[Ongoing] Dréd-Son - Chapter 21: Feelings of Unease
Title: Dréd-Son - Chapter 21: Feelings of Unease
Fandom: Johnny's & Associates
Pairings/Characters: Iida Kyohei, Yokoo Wataru, Senga Kento, Nikaido Takashi, Yara Tomoyuki, Yamamoto Ryota, mentions of others
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None really...except, this is an AU!
Disclaimer: Not mine. Owned by J&A. The AU is mine though as well as aymagun's.
A/N: Current word count of this AU: 52,065 \o/ !! Finished up to chapter 24 already, so posting this year will go smoothly. Chapter 25 is well on its way as well and a lot of bits and pieces beyond that have also been finished and only need to be connected and made into proper chapters. I...also got a lot of ideas for spin-offs. :X
Summary: It's called the 'gift' or 'soul' by most. A strange, mysterious force only few possess on the planet that is half ocean and half desert. The people on the planet have lived in harmony with each other and their environment for centuries but something yet unknown is threatening to throw everything into chaos.
Yamamoto knew he shouldn’t talk about it, even with the others or, especially with the others but he couldn’t help it. Senga wasn’t someone he considered to be ‘outside the circle’ and besides, the other cared for Takahashi, Eda and Hayashi as well. They were all connected after all. So he just blurted things out to Senga later that night, when Nikaido was already sleeping. The three of them were sharing a room while the older four shared the other and Master Yara had one to himself.
“Master Yara didn’t want to tell you about the attack in detail because it’s worrying him a lot. He does not want to worry you more and make your mission even more complicated,” he started and played with the edge of his blanket. “It was very worrying.”
“You don’t have to defend him, you know? I know. I know him. I know you,” Senga smiled. He was calm and quiet right now, a somewhat stark contrast to his usual demeanor around the others, especially around Nikaido. But he had this other side as well, a quiet, serious side. Most people never noticed it but those who knew him would encounter it every so often.
Yamamoto smiled back at the other, “Ah, I guess that’s right.”
“So, what happened?”
Looking down, Yamamoto took a deep breath. Then things just flowed out of him,“That’s the thing. We don’t really know. Master Yara just looked away for a moment. He was distracted by another enemy and I was on his other side to cover his back and when we turned around the three of them were hit by…actually we don’t know what hit them. It may have been some kind of shock-wave but I can’t say for sure. We didn’t see anything actually flying towards them but there was a huge explosion. Hayashi was barely breathing when the dust finally cleared. Eda was beside himself with worry, despite his own injuries. Takahashi was bleeding all over but seemed to be better off than the other two despite that because he had been further away from the place where the explosion actually occurred.” He gripped his blanket tightly and added softly, “I really hope they’ll be okay.” Worry was very obviously the most dominant feeling around Yamamoto right now but there was also fear.
Senga could understand. It was natural to fear the unknown. “Who attacked you?” he asked. “Do you know?”
“We didn’t and we still don’t know who it was or who it could have been. They came from seemingly nowhere but not like the desert bandits or so, not from under the sand. The people here would have noticed otherwise. We couldn’t see their faces either. They hid them with masks, cloaks or whatever else. It was really weird. I could not sense them with my soul. Usually it would be possible to sense at least a trace of life even if you don’t possess the same soul abilities as Iida does but here it was just nothing. Master Yara seemed really puzzled by that,” Yamamoto shook his head.
Then he suppressed a shiver. “They were so quiet. They didn’t talk or anything. I couldn’t even hear them breathe really. As if they weren’t alive but they clearly were. They were moving and very obviously solid and well, human. They bled when we attacked them. Although, thinking about it now, they did not show any signs of pain or discomfort when we hurt them.”
“That sounds very creepy,” Senga made a face.
“I know, right?” Yamamoto couldn’t suppress the shiver anymore and his body trembled a little bit as it ran down his spine. “After that explosion, they were gone. As if they had never been there.
“Aah, stop it or we won’t be able to sleep,” Senga shook his head to clear his mind. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Yamamoto agreed. He looked at Senga’s dangling earring again. “You and Nikaido really are one heart and one soul, huh?” he smiled wistfully.
“You could be happy like I am, too, if you finally got the guts to spill the beans to him, you know?” Senga looked at Yamamoto. “I’m sure you won’t destroy some kind of cosmic balance if you do. And he’s not someone who’d let things become overly awkward even if things don’t turn out the right way.”
“I’m just waiting for the right time,” Yamamoto defended himself.
Senga poked the other, “Get moving. Or you’ll regret it. Time might lose its patience with you.”
“Yes, Mh’Senga,” Yamamoto mock saluted.
“Hey!”
A pillow hit both of them over the head. “Could you two just shut up and sleep? Your whispering and mumbling is making my ears itch,” Nikaido complained sleepily. He appeared to be a little grumpy, maybe because Senga was lying so close to Yamamoto instead of being half-sprawled on top of him, something he’d gotten used to. They had slept like that during the trip as well as at the Ghayi - so pretty much all the time unless they were separated because of missions.
“Aw, don’t feel lonely, Nika,” Senga crawled back over to the other. “We’ll sleep now.”
“Meh,” Nikaido was about to roll over and sulk but Senga kept him where he was and made up for his absence with a nice and long belated good-night kiss.
“Oi, there are other people in the room, too!” Yamamoto was the one complaining now but he was smiling and just rolled over to try and sleep as well.
~*~
Over in the other room people were asleep already but sleep didn’t come to all of them as a time of peaceful rest. Iida was being tormented by his weird dreams or visions again. It started just like it did every other time, with screams of pain and despair, of sheer endless agony that bled into him and tightened up his chest painfully. He felt like he could barely breathe and as if that wasn’t enough already, it was as if a cold claw was trying to grab his heart and squeeze it as well.
He desperately wanted to wake up but he found that he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t let him or maybe it was his mind or soul that couldn’t escape this.
A warm orange light appeared in a corner and the pain faded a little bit, the cold grip loosened and he managed to gasp for breath. He knew he shouldn’t welcome the other’s help so willingly. He knew the pain hadn’t gone away but had only lessened by the amount that the other would be feeling now.
When he felt like he had recovered enough to bear everything on his own again, he wanted to push Yokoo out gently but before he could do so, his mind was assaulted by a sudden vision.
There it was. That mysterious crystal. It was surrounded by a sickly light, the same light they had seen at the horizon. More crystals appeared. They glowed in different lights but they all looked eerie and foreboding. It made Iida feel uncomfortable and afraid. In the midst of the glowing crystals, a lone black one appeared. When Iida looked at it, he felt as if he was being drawn into the pitch black darkness of it, sucked into it. A sound from his side drew his attention away. He saw someone else there, someone he didn’t know. Someone with the soul, though. That much he could feel.
What happened next made him freeze in horror. With a scream of utmost terror and pain the young girl was sucked into the crystal. Iida had tried to reach out to grab her hand but it had been too late. When he looked at the crystal again, it had started to glow. And the glow felt like the glow of the girl’s soul he had felt only seconds ago.
“Kyouhei! Wake up! Regain your senses!” Yokoo’s voice hadn’t been loud but it had echoed in his soul loud enough to jerk him back into reality. Iida could feel his hair sticking to his forehead because of the cold sweat that was starting to dry all over his body and caused him to shiver a little bit. His body hurt and his fingers felt stiff and ached as if he’d had a cramp or worse.
“Wataru,” he had to look around a bit before he could fine the other’s face hovering close to his. “What happened?” The other looked so worried. He could feel Yokoo’s worry, too. But he couldn’t explain why. It couldn’t be just because of the pain the other had shared with him earlier, could it?
Yokoo sighed softly and his shoulders became less tense. At least part of the worry seemed to have vanished. “I should be the one asking that,” he brushed a few strands of hair out of Iida’s face. “For a moment, I couldn’t feel you anymore. Despite still being connected. That scared me. And then you weren’t responding and your body went all tense and stiff and started to jerk weirdly.”
Sitting up with the other’s help, Iida ran a shaky hand through his own hair and took a few deep breaths. “I had a vision. Or at least I think it was one. Although this one seemed to be more real and intense than the other ones I’ve had in the past. It wasn’t just the voice telling me something but I actually saw something happening. Although I am not sure what it was that happened.” He shivered again at the memory. “I’m worried, Wataru. I fear something bad might happen to the Ghayi while we’re gone.”
“That bad?” Yokoo wrapped his arms around the other and pulled Iida against himself. The contact would help at times. It had in the past. “You shouldn’t worry too much about everyone back home, though. Master Takizawa and Master Ma’yaa are both there to protect them. And it’s not like they are all helpless, even if they’re still young and doing training. It would take a frighteningly large force to take them all down. And it would most certainly alarm everyone in Dréd-Son. Even though the real face of the Ghayi is hidden, it is not hidden, really. Everyone knows it’s there.”
“I know,” Iida curled his fingers into the fabric of Yokoo’s clothes. “And yet I can’t help but worry. I have a bad feeling about this, Wataru.”
It wasn’t a good sign, really. Despite his reassuring words, Yokoo knew that Iida’s gut feelings were to be trusted in most cases. But what could he do right now? What could they do from here? “Do you think you’ll be able to go back to sleep? Should I block out everything that might try to jump you for the night? I’ll manage. Or do you want to take some of…that.”
They still had a last resort. It wasn’t something either of them liked but Master Ma’yaa had given them a couple of vials for emergencies. And Yokoo thought that now seemed like one of those.
“I…I guess that’s a good idea,” Iida nodded after a moment of hesitation. “I’d be of no use like this.”
Nodding, Yokoo reached under the bed for one of their bags. It didn’t take long for him to produce a small pouch with a couple of vials inside of it. They all held a pitch black liquid. Master Ma’yaa called it ‘Liquid Darkness’, a most potent sleeping poison. Yes, it was a poison but only if you took too much of it. It would cause your mind to completely drown in the darkness and never emerge from it again. So it had to be handled with utmost care. Iida had been introduced to it during his training.
He downed the liquid quickly and closed his eyes. “Good night, Wataru.”
“Sleep well, Kyouhei. I’ll be right here next to you,” Yokoo whispered and pressed a gentle kiss onto Iida’s temple as the other’s mind was clouded by the darkness and he drifted off into a dreamless sleep. For once, there was silence in his mind and his soul settled down completely. Yokoo made sure that he kept a ‘lifeline’ to the other intact just in case. Then, he laid down again as well and tried to get some rest before things got moving again.
To be continued...
Fandom: Johnny's & Associates
Pairings/Characters: Iida Kyohei, Yokoo Wataru, Senga Kento, Nikaido Takashi, Yara Tomoyuki, Yamamoto Ryota, mentions of others
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None really...except, this is an AU!
Disclaimer: Not mine. Owned by J&A. The AU is mine though as well as aymagun's.
A/N: Current word count of this AU: 52,065 \o/ !! Finished up to chapter 24 already, so posting this year will go smoothly. Chapter 25 is well on its way as well and a lot of bits and pieces beyond that have also been finished and only need to be connected and made into proper chapters. I...also got a lot of ideas for spin-offs. :X
Summary: It's called the 'gift' or 'soul' by most. A strange, mysterious force only few possess on the planet that is half ocean and half desert. The people on the planet have lived in harmony with each other and their environment for centuries but something yet unknown is threatening to throw everything into chaos.
Yamamoto knew he shouldn’t talk about it, even with the others or, especially with the others but he couldn’t help it. Senga wasn’t someone he considered to be ‘outside the circle’ and besides, the other cared for Takahashi, Eda and Hayashi as well. They were all connected after all. So he just blurted things out to Senga later that night, when Nikaido was already sleeping. The three of them were sharing a room while the older four shared the other and Master Yara had one to himself.
“Master Yara didn’t want to tell you about the attack in detail because it’s worrying him a lot. He does not want to worry you more and make your mission even more complicated,” he started and played with the edge of his blanket. “It was very worrying.”
“You don’t have to defend him, you know? I know. I know him. I know you,” Senga smiled. He was calm and quiet right now, a somewhat stark contrast to his usual demeanor around the others, especially around Nikaido. But he had this other side as well, a quiet, serious side. Most people never noticed it but those who knew him would encounter it every so often.
Yamamoto smiled back at the other, “Ah, I guess that’s right.”
“So, what happened?”
Looking down, Yamamoto took a deep breath. Then things just flowed out of him,“That’s the thing. We don’t really know. Master Yara just looked away for a moment. He was distracted by another enemy and I was on his other side to cover his back and when we turned around the three of them were hit by…actually we don’t know what hit them. It may have been some kind of shock-wave but I can’t say for sure. We didn’t see anything actually flying towards them but there was a huge explosion. Hayashi was barely breathing when the dust finally cleared. Eda was beside himself with worry, despite his own injuries. Takahashi was bleeding all over but seemed to be better off than the other two despite that because he had been further away from the place where the explosion actually occurred.” He gripped his blanket tightly and added softly, “I really hope they’ll be okay.” Worry was very obviously the most dominant feeling around Yamamoto right now but there was also fear.
Senga could understand. It was natural to fear the unknown. “Who attacked you?” he asked. “Do you know?”
“We didn’t and we still don’t know who it was or who it could have been. They came from seemingly nowhere but not like the desert bandits or so, not from under the sand. The people here would have noticed otherwise. We couldn’t see their faces either. They hid them with masks, cloaks or whatever else. It was really weird. I could not sense them with my soul. Usually it would be possible to sense at least a trace of life even if you don’t possess the same soul abilities as Iida does but here it was just nothing. Master Yara seemed really puzzled by that,” Yamamoto shook his head.
Then he suppressed a shiver. “They were so quiet. They didn’t talk or anything. I couldn’t even hear them breathe really. As if they weren’t alive but they clearly were. They were moving and very obviously solid and well, human. They bled when we attacked them. Although, thinking about it now, they did not show any signs of pain or discomfort when we hurt them.”
“That sounds very creepy,” Senga made a face.
“I know, right?” Yamamoto couldn’t suppress the shiver anymore and his body trembled a little bit as it ran down his spine. “After that explosion, they were gone. As if they had never been there.
“Aah, stop it or we won’t be able to sleep,” Senga shook his head to clear his mind. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Yamamoto agreed. He looked at Senga’s dangling earring again. “You and Nikaido really are one heart and one soul, huh?” he smiled wistfully.
“You could be happy like I am, too, if you finally got the guts to spill the beans to him, you know?” Senga looked at Yamamoto. “I’m sure you won’t destroy some kind of cosmic balance if you do. And he’s not someone who’d let things become overly awkward even if things don’t turn out the right way.”
“I’m just waiting for the right time,” Yamamoto defended himself.
Senga poked the other, “Get moving. Or you’ll regret it. Time might lose its patience with you.”
“Yes, Mh’Senga,” Yamamoto mock saluted.
“Hey!”
A pillow hit both of them over the head. “Could you two just shut up and sleep? Your whispering and mumbling is making my ears itch,” Nikaido complained sleepily. He appeared to be a little grumpy, maybe because Senga was lying so close to Yamamoto instead of being half-sprawled on top of him, something he’d gotten used to. They had slept like that during the trip as well as at the Ghayi - so pretty much all the time unless they were separated because of missions.
“Aw, don’t feel lonely, Nika,” Senga crawled back over to the other. “We’ll sleep now.”
“Meh,” Nikaido was about to roll over and sulk but Senga kept him where he was and made up for his absence with a nice and long belated good-night kiss.
“Oi, there are other people in the room, too!” Yamamoto was the one complaining now but he was smiling and just rolled over to try and sleep as well.
~*~
Over in the other room people were asleep already but sleep didn’t come to all of them as a time of peaceful rest. Iida was being tormented by his weird dreams or visions again. It started just like it did every other time, with screams of pain and despair, of sheer endless agony that bled into him and tightened up his chest painfully. He felt like he could barely breathe and as if that wasn’t enough already, it was as if a cold claw was trying to grab his heart and squeeze it as well.
He desperately wanted to wake up but he found that he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t let him or maybe it was his mind or soul that couldn’t escape this.
A warm orange light appeared in a corner and the pain faded a little bit, the cold grip loosened and he managed to gasp for breath. He knew he shouldn’t welcome the other’s help so willingly. He knew the pain hadn’t gone away but had only lessened by the amount that the other would be feeling now.
When he felt like he had recovered enough to bear everything on his own again, he wanted to push Yokoo out gently but before he could do so, his mind was assaulted by a sudden vision.
There it was. That mysterious crystal. It was surrounded by a sickly light, the same light they had seen at the horizon. More crystals appeared. They glowed in different lights but they all looked eerie and foreboding. It made Iida feel uncomfortable and afraid. In the midst of the glowing crystals, a lone black one appeared. When Iida looked at it, he felt as if he was being drawn into the pitch black darkness of it, sucked into it. A sound from his side drew his attention away. He saw someone else there, someone he didn’t know. Someone with the soul, though. That much he could feel.
What happened next made him freeze in horror. With a scream of utmost terror and pain the young girl was sucked into the crystal. Iida had tried to reach out to grab her hand but it had been too late. When he looked at the crystal again, it had started to glow. And the glow felt like the glow of the girl’s soul he had felt only seconds ago.
“Kyouhei! Wake up! Regain your senses!” Yokoo’s voice hadn’t been loud but it had echoed in his soul loud enough to jerk him back into reality. Iida could feel his hair sticking to his forehead because of the cold sweat that was starting to dry all over his body and caused him to shiver a little bit. His body hurt and his fingers felt stiff and ached as if he’d had a cramp or worse.
“Wataru,” he had to look around a bit before he could fine the other’s face hovering close to his. “What happened?” The other looked so worried. He could feel Yokoo’s worry, too. But he couldn’t explain why. It couldn’t be just because of the pain the other had shared with him earlier, could it?
Yokoo sighed softly and his shoulders became less tense. At least part of the worry seemed to have vanished. “I should be the one asking that,” he brushed a few strands of hair out of Iida’s face. “For a moment, I couldn’t feel you anymore. Despite still being connected. That scared me. And then you weren’t responding and your body went all tense and stiff and started to jerk weirdly.”
Sitting up with the other’s help, Iida ran a shaky hand through his own hair and took a few deep breaths. “I had a vision. Or at least I think it was one. Although this one seemed to be more real and intense than the other ones I’ve had in the past. It wasn’t just the voice telling me something but I actually saw something happening. Although I am not sure what it was that happened.” He shivered again at the memory. “I’m worried, Wataru. I fear something bad might happen to the Ghayi while we’re gone.”
“That bad?” Yokoo wrapped his arms around the other and pulled Iida against himself. The contact would help at times. It had in the past. “You shouldn’t worry too much about everyone back home, though. Master Takizawa and Master Ma’yaa are both there to protect them. And it’s not like they are all helpless, even if they’re still young and doing training. It would take a frighteningly large force to take them all down. And it would most certainly alarm everyone in Dréd-Son. Even though the real face of the Ghayi is hidden, it is not hidden, really. Everyone knows it’s there.”
“I know,” Iida curled his fingers into the fabric of Yokoo’s clothes. “And yet I can’t help but worry. I have a bad feeling about this, Wataru.”
It wasn’t a good sign, really. Despite his reassuring words, Yokoo knew that Iida’s gut feelings were to be trusted in most cases. But what could he do right now? What could they do from here? “Do you think you’ll be able to go back to sleep? Should I block out everything that might try to jump you for the night? I’ll manage. Or do you want to take some of…that.”
They still had a last resort. It wasn’t something either of them liked but Master Ma’yaa had given them a couple of vials for emergencies. And Yokoo thought that now seemed like one of those.
“I…I guess that’s a good idea,” Iida nodded after a moment of hesitation. “I’d be of no use like this.”
Nodding, Yokoo reached under the bed for one of their bags. It didn’t take long for him to produce a small pouch with a couple of vials inside of it. They all held a pitch black liquid. Master Ma’yaa called it ‘Liquid Darkness’, a most potent sleeping poison. Yes, it was a poison but only if you took too much of it. It would cause your mind to completely drown in the darkness and never emerge from it again. So it had to be handled with utmost care. Iida had been introduced to it during his training.
He downed the liquid quickly and closed his eyes. “Good night, Wataru.”
“Sleep well, Kyouhei. I’ll be right here next to you,” Yokoo whispered and pressed a gentle kiss onto Iida’s temple as the other’s mind was clouded by the darkness and he drifted off into a dreamless sleep. For once, there was silence in his mind and his soul settled down completely. Yokoo made sure that he kept a ‘lifeline’ to the other intact just in case. Then, he laid down again as well and tried to get some rest before things got moving again.
To be continued...