused, finding strength in her outrage against this man who looked like her Master.
"I did no such thing," Master frowned down at the mouthy blonde female Vocaloid. "All I did was take what was mine. It's your fault, you know, that I had to go that far. But now, we'll be together, forever. It doesn't matter how far you've hidden him from me. You'll tell me, and he'll come home to stay with me, forever. And he'll never, ever, ever touch someone else, other than me, again. That's because of you, Rin. Why don't you take responsibility? Confess to me. Maybe I will go easy on your punishment."
Rin's face creased in a horrified, offended confusion. How was any of Master's insanity her fault? But arguing with someone whose sanity had obviously been compromised wouldn't do her any good either. All the same, Rin felt a growing resentment at the unfair blame.
"It's your fault! Not mine! You were the one who hurt Kaito! You don't deserve to be called our Master. I'm never telling you anything!" Rin shouted out, almost uncaring of what was going to come.
Master was going to do whatever he wanted, regardless of what Rin said or did. She didn't have to be quiet and just take his unfair words. Her eyes burned with a rapidly growing hate for the man she had once embraced happily in her heart as her beloved Master.
An expected slap across her face took Rin sideways, and her head snapped to one side, a small trickle of blood falling down from the side of her cut lip. Rin glared back at Master, her resentment and hate growing and overtaking her fear.
"I'm going to teach you how to use that smart little mouth, Rin," Master said in a quiet little tone that chilled Rin's bones. The cup that had held the water Master had splashed in her face was tossed carelessly to one side, making a noisy clatter that caused Rin to flinch despite herself as it hit the ground and rolled away.
"It doesn't matter if it takes a while. You'll tell me what I want to know," Master said with an easy assurance, his eyes burning holes in Rin's head. "No one can seperate me from him for long. Kaito is mine, my posession, my beloved, blue-haired Vocaloid. And when I get him back..." Master smiled, and it was a frightening, insane smile. Rin pulled back as Master reached out and touched her cheek, then rubbed against the small cut on her lip.
"When I get him back, we'll be together, forever," The soft whisper echoed through Rin's head maliciously. Her clear blue eyes widened. Master tilted her head down slightly, kissing her forehead gently.
"And you, Rin... you'll get what bad girls deserve." Master quietly hissed down at her as she recoiled from him, her blue eyes shimmering back at his cold ones in fear.
"No..." she whispered. "No."
...
"Have you seen this girl? She's been missing since yesterday afternoon," Mikuo was asking yet another passerby on the street, holding a blown up photocopy of the photograph that Gakupo had smuggled out of Rin's house, cropped to show only the petite blonde Vocaloid female. Again, Mikuo's only answer was a shake of the head and an insincere, "Sorry," from the random stranger. He sighed.
They'd already hit all of the neighborhood stores twice, talked to all of the employees, both last night's night crews, and this morning's a.m. crews. They'd put up copies of the photo on telephone poles around the neighborhood. They'd even checked each of the area hospitals, and, to Mikuo's dread, the morgues, coming up empty each time.
Mikuo's heart was hurting him at the lack of progress, but he couldn't give up. The teal-haired male glanced over to Taito, who stood a few short paces away, holding out a copy of the same photo of Rin to yet another pedestrian.
The pedestrian had his hands up, was shaking his head, and looking nervous. Taito's blank face revealed nothing, but the twirling of the ice pick in his other hand was enough for Mikuo to guess what the dark-purple-haired male Vocaloid was up to.
"Taito!" Mikuo called out, demanding Taito's attention. As the dark-purple-haired Vocaloid was distracted by turning his head to look at Mikuo, the pedestrian broke free and ran past Taito, a look of worry and relief warring on his face as he fled. "Don't scare the people, or they won't help us if they spot her after this."
Taito blandly looked back, but Mikuo swore he could read a light reprimand in his purple eyes. "I wasn't," was all he said. Mikuo facepalmed.
"Okay, well, just... stop doing that thing with your icepick while you're asking people about Rin's photo. Okay? It makes them nervous." The teal-haired male said, feeling a little exasperated.
Taito looked down at his ice pick, shrugged, and stopped twirling it around in his fingers. "It's just a pick," He justified, frowning slightly, as if that explained everything.
"Let's try a different street, one with more traffic," Mikuo didn't feel like arguing with his friend. After all, Taito didn't have to help him, but he'd chosen to be here, sticking it out with Mikuo. Mikuo felt a grudging sort of appreciation. He would feel even better about it if either one of them had gotten a lead yet.
Taito nodded his okay, and followed Mikuo to the car, slipping into the driver's seat. "Where to, boss?" Taito said, a light tone of mocking to his voice.
"Don't let me get used to being addressed like that," Mikuo cracked the joke, but his face didn't smile. Taito glanced over and said nothing. Mikuo continued after a moment, "Let's try M street. That one looked pretty busy when we passed it before."
"You got it," Taito's light reply came. "...boss." He smiled his quirky little half smile at Mikuo, who just rolled his eyes and put his teal head in his palm, and sulked, looking out the window.
Taito's smile grew a little more at his friend's childish reaction to his teasing, and pulled smoothly out of the parking space.
...
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