Instead of making this a separate chapter, I'd rather make it a splice-on to Chapter Ten. Chapter Eleven will be the last chapter before moving on to the next book. ;x
Chapter Ten: Dissolution of Disillusion
::Takeru::
Can you not get over yourself, even for a moment? I sneered at Keiji.
You're pitiful?not even worth anyone's time.
He sighed, melancholy, and settled himself against the padded wall of the asylum cell. "You keep telling me just how worthless I am, but you never even have any reason for it...."
You have immense power?the power to change yourself, on every level!?yet you still hold onto what you were born. You aren't human, you spineless piece of trash. Quit acting like one.
Sniveling, he ignored my comment, unable to form a coherent response.
I can't take this any more! You disgust me beyond words! I seized his body fiercely; with a raging roar, I tore myself from his body. From head to toe I sat up from inside him, standing, my back to him. I could hear him breathing heavily, drained from the separation. I turned to face him to find him staring up at me with exasperation and fear. "What?"
"In all these years... you've never physically separated us....."
I snorted. "No reason to. You're weak enough that I could control you with ease."
He seemed hollow, the look in his eyes possessed and yet lifeless. "You... you aren't real...."
I glared at him in utmost, defiant bewilderment. "How can you possibly say I'm not real!?"
"I made you when I was sixteen. You're a part of my mind, and nothing more. And, because I made you, I can unmake you."
I didn't have any idea how to react to such a turn of emotion. He had never had such strength in his words?
I had been the potence in his voice when he'd needed it, his courage, his pride. I was a part of him, but he'd never admitted to it. Flustering madly, I leapt upon him, sharp ends focused on his throat and face.
He flung me back before I had the chance to land, pinning me to the far wall, effortlessly, with his telekinesis. He stood, the anger in his gaze the only emotion in his face, his left hand outreached in my direction, as he focused his strength to keeping me restrained. "You've always told me I was the weak one," he muttered acridly, a vile grin forming at the corner of his mouth; "yet, you've never proven to me that you're the strong one. I say you're nothing but talk, old man."
Rage welled up inside me then, as he said this, and I hissed, baring my fangs at him. I slapped him hard in the head with my own telekinetic force and he recoiled. However momentarily it may have been, it was enough to distract him. I flung him to the floor and leapt upon him, strangling him. "You dare defy me!" I roared, digging my nails into his neck.
He returned the gesture, throwing me to my back and kneeing me in the gut. "You're afraid of me," he chuckled, choking. "I?haven't fought?your presence since I first?made you...!"
"You didn't make me, little one?I made?you!" I sliced his arms off with my kinesis, then sank my teeth into his jugular, ripping his throat wide open. I peeled his hands from my shoulders and took his left hand in mine. I mockingly gnawed on it with a sneer. "I am your very strength of character, and you can't accept that you have no spine."
He regenerated his hands in an instant and leapt to strangle me again, this time with a force I could not possibly comprehend coming out of him. I cried out as my throat collapsed, the sound of him shattering my voice box was the last it made; it was then that I realised he was combining his kinesis with his stranglehold. Seeing my pure, wide-eyed fear of him calmed him, and he relinquished, still atop me. He smiled down upon me, content. "Shut up already."
I twitched.
That's exactly what I wanted out of you, bouya...! I uttered in awe.
I knew I could get you to get over it.... I chuckled hoarsely, lifting myself only just barely up from the floor. I took hold of his face, kissing him gently.
You know I'm real, chiisai. Never forget it. With that, I let myself melt and fall into him, just as I'd come out.
Once I'd done so, he fell to his hands, exhausted. He sighed, content, then stood, dusted himself off, and wandered away, hands in pockets.
~*~*~*~*~*~
::Keiji::
I smiled, completely and thoroughly amused with myself.
Maki walked into the Valley from behind me, curious. "Keiji...?"
"Hn, hey, love."
She seemed frightened by my mirth, then noticed the doll in my hands and choked up completely. "Th?that's...."
My grin couldn't have been any bigger. "Yup." I smoothed his hair down and chuckled. "I guess it's not true anymore that all the dolls I've made are girls."
"But... what compelled you to do that...?"
"Heh." I pinned the fingernail-sized brooch at his throat, then messed with the frill of his ascot a bit. "Well, Takeru *is* a part of me, is he not?"
She was beyond words. "I?I guess that's true...." She got over the initial shock and also grew a smile. "That's ironic, actually."
"Hm?"
"Takeru is the part of you that made all those dolls so long ago, and you just made a doll of him."
"All the better way to embody him, if you ask me. You know just how much he loves irony."
~*~*~
It was about a week after the brawl. Smiling curiously, I came up to Maki, where she sat at her office desk. "Whatcha doing?" I asked asked coyly.
She put down her pencil. "Oh, I'm taking notes from the sessions I had with my patients today." I mused over this for a moment. "What?"
"Oh, nothing...." She gave me that stern, smirking look and I melted. "You never actually made any note that you've lost a patient." I scrunched my nose, trying to be cute and not get her irritated.
When her attention fell back to her pages, I hooked my chin over her shoulder to spy on what she was writing. "I'm still not used to the thought you've put all of that to rest, dear."
"Hn, I haven't, really." I crossed my arms behind my back and began to pace slowly back and forth behind her. Contemplative, I tried to find a way to explain it to her. "Takeru's still in there somewhere. He's just not commanding my life." I bent over and wrapped my arms around her shoulders lovingly.
She stopped what she was doing again, becoming rigid. "Having your lips that close to my neck is still disconcerting for me, if you would return your hands to where they were."
I was horrified to find myself overwhelmed once she'd made it clear to me just where my face had rested. I went pale at feeling my stomach tie itself in knots as her pulse became more and more obvious. Completely entranced, my breathing grew scarcer. As my tongue reached out from within my lips to caress her throat, I knew almost immediately that the Ditto in me had taken liberties with my mouth. I couldn't take it anymore and grabbed her, opening my jaws wide and ready to sink my teeth into her tender flesh. She managed to get away from me by phasing through my hands and falling to the floor. I realised what I'd almost done and my eyes grew wide. We stared at each other in total horror.
You bastard, I seethed in my mind, gritting my teeth.
He'd obviously been paying attention and hadn't helped matters one bit.
What? I didn't do anything. He was amused, to say the least.
Like hell you didn't! You can't stand being inside of me instead of on the outside!
Believe it or not the world does not revolve around you, Keiji, he muttered, again bored.
That was you letting yourself go.
That isn't a part of me! That's a part of you! I don't eat people! I'm not a vampire!
Chiisai, you're part Ditto. I'm just the one of us that's found there's pleasure in embracing it.
I couldn't react to such a statement. The look in my eyes had to have been scaring Maki senseless from the expression she had on her face. I squinted my eyes shut and turned from her, slamming my head against the wall in angst.
I'd tell you not to take it so hard, but then again, it's you I'm talking to....
Shut up, Takeru.
Why should I? You're the one that attacked me, he fake-pouted.
I don't want this. I can't do this. Even after having seen you murder thousands of times, I just can't do this.
He understood what I meant and so suddenly felt used.
You want me to take responsibility for your feral instinct. That would just be too easy for you, wouldn't it? He thought about it for a minute and snorted, growing less amused by the minute.
I suppose it's a guarantee that my head won't become dusty in the Valley, is it not...?
If you put it that way, certainly, I snapped coldly.
If I let you out, you can't just go around, free as you please. It will be a task, not a game.
You take all the pleasure out of these things, he wailed, pained by the demand.
I find no pleasure in such things, so I can see it no other way. I knew I had to stand up to him or I would most definitely fall apart like I had countless times in the past.
After a pained silenced, he complied, defeated.
I suppose that's the way it will be then. ....If I happen to enjoy my "job," you won't hold it against me, will you? I could tell he was amused again.
It's in your nature, isn't it? I can't hold it against a living creature to be himself, you know. That'd just be inhumane of me. I smiled, propping my arms against the wall and looking down at the floor.
Your choice of words, chiisai?! he uttered.
You toy with me so.
You wouldn't have it any other way, now, would you, Takeru?
He didn't reply, content.
"Keiji... are you all right...?"
"I'm fine. I tried to deny my own nature and just saw how foolish it was of me." I snorted, looking to her. "There's just no ignoring it, is there?"
~*~*~
Minutes later Takeru was still roused inside my mind, curious and restless.
I... can't quite place it, chiisai. I've always known Maki smelled... unique, but....
I was amused by this, oddly, and decided to cater to the poor thing. I walked over to Maki and helped her stand, putting my sharp ends away.
Don't do anything you'll regret.
What, little old me? Seriously, chiisai. I'm appalled!
Wary of him, I held her to me warmly, trying to get a smell of her without her noticing me doing it. "I'm sorry for that. My emotions just got the best of me, I suppose...." I had thought Takeru had just been trying to trick me into getting close enough to her for a nibble, but I, too, could tell he wasn't lying.
What in the world IS that I smell?
"Keiji, you know Takeru made me just like you," she consoled, returning the embrace. "I have the same instincts wash over me every few weeks."
He thought on it for a moment before taking any guesses.
Your scent is good as mine, but you've never used it like I do. I know what that is now. I've never really paid much attention to it, but I can't believe it. I just simply can't. You know what that is, don't you?
I smelled of her hair again, then frowned slightly.
Just tell me, you cookie.
She murmured, amused. "I suppose you're used to blaming Takeru for it, aren't you, dear? In all the years we've been together, I've never once seen you feed. It's always been Takeru, you know? There's no need to snivel over it. You'll be able to get used to it. I did, didn't I?"
I smell Tenshi on her?no, in her. She's part Tenshi. I just know it.
His statement took me aback, and, combined with Maki's rambling, I just stood there and stammered. "I... I guess you did, didn't you?" I pulled her back away from me and looked her in the eyes strangely.
"What's the matter?" she asked me, confused.
"Maki, I never thought twice about how you knew to show up in Ecruteak less than twelve hours after Rivelle died.... How did you know you'd be needed?" Maybe there was some sort of intelligence network among Tenshi, and she'd been informed about it or something. I felt somehow betrayed....
"I?" she was completely flustered from my inquiry. "I had had a dream that had called me there, and I never go against my dreams?my empathy has always given me premonitions. I was living in Mahogany at the time, so it took me no time at all to get there overnight."
"Were you born there?" Fishing for answers that I'd never before wondered continued.
She looked down, sullen, then sat at her desk again. "I actually don't know where I was born, Keiji. I grew up in Mahogany?in an orphanage. My memory doesn't go back much further than from the point I was five years old."
I was dumbstricken by this. "So you don't know who your parents are? How in the world did you get to be a doctor then! I'm more than certain that, a hundred years ago, an orphanage courtier would never have put a child in her house through school, let alone a girl!"
"I was fortunate to have had my nanny see my abilities as a gift, not a demonic possession or something of the sort. She thought I was the most beautiful, intelligent, intuitive creature she'd ever laid eyes upon, and wanted nothing more than for me to succeed. She had a good deal of money from inheritance, but she herself wasn't wealthy. She spent all her inheritance on me, Keiji." She smiled, reminiscing over such kindness.
She purely doesn't have a clue, Takeru uttered, completely beside himself and yet somehow in awe over the fact. In his dumb state he drew in a breath for me, beginning to try to take over my senses and motor skills.
Takeru... I warned.
I... I've smelled that specifically before.
It couldn't be that she's a mother, could it? I muttered flatly.
Hateri and Yoake look more like their mother than they do me.
No, I mean that scent?that Tenshi scent, you snide little? He cut off, trying dearly to place it.
Well, you're wrong. You've only come across a handful of Tenshi, Takeru?Sarina, Rivelle, and Rhesh and his children. Which one is it?
He mulled over those I'd just listed off.
No, no... it's not any of them. It... it's.... Oh, I don't know! I could tell he wanted to tear his hair out from the uncertainty.
"What's going on, Keiji?" Maki could tell I was talking to Takeru from the look on my face. "What's wrong?"
I stumbled over quite how to put it to her. Irritated with him, I spat it out with a sour expression. "I, um. ....Takeru thinks you're part Tenshi, but he can't for the life of him tell me which Tenshi he thinks you smell like."
She flustered. "I thought you were crying on my shoulder, but you were smelling me?!" she squeaked, her eye twitching. "....Takeru thinks I smell like a Tenshi!?" She was reminded of how Takeru had treated other Tenshi and shivered, upset.
He overwhelmed me then and stepped up to her, holding her shoulders gingerly, looking her in the face. "I've got it," he said silently, eyes wide suddenly. "There was another Tenshi, Keiji," he corrected, aloud. "That woman that Sarina brought with her a month ago.... That little idiot that fed my DNA to that pipsqueak Ditto...!" Rage began to well up as his pride again grew injured over the incident.
"Sarina told me she's not more than 130 or 140 years old," she led quietly, trying to calm him down. "She'd have to have been no more than twenty years old when she gave birth to me, if that's what you're saying!"
"I conceived my first son when I was sixteen, love," he muttered with a bitter smirk. "Age means nothing, for the most part?and the younger they are, the less the counterparts can even imagine the repercussions of their actions. She was probably too young to tolerate the idea of having a child!"
"Even if she did, how can you prove that to me?"
"Tenshi are almost always born with a sixth sense. You don't have a clue where you came from. And you can't forget just how good my senses are." She felt cornered, his golden eyes pinning her in her seat. "It's nothing, really, dear, to be Tenshi. After all I've done to you..." he tickled the lobe of her ear with the tip of his tongue, smiling, "it's not like you'd ever be another Rivelle...." He snorted, then whispered in her ear, "It just surprises me that it evaded me for so long...."
She shoved him off her and gave him a vile look. "Don't you even think about taking advantage of me, you beast."
He laughed. "My dear, you know I'd never do such a thing." He opened his arms wide, smiling generously. "I love you with all my very soul; that is, if you can even believe I have a soul, considering how you treat me."
She was completely confused all of a sudden, unable to read him at all. "I?" She never finished her thought, and vanished in a puff of smoke, having teleported away somewhere.
You scared her away, I seethed.
"No, I think she went someplace to figure out exactly who she is. You've had experience with that, have you not?"
~*~*~*~*~*~
::Maki::
I tried to clear my mind by walking around in the gardens. It was spring now, and the climbing roses that covered the high stone walls and trellises were budding up. It had misted that morning, and I could smell the dew and rosebuds. It was very calming for me. I let my curly brazen hair down out of the high ponytail in which it had been, and unbuttoned the top button of my collar. Picking a rose that had just barely opened up, I smiled and held the golden bud to my nose and smelled of it. I sighed, content, and found one of the benches to rest, sitting and looking up at the sky.
A few hours of just sitting there passed without interruption. I heard a "cha" from overhead and looked to see a small black creature perched atop one of the walls of the estate. I sat up and stared at it curiously, somehow frightened by not knowing what it was. I stood and walked up to where it was, all the time our eyes locked. It fluttered down and perched on my shoulder, snuffling and crawling all over me. It seemed half-reptile and half-mammal, and it had wings and a tail, and purple hair. I panicked when it first landed on me, but it grew on me the longer it stayed. It was so weirdly adorable...! I couldn't quite place why.... Maybe it was just how fluffy its black fur was.
I pulled it off me by the nape of the neck as it clung to my chest, looking up at me with those huge, golden eyes, then cradled it in my arms, smiling. "Where'd you come from?"
It cooed softly. "Suri-lady told me to come looking for a mean man with long black hair. Just now came to Ecruteak?came looking for mean man that hurt Suri-Lady and Kurai!"
It startled me that it had actually replied to me, let alone hear it speak perfectly-articulated, however broken, human speech. It took a minute for what it had said to sink in, but when it did, I got a really sarcastic look on my face. "A mean man with long black hair, you said?"
~*~*~
"I believe this is yours," I muttered, walking up to Takeru with a sneer.
He stared at the little gargoylish creature on my arm and blinked, at a loss for words. "Y?where *were* you all morning, Maki, that you found this thing!"
"Pff, I was in the garden. It flew up to me a few minutes ago."
"Kurai" glared at him with daggers in her eyes. He matched her gaze. I broke up laughing at such a sight, then yelped when he lunged at it, the eyes in his face suddenly popping out and glowing as viciously as his bared teeth were sharp. I backed off when the thing fluffed its fur out violently and splayed at him.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Takeru!?" I squealed, completely beside myself in fright that he of all people would be so turned to rage by the mere sight of something so small and cute.
"That?" he hissed, "?is your mother's Ditto. That?that
thing has my Kurai strand...! Look at what it did to such a beautiful creature! It's disgusting!"
She bared a sudden mouthful of toothpicklike fangs at him and he returned the favour to scale. "Suri-lady didn't know giving Kurai the blood would make mean man angry! Not blame Suri-lady or Kurai for having mean man's blood!"
I began to grow more and more nervous by the minute with the two of them in the same room together. If I knew anything, he got REALLY possessive when it came to things of such a matter. Hell, I'd been his wife for a century now, and he never once had even
considered giving me a Kurai strand. If this thing had practically
stolen it from him, I could only imagine just how violent the ensuing scene would be. "Takeru, stop this instant!" I demanded.
He wagged his tongue at the creature, hunching over and thrusting his wings out of his back, splaying at it in a return of intimidation.
"I SAID STOP IT!" I roared, glaring at him.
He turned to look at me and blinked, flustering, unable to finger quite how to react. "But?"
"No! I refuse to let you tear this poor thing to pieces!"
The fluff got a surge of pride and grinned. "Last time Kurai fighted with mean man Kurai won," it beamed.
I stared at it, breaking a cold sweat. "What."
Takeru snarled at it. "That creature absorbed my base genetics somehow; apparently the species that make up a Kurai have particularly poisonous female counterparts."
The comment went straight over Kurai's comprehension, but it ignored this. "Kurai bite mean man lots of times! Mean man couldn't move!" It giggled at him, but squeaked when he screeched at it and lunged down to grab it, scrambling up the curtains to get away from him.
The creature's attitude was getting to be far too much for Takeru to be able to control himself, and he started shifting completely Kuraitenshi in his fury. About half-way through the transformation, Kurai began to undergo the same changes, taking a defencive stance on the wall, claws dug into the wood. I looked on in horror when the two full-blown beasts pounced upon each other, becoming a flurry of sharp ends, locked together in total, passionate hatred.
".... BOTH OF YOU!" They ignored me. My ears rang in total irritation, then built the resolve to take the letter opener from the desk and slice it across my bare forearm. I gritted my teeth as I felt the blood trickle down onto my palm, and tried to concentrate as hard as I could on what part of me would get their attention. My skin became infinitely smoother and scaly, a beautiful powder blue; I felt my ears taper upward into my hair; but, other than a few rearrangements of internal organs, no other noticeable differences took place. It would have shocked me then that it had actually worked, but I had put everything on the line that it would. Before I had done such a thing the blood of my veins had run crimson, but it now was an almost nauseating deep purple?thick, pungent, and staining.
Not an instant after I'd finished the metamorphosis did both of them stop what they were doing to stare at me hungrily, not even breathing they were so shocked. Their eyes wide, they let go of each other and slowly inched towards me, both of them on all fours, tails twitching behind them. Not a foot from me each of them, I forced a breath of annoyance through my flared nostrils as they drooled over the sheer sight and smell of the wound.
"Kurai hasn't had that since Suri-lady left Lavender..." she whispered, gaze locked on the drop that was about to fall to the carpet.
"If you promise me you won't fight, then I'll let you each have a taste."
The both of them instantly complied with me, returning to their normal forms, and sat there, begging like sick dogs. I sneered, disgusted, and swept up a fingerful from my arm, then, completely fed up, rammed it in Takeru's gaping mouth, leaving it there just long enough for him to suck it off my fingertips. I proceeded to do the same for the dysfunctional Ditto, then forced my Ditto strand to shut off the wound immediately.
"Now then, might we attempt a civil conversation?"
Takeru and Maki o_O
