tampered | [log] [completed]

Current Mood: sick

[log] [completed]

When; June 3, Early Evening
Rating; PG-13
Characters; Sohma Akito [

caging] & Zaphikel [

tea_fan]
Summary; An angel and the one possessed by the god of Zodiacs meet.
Log;

It was possible it was the first time in his life, or at least recently, that he genuinely felt the fear of dying. They were supposed to look for him and to chase him, to realize he had been missing for so long. It was their duty as members of the Sohma Clan. Yet, here he was, on the ground, unable to move and burning with fever.

He was alone.

Did Ren convince them to let her die out in the wilderness? Had she chosen to claim her prize for winning their little bet? It made Akito's blood boil at the thought of her laughter and the fact that she had won again. She should have died by his hands, by the knife he held in his hand right now.
If it were not for the bond, she would have been dead.

If it were not for the bond, he would not have found a reason to stab Kureno.

"Kureno--" It wasn't his voice. It was small and childish. It was sobbing and Akito hated it. He wanted it to stop but he couldn't find the strength to yell anymore or to open his eyes to find the source of the small voice. There was the ticking too.

It could be hell.

Does God go to hell?

Wasn't it his right to do what he wished to his subjects, his Zodiacs? Nobody told him. Was it his fault? What did he do? What was wrong?

Maybe if he died, he wouldn't have to worry about the Zodiacs anymore. Go to the girl! Tohru! That ugly and annoying thing. Maybe then, maybe they should realize their God was better.

He thought of one person, wondered what he would do, and then laughed voicelessly at his foolishness. Out of all the Zodiacs, that person was the most distanced, even more so than Kureno who had long before broken from the curse.

At last, the ticking stopped.

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Zaphikel was sitting on one of the lawns in the garden of Xanadu, surrounded by a mass of beautiful flowers, for once not drinking tea, but pondering.

He'd be more successfull if the glasses would stop complaining, too.

His feeble attempt at maintaining concentration was fully destroyed when he heard a small voice in his near vicinity.

Curiosity piqued, Zaphikel turned around to see what looked like a human teenager lying in the grass a few meters from him.

The small knife clutched tightly in the unconscious black-haired teen whimpered helplessly. Sometimes, even if it knew nobody could hear it, it would cry out a single name.

"Kureno."

There was little else to be understood from the small knife.

Hurriedly, Zaphikel stood up from where he sat and walked over to the person. Had he really been so inattentive? The thought was rather uncomfortable.

He took a quick look to discern that apparently he - or she, it wasn't really all that discernable - was unconscious. Noteworthy was his or her aura, which was unusually strong for a human, though it didn't feel like an angel's or demon's either.

When he heard the voice next, it became clear that it wasn't the person speaking. Zaphikel looked around, and just as his glasses piped up to remark something or another about his supposed stupidity, his eyes fell on the knife.

At last, the knife began speaking with more coherence. "You have to get help! It wasn't my fault! I'm just a... a... an ordinary knife!"

Until know, it spent its short life contently peeling and slicing fruits into small chunks. It enjoyed peeling apples and helped them make the skin remain fully in tact. It was a lowly existence of a knife but it was content nonetheless.

And then, its mistress decided in a fit of insanity to use it for a darker purpose. It had been happy when that looked like a failure but the victim then used it to stab that person.

Kureno.

It didn't want this!

It wasn't its fault!

Well. That was certainly interesting. But it looked as though there was no time to ponder on things, as the person very obviously needed help.

"It's okay, I'll help the two of you." And for once, he was not talking in his sing-song he used when playing the Nice Uncle.

Quickly, he turned the person around and checked for injuries, finding none. He put his hand on his - he guessed the person to be male - forehead, feeling the heat that pointed out a fever.

Well, that would go away with time and according treatment. Zaphikel went to fetch his tea can.

"You will?" The knife asked. It didn't know recognize this new person but it wasn't about to complain. At least that would mean this sickly man wouldn't die either, even if he had used it to kill another. "Can... you help... other person? Kureno?"

He'd gotten back to the boy soon enough to hear the knife's question. "Kureno? Is that this young man's name?"

His glasses chose to speak up. "Trying to lure the two of them in, are you? You're really just a bloody -- "

They shut up when Zaphikel took them off and put them into his pocket.

Not that he could really deny that they had a point.

If the knife could shake its head, it would have. It couldn't though, so instead, it made small whimpering sounds as if it were crying. "No... no. The kind man. I t-think... I t-think I killed him."

It tried to remember the young man who held him. His name? "Soh--ma?" The knife was sorely ignorant to most of th humans' names. It only knew Kureno because this boy held him and muttered the name over and over before.

"There is no one else here. Maybe you just arrived. It would be plausible, as there has been a new wave of newcomers this week." The second and third sentences, he'd spoken more to himself than anyone. The knife wouldn't understand a word of what he was saying.

"... suffice to say you're in a different place than you've been now. I'll explain when this young man - Sohma, as you've called him - wakes up, so I don't have to do it twice, understand."

Zaphikel truly wondered what he wanted to accomplish with this. He looked at Sohma. Possibly a replacement card... ? But no, something within him protested rather vehemently to that. The boy was young, had a fever and had just arrived.

Maybe he still had a good bone left in his body after all.

The small knife refused to believe that. It really couldn't even begin to understand the angel's words. "He was walking... they'll know. The kind human might die!"

Desperation laced the small knife's voice. There really wasn't much this angel could do to calm it down short of letting it find a way to satisfy its guilt and worry.

"Then I hope the people in your world prevent him from doing so." Because really, there wasn't anything anyone could do about it now.

Zaphikel poured tea into two cups. He always brought several with him, hoping for visitors. After all, what better way to gather information?

"Us knives really can't do anything unless we're used," the knife said quietly and then it seemed to notice the man pouring tea. "We don't have mouths. Rust will get us if we get too wet."

"I see. I'll be careful not to spill anything on you, then." Zaphikel smiled slightly. Talking to the knife inspired some good-natured amusement in him.

He looked at Sohma. Well, it was about time he woke up, at least in Zaphikel's opinion, so he lightly grabbed his shoulder and started gently shaking him a little, hoping to wake him up through that.

He really didn't want to resort to the hard method - namely, pouring tea over Sohma's head.

The knife made sniffling sounds but remained relatively quiet. However, when the angel began shaking the Sohma gently, it felt it must speak. "He... he won't like that." It was a small quiet warning, punctuated by a small and weak moan from the Sohma.

Akito came to consciousness slowly. It felt he was being dragged on the ground. Slowly, the ticking trickled into his consciousness as well as awareness that someone was shaking him. Didn't he tell them never to do that? It wasn't their right! He had expressed orders for them to refrain from disturbing him!

It wasn't Kureno! It wasn't Hatori! He knew his Zodiacs! They had no right!

Angrily, he swatted his right hand in the air, knife in hand. He briefly forgot about Kureno, the stabbing, the anger, the rain, and trudging alone the streets in bare foot.

Once he gained more awareness however and realized he was neither home nor anywhere or anyone familiar, he screamed.

"Who are you! How dare you!"

Zaphikel quickly evaded the swat in his direction by leaning back and looked at Sohma, keeping his eyes open - as he still mostly kept them closed simply out of habit - putting on a friendly face in hopes of not scaring the boy.

"Please, no need to be frightened. You're in a safe place, though not where you used to be. I found you lying here with a fever, so I thought I'd take care of you."

He grabbed one of the cups standing next to him in the grass.

"Tea?"

"I told you," the knife was saying before dissolving into quiet whimpering again, fearing the Sohma Head. It remembered now how they seemed to fear this creature.

Akito kept his grip on the knife, still not quite aware of the fact that it had come to life, and gave the unknown man before him a suspicious glare. He knew that smile, or rather, he liked to think he did. It was the smile of hypocrisy. That was similar to the smiles Shigure would put on to spite him. It was not quite it, but he felt it in his gut instinct and he did not trust this new man.

"Safe?" Akito sneered and spoke in a deeper tone. "Out in the open? You make me laugh." Unconsciously, he rearranged the top of his yukata. He was a mess but he refused to admit that.

"I demand to be returned to the Main House!" He couldn't have gone too far, he knew. By all means, he should still be within the vast Sohma compound and he wanted to be returned to the Main House. Even if that meant having to face the consequences of his actions to Kureno.

"Well", Zaphikel said. "As I said, you're not at home anymore. Please, calm down and let me explain."

The smile had vanished from his face to leave a solemn expression. He had decided for himself that he would let no harm come to this child. The possible reasons for that, he didn't want to dwell on -- didn't want to remember another child he had left back home.

"As for the safety of this place; it is a garden, and I would deem it relatively safe. Except for the sakura tree in its center, that is, I wouldn't advise going near that."

The Sohma was far from calming down, however, all attempts to rise up only resulted in a slight dizzy spell. In the end, he settled for sitting on the cool and dirty ground. At least, when he was positioned like this, he didn't feel so weak and dizzy. And he could forget his weakness.

Still, he eyed the man with such potent wariness. "A garden, huh?" he questioned mockingly and the continued with a quiet; "An excuse."

He ignored the tea held out for him. It could be poison. Akito wouldn't put it pass them to try and kill him now. They would take advantage of his vulnerability. That woman especially. She had wanted him dead, or at least, out of her pathetic way for as long as he could remember.

There was a whimpering sound. It was small and barely noticeable, but he hated it. "Make that noise stop," he said curtly.

The knife couldn't stop, but it did try to quiet down, albeit in fear. It wasn't its fault they could hear it now!

Zaphikel sighed. There really wasn't much he could do to calm his young companion down. The only thing of use would be patience. He set the cup of tea down in front of him, in case he decided to drink it, and sipped from his own.

"Noise, you say? ... Ah, I believe that would be the knife. I already talked to it! You see, today is what we people of the City call a 'curse day'. They happen frequently and last for exactly one day, so it won't be talking anymore come midnight."

There was certainly a lot of information to digest for Sohma, and Zaphikel would not at all be surprised if he simply outright refused to believe any of it.

"There is quite a lot you should know about this place. I will tell you, if you are willing to listen. And I would suggest listening, as being informed always helps."

What nonsense was that? Talking knives and curse days? It was darkly amusing. Akito laughed at the man. Curse? He knew of only one curse and it bound him to the Zodiacs. "Will you tell me about talking animals next? And souls kept in small boxes?" The words filled with dark sarcasm rolled out of his mouth without much thought. At the back of his mind, he remembered his words to Kureno. He should have told him! At the same time, now, he wondered vaguely if it would have sounded as silly as this then.

He hated this.

Zaphikel grinned. There were instants in which his "Nice Uncle"-voice came to him quite naturally, simply because he felt like it, and this was one of them. He wondered vaguely when it had become a genuine part of his personality.

"Ah, who knows what the so-called 'deities' think of next? Really, I wouldn't call such things impossible. Come to think of it, there have been talking animals, but they're gone now."

He took another sip from his tea. "Really though, are you sure you don't want any", he continued, motioning to the other cup. "It seems you have caught a bit of a fever."

Akito gave the other cup a look with narrowed eyes. Slowly, his lips curved into a spiteful smile. "Is it poisoned?" he questioned. His look said he knew and acknowledged the possibility of it being so and it challenged the other man.

Mistrusting to the bone, that one. Zaphikel eyed him and demonstratively took another sip. "By all means, no! See, I am drinking the very same beverage. I poured it from this can", and he nodded at it for emphasis.

"Hmph."

If he died now, maybe his Zodiacs would come to their pathetic senses. Maybe they would realize his importance. Maybe they would miss the bond between God and Zodiacs, if not himself alone.

He stopped his train of thoughts there. He did not want to admit that. He was special. If he died, it was their duty to weep, to hurt and to feel the pain of the bond breaking, not by their will, but by death.

"I'll drink," he declared and reached for a cup. Inside, he thought vaguely, he was special. He couldn't die like this.

Though abrupt, he always remembered his manners and poised himself elegantly to drink from the cup. He couldn't say if it was good or bad. Frankly, he didn't care.

Nothing went past the angel's notice: not how warily Sohma went about drinking and not how he seemed to suddenly remember his members when he finally decided to do so.

"See? Nothing bad is happening." Zaphikel smiled at him once more. Then, he decided it was time for introductions.

"By the way, I am Zaphikel. May I ask your name in return?"

Akito did not meet the man's eyes when he paused. He made a small noise that resembled a sneer. "Sohma Akito," he declared in a quiet tone. The Sohma name was pretty well known in Japan, not to mention to parts of the world. However, it was limited to members of high society and he did not expect this Zaphikel to be a member of that.

"Take me back to the Sohma Compound, if you will," he added. He thought in his head, if you know. The bond, it felt muffled here. It made him angry. It made his heart ache. He hated it very much.

Sigh. Maybe this young man would manage to wear his patience down after all. As of right now, though, that was still far from happening.

"I am truly sorry, but we are not in your home world, and we have no means of going back there, as there is no definite way out of this dimension. See, this place is a nexus between worlds - a place that connects them. Most people end up here unintentionally and without expecting anything."

"Shut up. Find a way-" The sharp glare. Akito grew tired of this. Another world. Another world. If this was heaven, he would know. He still felt the same anger, the same ache, the same emptiness and the bare comfort of the bond. "I don't care for your storytelling, I'm not interested." I refused to believe that kind of lie, he didn't say but thought. "Just take me back!"

"Believe me, I would love to, but it is simply impossible, and everyone else you will meet here will tell you the same. I could, however, show you where you can get a free flat. You really look as though bedrest would be best for you now."

Zaphikel put down his cup of tea and looked at Sohma-kun once again. Suddenly, he thought he remembered something -- the name seemed familiar. He thought he'd seen it over the network once or twice.

"On second thought, there seem to be others with your name in this City. Maybe they are related to you."

That got Akito's attention. He didn't mean to, but his voice and face softened with what could easily have been hopefulness. "Others?" His voice was quiet. Thoughtlessly, Akito grabbed Zaphikel by his clothes, clutching at folds of fabric with cold fingers. "Who? Who?" He demanded. Were his Zodiacs here?

He drew away and seemed to withdraw into himself. Hands covered his ears. The cup was forgotten on the ground. He muttered to himself about the bond. "I did't feel it... did it break? It's not supposed to break!" was said in a soft whisper.

He gathered his composure quickly and turned sharply to Zaphikel. "Show me. Them."

Watching Sohma-kun retreat back into himself, Zaphikel's features softened. He looked at Akito for a moment before retrieving his laptop. Making sure the glasses had no way of using the voice-post option, he turned it back on to write an entry. While typing away at his journal client, he spoke to Akito.

"I am afraid I haven't caught their first names. I will try to contact them over the City network. Have a bit of patience, please."

He refrained from asking what exactly was not supposed to break. It wouldn't do to intrude upon whatever kept Akito's thoughts occupied in his current state.

Letting out a quiet breath, he clicked the enter button to save the entry and simultaneously send it to the network.

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