[fic] With Dragon's Blood - Chapter Twenty Four ~Enter Orantina~
Title: With Dragon's Blood
Author:
prettyorianna
Pairing: Akame, PiKame, JunDa, Koki/Maru
Rating: NC-17.
Genre: fantasy
Beta by: my cat. okay, seriously, nobody
Disclaimer: I don't own KAT-TUN, any of its members, any other JE people. I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks. But don't steal my plots, mmkay? I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page. But I value those too... ALSO NOTE that if you steal my land, the language, the names, myths, maps or anything else from it and I find you, I'm sooo gonna be pissed. This world is special to me and I've spent almost 15 years on it.
Summary: Nobody believed an army could cross the mountains. Perhaps that's why nobody was prepared when they did...
Warning: Character death(s). Violence. Maybe more stuff; will modify as needed.
Nifty Banner done by Deshisoraba!!
Author's Note: Well, here's a bit more with Jin and Yamapi. Some Junno, too. Just a bit, though. Also some more Koki. And I hope you guys don't mind, but a bit of Orantina. It seemed the better way to have things play out than to continue from Koki's perspective.
The Master Posts:
On my journal - With Dragon's Blood Master Post
On the akame_ Community - With Dragon's Blood Master Post
On the akame_fanfics Community - With Dragon's Blood Master Post
On the je_kamenashi Community - With Dragon's Blood Master Post
On the kattun_fanfics Community - With Dragon's Blood Master Post
On the jin_fics Community - With Dragon's Blood Master Post
Chapter Twenty Four ~Enter Orantina~
Yamapi was floored. Had things really gotten so bad while he was gone? He spent most of his time bored, angry, and frustrated and he knew that Kame had been a bit upset while he was away, but he never imagined…
“Wait! Wait up!” he called, running after the man. “What’s your name?”
A sigh and the man stopped and waited for him. “Jin.”
“Where is Kame?” Yamapi asked as he pulled up alongside Jin.
Jin gestured in front of him. “About an hour ahead of us that way, or so Plantey says. I have to find him, though. He’s not supposed to go anywhere. Mother said she would take us to where Marina is when she gets back tomorrow and he needs to be here for that. I…”
Yamapi cocked his head to the side as Jin trailed off. “What?”
But suddenly Jin went rigid and when Yamapi walked around him, he saw the man’s eyes had changed; one was completely blue and the other completely green, both solids color like dragon eyes were. He could almost swear he smelled a familiar scent carried on the breeze, something from his stay with the dragons that he couldn’t quite place.
The man was completely nonresponsive to Yamapi waving his hand in front of his face or when Yamapi took him by the shoulder and shook him. “Hey? Helloooooo?”
Just as suddenly, the man’s eyes snapped back to brown and he stumbled forward. He probably would have fallen on his face it Yamapi didn’t still have a hand on his shoulder.
“We’re going back to the camp.” Jin suddenly said.
“The hell you say! I’m going after Kame!” Oh, the arrogance of that man. First shouting at him, then slapping him, and then walking away in the middle of the conversation and now? Now ordering him around? Oh, no. No sir!
Sighing, Jin said, “You’re welcome to try but I already had this argument and those two I’m pretty sure would stop us somehow.”
“Those two?”
“Please, do I really have to explain this to you of all people? The damn dragons! But if it makes you feel better, go ahead. Though, they said if we just let him be, he’d be back by the end of the day. Well, that and the really moody blue one said to ‘make nice’ with you until he gets back. Apparently, I’m supposed to waste my time answering your questions about the past few months, since she was ‘wasting her own time to have to talk to me, almost like I was important enough to bother’ with!” The man growled. “Were they all like that while you were there?”
“Worse. I told you I spent every minute trying to get away from there, didn’t I?” That blue one sure sounded a lot like Jazerine. He wasn’t sure who the green one was, though. He’d mostly been kept where only the blue brood would see him. “She wouldn’t let me leave! And… I can’t prove it but I think she put the one-way divide between me and Kame. I know that anytime my dreams went near him, she’d intrude and shut them down…”
Jin sighed again. Seemed like he did that a lot… or was it just because he was there? In any event, the man said, “Mother told us the dragons move us around to suit their purposes without even telling us we’re game pieces. Well, the dragons and the dragon blood that is in the Mages.”
“Fine,” Yamapi said irritably. “Back to the camp. When did they say to expect Kame?”
Jin shook his head, “The end of the day. I should have asked more questions but… those voices… there’s something about the voices, something overwhelming and distracting.” And the man started muttering something that sounded suspiciously like ‘uppity dragons’ and then ‘that’s my lot - uppity plants and uppity dragons’ but honestly, Yamapi might have been mistaken.
So the two of them went back to camp and Jin filled him in on everything that had happened since he met Kame those months ago. He told him about the man Kame had killed (apparently, he’d burned a man alive which didn’t sound like him at all…), about running after him and then helping get the royal twins across the river. He told a tale about magic training and Magicians and Sorcerers and Sorceresses, artifacts, the events leading up to Marina’s vanishing, Kame’s depression and injury, the Oath Jin had made - and that was particularly hard to hear about - and the brave face Kame tried to show.
His mother had to have something to do with Kame losing his connection to him. There was just no other explanation he could think of. Why would she do it? She was too vain to waste her time on sabotaging his love life for no good reason. There had to be a reason… but he would probably never know what it was and that was incredibly frustrating.
He could kind of understand now, about Kame and Jin. He didn’t like it. He was still mad at Kame for breaking his promise, but…
Now what?
+++
When Tatsuya finally left his room, Junno closed the door behind him and locked it. Sinking to the ground, back to the door, he just sort of sat there for a moment.
Why did he feel like this? He was trained not to. He was trained to put the mission above all else, to not regret any actions, no matter how contrary to his personality, so long as the action gets him a step further on the path to the mission goals.
But his stomach was turning all over itself, his heart beating frantically, almost like it was pushing accusations out along with every beat.
Maybe…
Maybe he should just take a couple of days, avoid the prince. He could later claim he freaked out because he’d been running from his feelings or some such.
Because he wasn’t sure what would happen, what he would say, if he had to look Tatsuya in the eyes when he spoke.
Cat was never gonna let him live this down. She’d never make the same mistake, he was sure. She’d never fall in lo…
Oh, gods…
He was seriously screwed, wasn’t he…
+++
The Arashi arrived on schedule the next day, bringing the princess Orantina to Fyrfenn. Koki did not enjoy what he was about to do. Truthfully, it seemed pretty barbaric to kill her, put all her blood in a climate-controlled crystal jar, and cart it back to the empire. He’d much rather take her whole and alive back but the word from the top said that magic was too dangerous and unknown to risk it. So, blood it was. Hell, the scientists weren’t even sure the magic was in the blood. It was at best an educated guess and at worst just a wild long shot. But, to give the scientists the best chance, they would make her (and the ones to follow her) transform first and only then take the blood.
Though, he wasn’t sure how he was going to pull that off. True, they could drug her… but they had to way to force the transformation. They’d have to somehow convince her it was the best thing to do.
Which probably meant torture.
He really hated to do that. They had brought a couple professionals to do the job if needed but if he had any other alternative, he wouldn’t use them.
Maru had once told him he was just entirely too sweet to lead an army. Maybe he was right…
Speaking of the man, Maru was just now coming through the door pulling a tall, thin woman with blue eyes and long brown hair after him. Koki hadn’t expected to see him; he was supposed to be on the Kattun. Then again, moving Orantina down to the ground was an important task, so it was good judgment to take on the task himself.
One he got her inside the throne room, Maru snapped a collar on her and let her go. She wouldn’t be able to leave the room now. Not that she’d get far even without the collar. She was still apparently groggy from the last time they dosed her.
“You are Princess Orantina, also known as Mage Shadow, specializing in, at the very least, lightning magic?” Koki asked her, crystal tablet on his lap as he sat haphazardly on the Bayrichtan throne (it was actually quite a comfortable chair!).
“You’re going to kill me…” she mumbled, still fairly dazed it seemed.
“Yes. But there are other things to do before that. Answer the question, then?”
She shook her head. “I am… Princess Shadow… er, Mage… Yes.”
“Other than the lightning, what magic can you cast?” Koki tapped the tablet a few times and then looked back up at her.
“I don’t know. After… everything… I never used magic again.”
“Do you know the identity of any other Mage or Magician?”
Now the woman looked confused. “Magician? What… are you talking…”
“Like the steward, McAvrie.”
“He has magic? But, he’s… HE. A guy.”
Maru shot him an impatient look but Koki really didn’t mind. The woman was about to die. If she wanted to salve herself by stalling a bit, he could concede that to her. As long as she remained more or less cooperative.
Again he asked her, “Do you know the identity of any other Mage or Magician?”
“No.”
“Not even the one who trained you?” he asked, eyebrow raised in question.
“Spirit. But I don’t know who… she is.”
A laugh from Catriona. Say, when had she snuck in this morning? Damn her and her stealth and secrecy! But he didn’t want to have to deal with her, so he let her be.
“Do you have any other information that might lead to the capture of other Mages?”
“No.”
“Very well, then. Transform for us and let’s get this over with, shall we?” he waved his hand to the man standing by with the blade and the large crystal container.
“No.”
+++
The world seemed so fuzzy still. How long had it been? She… was that all real? Was her husband dead? She kept answering the questions asked by the man in front of her but when he finally indicated it was time for her to die, looking around at the very place she’d endured so much pain already once before, she was reminded that it’s just not in her nature to give up, no matter how dark the future seemed.
“That last part, it wasn’t a request. If we have to, we’ll use tor-” but the man stopped as Catriona leaned over and said something to him.
She should have known that woman would be involved in all this mess.
The man who had been questioning her now turned to give Catriona his full attention. Finally he said, “Very well. Bring her along.”
The other man, with the dark, short-ish hair and the rather unusual nose, the one that had walked her in and then gone straight to the side of the throne said something but Orantina has sort of zoned for a moment so she missed it. But then the man on the throne said, “Right, then. Go ahead and do that.” And Catriona walked off, a couple of men following her.
Orantina was completely confused at this point but as the minutes passed it was almost like she was sort of rising out of the fog she was in, however slowly.
Everyone just sort of stayed still. Nobody said anything. Nobody did anything. But after a few moments, Orantina heard a sound that changed everything.
A sleepily murmured, “No…” in a chillingly familiar voice.
“Marina?”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter Twenty Five ~Blood of the Dragon~
A/N: I know, I know. I'm so mean. But you know you love it :)
Tomorrow's chapter will have Kame, Marina for sure, but also possibly some Koki/Maru, JunDa / Ryo and I might have to throw some Catriona in as well. I try to stick to the KAT-TUN, Ryo, and Pi (with the occasional Marina) perspectives only but every now and again there's just no way to do that.