Chapter 6: Alice's fears, Hijikata return
Disclaimer: I don't own Hakuouki or American McGee's Alice/ Alice the madness returns.
Meanwhile outside of Alice's room, Heisuke, Harada and Shinpachi had stopped hammering away, shocked at what Alice had said, those words showed how in so little time whatever trust she had in them, had been destroyed with one fell swoop and all because of one incident and Heisuke's loose lips none of them considered that she would wind up afraid of them.
"You guys I think we should leave her be" whispered Heisuke softly in response to her loud sobbing from the inside, not knowing what to think about the situation.
"yeah" agreed Shinpachi and Harada understanding that they've scared the guest enough for now, they didn't take her words straight to heart like Heisuke but they still had a terrifying impact on them.
After a few minutes, they turned and walked back to the dining hall in bitter silence, all three of them wrapped up in what happened and not knowing what to say to the others. As they entered they were greeted by blank stares knowing it can't be good.
"she's not coming out" where the only words that came from Heisuke.
"So what was that about, I know she was frightened but this is a whole new level"Said Okita surprised at Alice reaction, at first he thought it was priceless, but once he thought about the situation it was odd, the girl seemed so fearless, sure he wondered what would scare her, but this was ridiculous.
"We, did not think that one little thing could cause this?" Said one of the men surprised at what just transpired.
"The night before Hijikata-San left for Osaka, I overheard Alice and Hijikata talking in his room, I heard some things about her youth, involving people who had been excessively violent towards her, perhaps what she saw reminded her of what happened" stated Saito quietly.
The next day, Alice awoke and out of impulse decided to have a hot bath, if only to forget the evening before, so grabbing a clean black pinafore dress (she had so many to chose from), undergarments and other things she would need, before heading to where ever the bath was, and soak her problems away, she thought that perhaps that she truly needed it.
Meanwhile after Alice had left her room, Heisuke snuck in and saw her sketchbook, lying open on the table, and was disgusted by her latest piece of work, as he quietly padded out of the room he was grabbed by the scruff By Shinpachi. Both Harada and Shinpachi had been lying in wait, watching what their friend, was up to and to see if they can mess with him even more, not realizing that Heisuke was trying to find away to fix things with Alice, as well as to try for a friendship with her.
"Well, Well, Well, what have we got here?" Said Shinpachi in a mocking voice as he pried the sketchbook out of Heisuke's hands.
"Hey, give that back it's not even mine"Heisuke burst out making a grab for the book only for it to be pulled out of his reach.
"So it's hers Naughty, Naughty, you of all people shouldn't steal, Heisuke, anyway why do you want with a girls book? Is it something special?" asked Harada in an equally mocking tone to Shinpachi.
"why don't you look? I'm sure you'll feel ill after you've seen the drawing, I know I did" replied Heisuke truthfully, what he saw really disturbed him, each drawing varied, from beautiful flowers and cityscapes to gruesome depictions of people and animals in the form of monsters, it was truly the stuff of nightmares to see what she see's froze his insides.
As Harada and Shinpachi skimmed through the book, they were equally disturbed by her works of art, they were horrified at the detail in which she drew and painted, contorted faces, dystopian worlds, elegant pasts, nihilistic futures, monsters of multiple descriptions as well as many, distorted objects, people and animals.
"Woah, these are pretty dark" muttered Shinpachi, staring at the pages as his face went drastically paler as the assault on his eye's caused his stomach to churn uncomfortably, after a few minutes he shut the sketchbook, thrusted it into Heisuke's hands and ran off to be violently sick in a hedge, with the images from the book running through his head.
"Well that was disturbing" said Harada calmly, yet still visibly shaken and the grotesque pictures, not knowing what to think.
"Yeah, I know, but I think that this is how she sees the world, I don't know what happened to her before she came here but it's obviously influenced her art and her outlook on life" Heisuke said sadly, causing Harada and himself to regret their barbaric actions the night prior.
Meanwhile Alice was lying in deep water letting its heat sear her skin from a porcelain white to a deep ruby red, over the course of her bath, Alice had began to think about the night before and the fight at dinner, she had to admit that Harada's behavior scared her and reminded her of both the orderlies at the asylum and of Jack Splatter, these thoughts and similarities overwhelmed her and caused her to overreact out of fear.
Looking back all those years ago Alice only had three people who were genuinely kind to her and who actually wanted to help her, nurse Mary who worked with the children of the asylum, she had fixed her stuffed rabbit and fed, washed and clothed her while Alice was in her catatonic state, she ironically was the one who got Alice drawing in order to communicate with the doctors and nurses, then there was Dr Ryans he was a new doctor at the asylum but he never gave up on her, he made her treatments, and medicines himself, and he made the time to try to communicate with her.
When she was released she asked why and how and he told her that he believed that while she was trapped in her mind and she communicated through the occasionally spoken word or sentence as well as her drawings, that she had to face whoever was keeping her there I.E the red queen, he thought combined with the medicine and treatments, Alice was able to face her inner enemy or at least keep her body alive while her mind was in wonderland.
Then there was Nan Sharp, she was Liddell family's nanny and the only person who actually bothered to visit her at Rutledge, she knew Baldroy would have visited if he wasn't busy fighting in a stupid war somewhere, seeing as he was a soldier, he was probably sent to fight in the war of independence or the Crimean war, anyway nan had visited her and had offered her a job at the mangled mermaid after Bumby had died by her hand.
while it wasn't prostitusion there was that risk, something Alice wasn't willing to take and so she started working odd jobs like housekeeping, child care and at one point she managed to sell some of her drawings and paintings to the tourists and some of the more gullible wealthy people of London, and as soon as she raised enough, she wrote to nan that she was leaving the country, she and nan still kept correspondence but sadly the letters where far and few in between.
Breaking her train of thought she decided to sit up and wash her hair and face while the water was still warm, once this was done she climbed out of the tub and dried off, putting on her pinafore of the day, she opted to avoid the men for a while so she could make up her mind and apologize for her deplorable behavior as well as the horrid comments she made about them, particularly Heisuke, Shinpachi and Harada, after all they were only doing their jobs.
Sighing Alice left the bathing quarters and carried her things back to her room, after a while of sitting and staring at her diary, she realized that she had nothing to write about, so she chose to wander around the grounds of the headquarters until something took her fancy, it wasn't until she had made it to the well on the other side of the complex that she had noticed something, it was a tiny mewing sound coming from the base of a wall hidden in a clump of flowers, it was a cat and her kittens, Alice smiled at the sight of the family, the mother cat looked up at her as if to say "look", which caused her smile to deepen in warmth and for her to reach out and stroke her as she fed her three tiny kittens.
" I thought you were supposed to be in your room" came a soft yet stern voice, causing Alice to look up and see Saito, with a sweeping brush.
"I didn't feel well being cooped up in my room all the time, so I chose to have some exercise and fresh air, and I just came across this little family," said Alice, genuinely smiling for the first time in a long time.
This answered shocked Saito, he was expected a cold aloof reply like he received a few day's prior when he asked her about killing one of the failed ones. It was odd, for the stoic man to receive, such a reply it caused him to relax ever so slightly.
"Alright after your done, I will take you back inside" he replied curtly.
"Hey, if you would rather be training with your associates I can sweep the grounds if you like" she said, in an attempt to stay outside for longer, plus if she was staying her she might as well make herself useful.
"Okay then but why?" Saito asked cautiously, wondering what Alice's motives where.
"I might as well make myself useful while I'm here" she replied "and plus it will give you more time to do what is important to you after all".
"Fine then" said Saito handing her the broom to her.
Over the span of the day Alice volunteered herself for a few of the household jobs like sweeping cleaning dishes or washing laundry, during these tasks Alice thought about what she was going to say to Heisuke, she felt terrible about it, and so she decided to apologize when she joined them for their evening meal. As she worked a way she didn't notice that she was being watched by Kondo who was now becoming intrigued by the young woman, so he decided to talk to her after dinner that evening.
Meanwhile Heisuke was in the process of trying to sneak into Alice's room to replace her sketchbook, as he did so he noticed there was so much he didn't know or understand about the girl he and his comrades were living with, her other book, the one he saw her writing ino was full of a strange language that he couldn't understand.
He gathered that she wasn't from this country but where was she from, she was educated enough to be able to read, write and speak several languages, she was sophisticated and well aware of domestic management as well as possessing other skills and talents. Shaking his head, Heisuke placed the sketchbook back on the table and crept out only to bump into the subject of his thoughts on her way back to her room.
"Oh Hey Alice" he said sadly.
"Heisuke... Look I'm sorry for the way I treated you last night, it's complicated but in time I will be able to tell you why" said Alice as they both started to walk towards the dining hall.
"It's alright, we shouldn't have behaved like that, we had no idea that you were terrified so I'd like to apologize for that"Heisuke replied with a small smile.
"Thank you" was Alice's reply as they entered the dining hall and sat down.
While everyone was eating and talking or in Heisuke and Shinpachi's case arguing and stealing each others food causing Alice to either face palm or look away as well as another soldier reprimanding them for their behavior, Kondo noticed that their guest was started to open up, and warm up to everyone now that she and Heisuke had made up. Suddenly the merriment was silenced as Hijikata entered the room.
"I've returned men" he said in his calm baritone voice as he addressed his associates as he surveyed the room and its occupants.
"Ahh Toshi" said Kondo, relieved at his swift return.
"Hijikata-San" said Okita in his usually lazy, relaxed voice, but all the same, he had a smile upon his face.
However the smiles vanished when Sannan entered the room with his arm bound up in a sling, leaving his hand to hang lifelessly.
"Vice commander, Deputy commander excellent work" said Saito as a somber way of acknowledgement.
"Yeah" was the only reply that came from Hijikata as he sat down.
"Welcome back Sannan-San" said Okita warmly.
"It's nice to be back here" Sannan replied in a tired yet weary voice, being careful not to jostle his damaged arm while he sat himself down.
"Good work my friends, how is your arm?"congratulated Kondo asking about Sannan's arm out of polite concern.
"As you can see, I suffered defeat" he said sadly, as he looked up and scanned everyone's faces only to stop at Alice's concerned expression.
"It's perfectly alright, It's not as bad as it looks, so please there's no need for anyone to worry, now if you excuse me" he soothed, as he got up and left the room.
"Sannan-San what about dinner?"asked Okita as Sannan was leaving.
"That's fine, I'm somewhat tired, so I'll be going to my room, I need some rest now" he said as he shut the door behind him, as he walked down the corridor he cradled his wounded arm, gritting his teeth in pain.
Meanwhile back in the dining room everything and everyone was silent as the grave, this silence was only cracked when Okita decided to open his mouth.
"Hijikata-San, what about Sannan-San's wound? How is it really? Tell us"he asked softly.
"I can say nothing" hijikata replied before finally noticing Alice sat snug in between Shinpachi and Harada.
"What are you doing?" He asked, causing Alice to look up at him.
"Tell me, who allowed you to leave your room and dine here with these men?" He asked sternly.
Before Alice could answer she was interrupted by Kondo.
"Uhh, Toshi, I sort of invited She..." Kondo began before he was cut off by a myriad of voices, all of which where claiming they invited her to eat with them.
"You all, how reckless of you" said Hijikata in acalm reprimanding voice.
"Where's the harm, it's just to eat, and besides Alice won't try to escape, she hasn't tried these last couple of week's " said Heisuke in a laid back tone of voice, unaware of Alice's personal plans.
"It's only been a couple of weeks!" Snapped Hijikata.
"If your that worried about her then you should watch her around the clock, you be her babysitter for once" said Okita tiredly.
"I'm not a baby, I'll be twenty next week!" Snapped Alice, she hated being treated like she was a child.
"Toshi, come on can't we at least give her permission to eat here with us" said Kondo in an attempt to pacify Hijikata.
"Kondo-San, if you're that Naïve the groups leadership will fall apart, surely you have to be aware of this" stated Hijikata.
"It's not a problem, I'm not that hungry anyway, I should heading back to my room" said Alice quickly as she attempted to get up and leave.
"Stay where you are and eat" said Hijikata in a more authoritative tone, causing Alice to gape in confusion.
"well guess I'll eat something too" he said calmly, while someone volunteered to fetch a tray for him.
Alice didn't know what to think seeing, to her Hijikata seemed to have more clockwork tendencies and his behavior made her weary of him.
"well Okay then I guess this means we all get to keep eating together can't we Alice" Heisuke said delighted with what's going on.
"If you say so" Alice replied briskly.