Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ The Other Side of the Mirror ❯ Descent for Silence ( Chapter 5 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

By: Sugah

<center>~The Other Side of the Mirror~

~Part 5~</center>

Blood was dripping onto the floor, thick and nearly black in the lack of light. More of the liquid spattered in arcs, smears and spots along the walls and floor.

There was blood coating the gloved hands of the Kaizer, as he waited in the middle of the room, surrounded by blood and the dying sounds of his latest victim, a heap of broken and shuddering flesh.

~That makes five,~ he was thinking, a twisted smile on his smooth attractive face. ~And it's not even noon.~

He brought up his hand in the dim light, examining the blood by smell and sight, and after a slow touch of his tongue, taste. A hiss of laughter escaped him, and he smeared the blood on his hand across his face with a single motion.

~…find you…find you and kill you…~

For the last day the Kaizer had done nothing but amass his troops, and destroy the ones that didn't meet his expectations. The blood from the last victim was still fresh, the body of a de-ringed DarkTyranomon from earlier. Unfortunately for the Digimon, he had performed marvelously to prevent him from escaping, but still, somehow, two DarkTyranomon weren't enough!

And the information that one of the Chosen… A snarl twisted the ivory face, marring the intrinsic beauty into a bestial rage with a mere curl of the lips. It was eerie to see such a small thing incur such a chilling mask of anger as the Kaizer processed the recent information fully.

One of the Chosen had made off with his…other. His weaker other.

Twitching slightly, the Kaizer, for he had no other name now that everything inside him consisted of madness, and the pure rage-drive to rule, pulled his hands around and clenched them into fists, watching the blood drip free and onto the floor.

It was time to find a new victim, and soothe his anger. Perhaps the Chosen Child of Courage and Friendship will do… The one called Motomiya Daisuke.

Without realizing it, the main drive of the Kaizer's wicked cruelty centered on the two most important things in his expanding world. One, get the other back at all cost, for the information he held was crucial, and the re-programming hadn't been perfect, much to his disgust.

And two… the Kaizer grinned a touch madly. Bring Daisuke along for the ride, and finally satiate the ever-growing inexplicable lust.

A giggle sounded in the empty bloodied room, and the Kaizer felt it echoing around him, magnifying the sound until he couldn't be sure what exactly was laughing, him or the walls. The thoughts, as muddled and angry now that there wasn't the stabilizing 'goodness' to them, remained focused on the two objectives of his existence.

~…take you…~

~…kill you…~

"Well, this is my room, and you'll probably be spending some time in here…" Daisuke shot an apologetic look over his shoulder. "Sorry bout the mess, though…"

Shrugging eloquently, Ken averted his eyes to examine the room. ~I've never had half of this stuff as a child,~ he thought, and shook his head. Daisuke was kicking clothes into a pile, a faint blush on his sun-kissed cheeks. Feeling slightly regretful, Ken whistled softly, as when Daisuke turned around curiously, Ken made an "o-k" sign, with his hand.

Daisuke grinned, and a hand stretched up to scratch the back of his head. "You don't have to say that…"

Ken raised a brow and merely shrugged. He wandered over to a cluttered bookshelf, and perused the books, wondering if he had ever read the same books as the Chosen Child.

But then, he had read books meant for professors, once, hadn't he?

He was positive. The thought struck something inside him, and he wondered with a bit of shame what Daisuke would do if he knew that the helpless 'Kaizer Ken' was Ken Ichijouji.

~I should tell him…tell him everything…~

Ken slowly ran his finger of the edge of a paperback, and wondered. He stole a quick glance at Daisuke, who was trying to shove the clothes into the closet, and blushed. ~He deserves it, anyway,~ he told himself.

~But how will I tell him?~

Writing, maybe. Or picture. Something that would show him. Ken looked around, then, filled with the hope that he wasn't entirely non-communicative. Surely he could write something down, and express that way.

He grabbed a barely used Science notebook, covered with doodles and penmarks, and flipped it open to a clean page, and began the hunt for a pencil.

"Dude? Ken? What are…" Daisuke appeared at his side, flushed with a faint sheen of sweat.

Ken held up a blue colored pencil, the only writing tool he could find, and pursed his lips. He gave a barely-contained look to Daisuke, and scribbled on the air, then bent over the paper. Fear, mixed with anticipation, rose inside, making him feel suddenly lightheaded as the blue tip touched the pad of paper.

Daisuke inhaled softly. "I never thought of that," he admonished himself, and peered over the thin shoulder.

Ken made the first clean sweep of the letter, and watched with awful fascination as his hand shuddered and swerved to the right, marring the stroke. ~No... no!~

He tried again, forcing his trembling and rebellious hand to write straight, and he managed to get the first two characters of his last name more or less written. They were crooked and barely legible, but they were there. Ken gripped his wrist with his other hand, ignoring the rising headache and the resulting pain in his eyes as the programming that had been melded to his system tried to override his brain. Cramps speared his fingers.

He didn't know that Daisuke was watching him with growing shock. He couldn't know that his skin was deathly pale, and his hand shaking like one possessed.

He had the last four letters to go when the pencil snapped from the strain. In furious despair, Ken threw the last half down and bent forward, gasping for air. ~I can't do it…~ He pounded his aching hand into the desk, nearly weeping.

"Hey…hey…it's okay…" Daisuke pressed warm hands his shoulders, and Ken shook his head violently. "Yes, it is, Ken. We can fix the stuff that the Kaizer did to you. I'm sure of it."

Ken nipped at his cramping hand, thinking deeply and wondering if his picture had been in the newspapers lately. ~There's one chance left,~ he thought, and stood so suddenly Daisuke stepped back and nearly slipped on the soccer equipment on the floor. He grabbed the wrist and yanked the redhead after him, heedless of the shouts.

"Ken! Slow down!"

The wild-haired boy merely turned the corner and entered the living room, his gaze scanning the floor and endtables for something important. A paper. Maybe he was in the paper. If anything, he could always point out certain letters to spell words.

"Ken…?"

He released the wrist, and lifted the few magazines on the floor, teen magazines with pictures of pretty boys on the covers, and spied the edge of a crumpled newspaper halfway shoved under the couch.

~Yes!~

He reached for it with trembling hands, sitting down right there in the middle of the room, and began turning the paper with fingers that were still shaking from trepidation. Daisuke watched him with strong concern in his sable eyes, and sat down across from him, the tension in the air leaching onto his frame.

Ken spared him a quick look before he turned to the second to last page, scanning it briefly before the picture of a young boy with straight hair jumped out at him. He inhaled sharply, in relief, and swallowed.

Just as quickly, he folded the paper in half so the picture would lie flat, and reached for Daisuke. He pointed to the picture, then to himself.

The caption of the short article said "Ichijouji Boy Still Missing," and beside the picture there was explanations of how "Ken Ichijouji" had disappeared from his home several weeks ago, and there were still no leads.

Daisuke looked up with a dawning expression of astonishment. "You…you're Ken Ichijouji? The genius?" ~Holy…~

Ken nodded slowly.

"But…why don't you look like this? I mean, with the hair, and everything?"

Frustrated, Ken smashed his hands into his legs and shook his head, then shrugged. He peered at his hands as if they weren't his, and looked at Daisuke with such hopelessness that Daisuke cried out internally. There were tears in those indigo orbs, and as he watched, a single tear fell to discolor the picture of the Tamachi genius.

"Ken…I'm sorry…" Daisuke scrubbed a hand through his hair, and rubbed the back of his neck. There was no doubt that he truly felt sorry for the boy, with his wild hair and subtly different look. ~He's…wow…~

"Is there anything you can do to help? I mean, if you can't write or speak…How're we gonna figure out what happened?"

Ken looked at the openly caring face, feeling a spark of something indefinable, and gnawed at his lip. He reached up to brush a hand through his spiked hair, his eyes lidded with thought, and frowned. After a moment of hesitation, where Daisuke witnessed a play of fear and anger and revulsion on the face of Ken, the boy reached into the pocket of the sweatpants and pulled out a small white piece of metal. He offered it to Daisuke with no more than a slight tremor of the hands.

"What's this?" As he took the small curve into his fingers, holding it up to examine it, a faint flash of light from the window glinted off the barely-visible runes. "Ken?"

The boy looked away, and merely made a wide circle out of his hands. Daisuke muttered something under his breath, turning it this way and that while something familiar sparked along his brain. ~Where've I seen this before?~

Again, Ken made the curious circle-gesture, and put it up to his throat. Then he snapped his hands apart.

Daisuke shivered, and dropped the fragment onto the carpet, his mind chilled with the implications. "You saying that somehow, this was something used to control you? A Dark Ring?"

Ken nodded.

"And it broke?"

Daisuke paused to scratch his head. "I don't understand…"

Ken merely shrugged as well, rubbing his arms and looking like a lost scared child in the too-baggy clothing.

"God…he ringed you," Daisuke muttered in sudden dawning horror. "He ringed you…What were you, insane?"

A slow nod was his answer, with a gaze averted to somewhere near the couch, and Daisuke felt a twinge of guilt for asking such a stupid question. "Ken…if he ringed you," he pushed his fingers against the thick carpet, trying to think. "If he ringed you…why did it break? I mean, you could've been controlled, I think, but that didn't happen. Do you remember why?"

Indigo eyes peered at him in the dim light, half-hidden by the shaggy spiked hair. Then, almost imperceptibly, his gaze withdrawn, Ken began to rub at his wrist with slow widening circles of his fingers.

"Ken?" He didn't reply. Daisuke watched helplessly as the hand clamped around the skinny left wrist, squeezing hard enough to leave a white mark behind. Ken had his head bowed, his eyes shut tightly as if he was dreaming of something.

Or trying to remember.

After a second, the luminescent eyes cracked open with a tired frustrated glimmer. Slowly, methodically, he began to poke holes in the newspaper with a finger, his face a mask of concentration.

~Holes,~ Daisuke thought, knowing that the boy was trying to tell him something, and waited patiently. ~Something about holes. Holes in what? His clothes?~

Ken held up the now-ragged looking newspaper, showing it to Daisuke, and then pointed to his head. He repeated this several times.

"Holes," Daisuke said. "Holes in your head?" He cocked his head, searching through his mind for a better answer when Ken shrugged with an iffy-waffy motion. "Holes…head…hmm…holes."

Ken sighed as Daisuke settled down with a stubborn look, and crumpled up the paper and tossed it towards the wastebasket. ~Stupid programming,~ he thought. ~There's got to be a way to get around it!~

"Holes…in your mind?" Daisuke said suddenly, and looked up.

Ken blinked, then grinned and nodded. He made a small circle out of his fingers, and affected a thoughtful and confused expression.

"You can't remember some things?"

Ken grinned brilliantly, and nodded once more. Daisuke matched his grin, then, the unexpected pride surging through the middle of his chest.

"So, then, all we have to do is figure out a way to get your voice back, and fix the ring, right?"

~It won't be that easy,~ Ken thought, although the redhead made him feel like thinking that anything was possible at the moment. Still, he smiled a bit more gently, almost shyly, and nodded.

Deep under the pile of forgotten clothing, dirty and clean, the d-terminal began to beep for a second time, as it received an email from the Child of Light. Her message was simple, but short.

~Daisuke, where are you? We can't get through the gate to the falls anymore, and we're going to try to come first thing this afternoon, to see if you're okay.

When you get this message, no matter where you are, reply and tell us where to meet you.

~Hikari

The time was nearing noon.