Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Third Impressions ❯ All Falls Down ( Chapter 7 )

Third Impressions

 

Part VII

 

“Where did you learn that?” Linda demanded. “What's going on here, anyways?”

 

“Never mind all that.” One of the three said. “I'm May Lou. Do you know where this caravan goes?”

 

Linda shook her head. “The guards haven't said. They're too busy keeping this lot quiet.” She motioned with disgust to the girls around her, most of who were sleeping. A few had woken and were timidly eyeing the newcomers with fear.

 

One of them spoke up softly. “You shouldn't defy them. They'll only hit you...keep hitting you until you stop.” She mumbled the last few words, her voice thick with distress. It was clear from the way she let her hair block her face and the way she held herself tightly, in a defensive ball, that she was speaking from personal experience.

 

“Don't mind her.” Linda sighed. “That's my cousin, Melanie. She's afraid of everything, even these men. Yes, the men are rough. They whip you if you talk back. But nothing has happened to me.”

 

“You're new.” Melanie murmured pitifully. She lifted her head, revealing a bruise over her eye. “You'll see. They're not- they'll hurt you until you break. You'll probably be sold though.”

 

“I'm April Lou. Melanie, you've been here for a while. What's going on here?”

 

“They- I don't know who- but we're picked from our villages and taken to the auctions. I've been in this caravan or three months. Some of us will be sold. Others get chosen by whoever runs this. And, um, I think the really pretty ones get given to this man they call the Great One.” Melanie said. “Linda's going to be sold. I heard one of the guards say so.”

 

`April', `May', and `June' looked at each other with trepidation. Misao/June moved against an empty spot on the wall, leaning against it gratefully. The three girls had wandered around for hours before finally managing to get themselves captured, and her feet hurt.

 

Kaoru/April continued to talk to Melanie. “So, you and Linda are cousins. How are you related?”

 

Linda answered. “On my mother's side. Don't bother with her. She's weak-willed.”

 

“It takes all kinds of strength to make the world go round.” Tokio/May commented, joining Misao on the wall. She winced at the vibrations. “They don't care if we look good, I see.”

 

“They'll dress us up when we stop somewhere big.” Melanie said. “They always disguise us in Onyx. It's not safe there. One of the girls- Tsubame- escaped, and they couldn't track her because the man who runs Onyx is too powerful.”

 

Kaoru nodded, inwardly thankful that Tsubame had escaped into Onyx. She knew almost everything that Melanie was telling her. The question was how to find out more. One of these girls might have been inside the Order's headquarters, which would be important information. The problem was that asking too many questions would raise suspicions. They were supposed to be heiresses, after all. Not spies. Unless they managed to convince a few of the girls that they weren't impoverished triplets and disguised spies; then they would definitely have all the answers they need. The trick was to make sure their true identities never reached the ears of the Order.

 

Tokio said curiously. “You seem to know a lot.”

 

“I'm the guard's slave.” She explained. “So I travel with this shift whenever they set out.”

 

So the guards had their own slaves. That was helpful. She wondered how they stopped the girls from banding together and trying to break out. Linda Stone seemed to dislike the other girls, and Melanie seemed extremely shy and frightened at first glance, but seemed perfectly calm once you got her talking.

 

The loud footsteps of the guard's boots clunked toward the caravan. The Lous quickly put on their handcuffs and gags, looking appropriately cowardly.

 

The curtain pulled back to reveal several guards. “Melanie! We're going into town and you are coming with us.” The timid look had come back into the girl's face; she quickly scampered out of the caravan and followed the laughing men off. The curtain fell shut.

 

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The Headquarters of the Order of Truth was oddly reminiscent of Saitou's apartment before Tokio had moved in. it was very white, very bare, and very ugly.

 

The girls were kept in a wooden room painted- you guessed it- white when they arrived, and were dressed up and cleaned up before being presented to the Council of the Order. They worked directly under the Great One, Besh.

 

Besh chose one girl, a mute brown-haired siren, and then Arnold Wormwood took his choice. He chose the three blonde girls with a giddy glee, his mind filled with high-school memories. The girls flinched at smell of his sweat, but were glad to have been left together. The rest of the girls who belonged to the Council were taken with them to another, slightly nicer room of white painted cement. It was cold, and hard, but at least they had each other. Or so they thought.

 

Kaoru soon discovered how the Order kept the servants divided. Linda Stone was appointed `manager' of all the girls, and could earn all kinds of favors for herself by reporting their offenses. Melanie had left with the guards onto a caravan. The three had befriended two other girls in their room, Tara and Yara.

 

They were twins, green-skinned tree spirits. Both of they w ore twig necklaces to keep tem from pining away for their trees. Tara and Yara were very close, and Kaoru often suspected that they knew the three were impostors; they didn't seem to have the kinship that Tara and Yara shared.

 

The routine in the Order turned out to be very, very boring. They would wake in the mornings and quickly rush to look wide-awake. About fifteen minutes after they woke up, their morning breakfast of bland gruel would be left. They would eat their gruel, and then wait until one of their lords called them.

 

Arnold seemed afraid of Kaoru, Tokio and Misao; whenever he called them to entertain him, he would sit and leer at them, wanting to do something but not having the required courage. They would have lunch with him, silently savoring the food, and he would stare at them until one of them said something0 any random thing. Then he would send them off.

 

They would have had plenty of free time to explore and spy, if it weren't for Linda.

 

Linda was determined to keep her position as snitch and continue to receive the better food, better accommodations, and other niceties. If she let one of them break the rules and they were found out, someone would replace her as favored servant, and she would have to endure the vengeance that her successor would surely wreak upon her.

 

It had been Misao's idea to bring Linda's fears to fruition: replace her with one of them, or help someone else overthrow her so that they could get on with the spying. The easiest way was to frame her for something she hadn't done. The lists of crimes were numerous; the girls could be punished for a whole host of things, including smiling too much to using anything but the most deferential language. In the end, Kaoru was called upon to use her siren talent. So far, the three had concealed their true natures with Heretic's Oil, but using their power through the oil was difficult. With practice, the siren mastered the skill.

 

It was during one of Linda's lectures on being strong. These lectures were hated by all, being long, tedious, and self-absorbed.

 

“Strength is the ability to get what you want.” Linda drawled in what she thought was a sultry voice. She fluttered her stubby lashes pathetically. “To have power over others and know it. If you bend to others...you are weak. If you bend to a man, especially, you are weak.”

 

She turned to face the wall. her voice rang out again, loudly, this time with something quite unexpected: a string of vile curses. She went on and on, in several languages, without pausing or repeating herself once. The ventriloquist Kaoru grinned, and Misao muttered, “You go, April.” Raising her hand, she motioned in a frightened way to a guard.

 

The guard, when he heard the language billowing from Linda's throat, grabbed her by the hair and tossed her into the far wall. With an ominous smile, turned to the weasel-imp and appointed her manger.

 

Once he was gone, the three exchanged smiles. Let the games begin.

 

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His apartment was empty without her here, and the quiet was starting to get to him.

 

He'd become too used to her falling asleep on the couch and leaving her things in the hallway. Everything reminded him of her and her absence.

 

He opened the fridge and immediately thought of Kaoru's ice cream addiction.

 

He couldn't look at his wallpaper, because Kaoru had mocked it.

 

As for his bedroom...he hadn't entered his bedroom at all. He'd put his clothes in a suitcase and put it under the dining table.

 

He was going to lose his mind any day now. It was all a matter of time. If she didn't come back, Shishou would have to have him committed, and he'd sit there in a reinforced straitjacket looped up on medication, babbling about the exchange rate of cupcakes and souls.

 

How had he let her convince him that this was a good idea? Yes, it had to be a woman, and yes, a real woman did work better, as Shishou had said. Her own skills and the unlikelihood of the Order expecting her to walk into their headquarters were probably part of it.

 

All he could do now was work and work, plan for every possible contingency, and hope that nothing would happen to her.

 

But he missed her, and Saitou missed Tokio, and Aoshi missed Misao, and even though none of them would ever admit it...

 

They were lonely.

 

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Besh had a problem.

 

In one word? Battousai.

 

The Order had been bankrupted. Their woman-selling business had been trashed by police in several countries. It was beautifully engineered. If it hadn't been happening to him, it would have been funny.

 

Without money, their operations would have to be stopped. Shishio had already hinted that unless he could provide him with a reason to stay, he would break their contract. Impudent man! Besh felt helpless in the face of his enemies: enemies that were closing in on all sides. He was being backed into a corner. But he still had a few resources left.

 

The last shipment of girls was in. The triplets, blonde and stupid, were famous in the human world. They would make good hostages; their parents might be able to pay a ransom. But that would attract too much attention. He could utilize some of the woman of water's stored, distilled power that was held in reserve. It was strong enough to be of some use.

 

But without the woman of water herself, his plans would all go to waste.

 

There had to be a way to capture her! His one spy had reported that Battousai had sent the woman to a European safe house for protection. I didn't make any sense. That demon would never send his woman away during a war situation. She was being hidden somewhere. But where? If he were to hide someone, he would simply wipe their minds and send them right into Onyx. With his luck, the Battousai would end up rescuing them.

 

It suddenly occurred to him how good an idea that was. To hide the woman you loved in the house of the enemy...

 

...had the demon done the same thing?

 

There had been a few sirens in the last shipment of women. He immediately crossed them off his list; too obvious. The best way to hide them would be as a human.

 

There had been five humans in the last shipment. The triplets, one of the guard's girls who was with the shift of guards guarding the Old Temple, and a strong-willed woman named Linda Stone.

 

Linda Stone...her eyes were steely and her voice was strong. The physical details were unimportant. But the personality...the same defiance that the woman of water had possessed. Could they be one and the same?

 

The triplets...they were exact opposites of her. It would be the perfect disguise.

 

Melanie was not the woman of water; she had been first caught a few months ago.

 

Either Linda Stone or one of the blonde ones.

 

Besh felt a smile cross his face evilly. So, the Battousai thought to defeat him? He would see who won this game.

 

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They had all been invited to come personally see Besh, and Misao didn't like it one bit.

 

Besh was the reason they were all here, being drooled at by Arnold and held prisoner by the guards.

 

He sat them down in his office. Linda Stone was there, as well.

 

`And here I was hoping this was a reward.' Misao felt her nervousness increase. This was not looking good.

 

Tokio and Kaoru were holding her hands reassuringly. They were both older then her. She supposed they felt like they had to take care of her. Hah! In Misao's opinion, Kaoru need taking care of: if anything happened to her, Kenshin would kill them. Saitou would do the same for Tokio.

 

`Great. I'm the least important!'

 

He was smiling, frog-like, his slimy-looking skin making her feel ill.

 

“Hello, Kaoru.” Misao felt her insides lurch. He knew. But she forced herself to look confused but not shocked. Beside her Tokio and Kaoru especially were keeping their faces schooled.

 

Besh waited for a reaction; seeing none, he turned to Linda. “Kaoru!”

 

Linda flinched then spoke. “Great One, I am not Kaoru. It is her, April. I heard one of the other girls call her that. Please forgive me!” She groveled on the floor for a few moments.

 

`After all her lectures on bending to men making us weak? Who's weak now, Linda?'

 

Besh turned to grab Kaoru, but Tokio was quicker. Shedding her human guise with a flick of her wrist, she slashed Besh across the face with long, sharp claws.

 

“Ah!” He grabbed his bloodied face while Kaoru let her own human face fall away. Misao followed suit, slamming the door shut with one hand and pulling out a brace of kunai with the other. Before Besh could grab the staff leaning against the far wall of his office, she pinned him to the desk with her sharp knifes. Kaoru did something with a shrieking note; ice rose up out of the floor and held him down.

 

“Damn.” Tokio commented. “This is not looking good. Kaoru, hide, they'll all be after you, not me and Misao. We'll cover you.”

 

“Don't be an idiot.” Kaoru snapped. “We need to get into their storage so I can shut down their magical generator. My power is still in there; I can get in. I'll cover you; this whole building is riddled with defensive magic.”

 

“Who needs magic?” Misao asked. “I have my fists, if it comes to that. You handle the magic; Tokio and I will slash things up.”

 

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Kaoru said, grinning slowly.

 

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Shishou's house was on fire.

 

Normally this would have at least mildly disturbed Kenshin. But since he was the one who had blown it up with the force of his rage, it didn't bother him at all. Currently, he was far more interested in the men who worked directly under him, the ones who were currently being given a pile of papers and files to carry while listening to his rapid-fire orders.

 

“Grab this, memorize it, burn it before you get into Gem. Someone find me that spy so I can interrogate him. And find out who delivered this ransom message. Don't burn down the city while I'm gone.”

 

Hypocritical advice coming from him.

 

“You're leaving?” One o his men asked.

 

“Shishio has invited me personally to come and kill him. How can I refuse?” He didn't mention what they all knew: that the ransom message that had showed up not an hour ago had fueled his decision.

 

He turned and started down the side of them mountain with ease. It was far away, but it was safer to run there. After all, Besh's men would have a job and half tracking down a demon on foot rather than a demon using other forms of transportation.

 

Hiko watching his idiot apprentice run off.

 

“That idiot had better replace all the sake he burned.”

 

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Tokio wasn't the type of woman who ran from danger, or confrontation. Succubae had a bad reputation, and she had never hesitated to correct ignoramuses who thought she was a slut because she showed a lot of skin. What she wore wasn't about those men; it was about her. And anyone who thought otherwise would be corrected by the sharp points of her claws.

 

But now she and her two friends were running, down the wide corridors and through all, from the hordes of armed men who wanted to bring the wrath of the Goddess down upon them.

 

Kaoru had told them that they had to go into the temple and take refuge there; it was forbidden to harm anyone within the circle of the Goddess, after all.

 

They couldn't find the temple, however, and it was beginning to get tedious, running, finding themselves facing a mob, turning and running somewhere else. It was a game of tag where everyone was it. There had to be an easier way out of this.

 

“I say we stand and fight the next mob.” Misao said. She was flying alongside them, a sign of true friendship, since she could fly faster then either of them could run.

 

“Why?” Kaoru asked.

 

“Because otherwise they'll chase us into a corner and gang up on us.” Misao replied as she nearly hit a wall and turned at the last minute.

 

“Fine.” Tokio agreed, letting her retracted claws slide out.

 

“Around the corner- the temple's that way.” Kaoru said, pointed to a symbol on the wall. Tokio didn't understand it, but didn't argue with Kaoru: she knew more about the Goddess then she did.

 

Around said corner was a vicious mob of Council members, wielding staff with razor-sharp blades on the ends. Behind them was the temple door. Kaoru motioned to a door on the side, whispering that it was the dressing room. It wouldn't be locked.

 

“On the count of three.”

 

“One...”

 

“Two...”

 

“Three!” There was a loud noise as a spring of water burst from the ground beneath the mob and began freezing around their feet. Tokio swiped at the men nearest, easily driving them into the frozen death trap. Misao kicked a guy in the head and he crashed into a wall.

 

She ducked trough the dressing room door, which as Kaoru had guessed was unlocked. They made their way into the temple from a side entrance, not sopping til they were well inside the circle. Then they sat down and took stock.

 

Cuts and bruises, nothing more. They were fine.

 

Kaoru began eagerly pawing through the neatly stacked treasures of the Order.

 

“The divine weaponry of the Goddess.” Kaoru murmured. “It's in bad shape. No one had taken care of it.”

 

“What's this?” Tokio pulled out a scroll with golden lettering in a complex, intricate, foreign script.

 

Koru snatched it from her hands. “The prophecy of the Order.” She breathed. “In original Sirenese, too. Find the official Order translation.”

 

Misao found it in minutes; it was kept in the same box as the original version.

 

Kaoru spread them both out on a table, reading both. When she was finished, she gave a soft gasp.

 

“Those complete and utter imbeciles! This is mistranslated!”

 

“What?” Misao asked. “How?”

 

“`A man of fire shall rule the dark, a woman of water shall bring the light, and the song of the Goddess shall be sung by her. In the hour of panic they shall give and be given. The song of the Goddess shall be restored in the song of the woman of water, and the Goddess's treasure shall be strung and oiled by her.'” Kaoru read. “That's the translation. But it should be, `A man of fire shall rule the dark, a woman of water shall bring the light, and the heart of the Goddess shall be borne by her. In the hour of panic they shall save and be saved. The heart of the Goddess shall be revealed in the song of the woman of water, and the Goddess's treasure shall be strung and oiled by her.'”

 

“So let me get this straight. The entire basis for the Order's existence...is a mistranslation.” Tokio said with disbelief. “Who's the woman of water, then?”

 

“I don't know. They thought it would be a siren, because they thought she was supposed to sing. But if you've ever studied archaic siren poetry, you'd know that by `song of the woman of water' they mean the soul, or inner self. The heart of the goddess is supposed to be her children. Us. Everyone is the heart of the Goddess. Save and be saved...I don't know what that means. The hour of panic...in the calendar of the Goddess, panic can be translated as ewe. The hour of the ewe is supposed to be late afternoon.”

 

“Late afternoon? Didn't Kenshin kill Ryuichi in late afternoon?” Misao asked. “He saved you. And I guess you saved him, by not running away and screaming.”

 

“That would make Kenshin the man of fire. Appropriate. And me as the woman of water...this does make sense. Finding love from the Goddess inside yourself...if they're referring to my religious rebirth after I found out I didn't kill my mother...I just strung and oiled some of the treasure. As for my bringing the light, I don't know. It might not be me. Prophecies are all about interpretation.”

 

“Well, the Order believes it's you.” Tokio said. “They have to have a reason. There are a lot of sirens in the world.”

 

“It might be because if who the prophecy was made to.” Kaoru pointed out. “For now, let's try and regroup. We need to shut down the defenses for the inside of the headquarters.”

 

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The world around him was bathed in flame and destruction, but he paid it no attention. Aoshi Shinomori was not a sentimental man, and he had few friends.

 

Kenshin Himura was one of them. And he had told Aoshi to go on ahead while he fought Soujiro and then Shishio, on his own.

 

He couldn't go with him. But he was waiting, looking for some sign Kenshin had survived.

 

A shadowy figure was emerging through the smoke. It was the red-haired demon, with a bloodied woman slung over his shoulder. He was limping.

 

Aoshi wordlessly took the woman, who he recognized as Yumi Komogata. Why was she injured?

 

“Shishio's dead. Our work is done here.” Kenshin said.

 

The two met up with Saitou, who was amazingly enough smoking, despite the fire raging all around him, at the gates of Shishio's lair. They headed to their camp to leave Yumi.

 

All that was left was the Order.

 

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Besh fumbled with the lock on the door, cursing that infernal creature with every breath. The succubus had taken out one of his eyes, destroying his depth perception. He had stumbled into the secret temple below the upper temple where the girls were hiding, but not without several injuries.

 

He was a man humiliated, and those women would pay for every bruise. They dare strike him, Besh! Master of the World!

 

His objective now was to use his last weapon. It was the well-guarded secret of the Order. So well-guarded that only he knew of it. No one would ever come down here, and no one would know he had disobeyed the law and released this.

 

It was a faintly screaming power that lay sealed here; a magic wrought from the blood of babies and the tortured hearts of murderers. It had been hidden for a reason, but Besh was too far gone to realize what he was doing. He knew only that releasing this would kill all three of them, and therefore destroy the prophecy. It would be fulfilled at a later date, when he, Besh, could control it properly.

 

It would be easy to kill the Battousai once his woman was dead.

 

He pried at the seal after smearing it with blood from his ruined, blind eye. It glowed, trembled, and for the first time he felt a tremor of fear.

 

The explosion was silent; a wave of oozing evil that killed Besh in a second and continued it's way upward.

 

Several hundred feet above and five feet to the right, a demon, a wolf, and a soul-eater arrived at the Order.

 

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Yes! Another too-short cliffie. A note to all readers: Please check my profile. There are polls, the impressions play list, an explanation of the Impressions-world government, and updates on my progress on my current fics. There are two one shots, two three shots, and this thing, which should be wrapped up in two or three chapters. The sequel to TI, Mentoring, is also partway done. To learn more, GO TO MY PROFILE. I do actually update it every time I update...anything.

 

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