Betwixt Heaven and Earth

Tenth Divide: Poison Bites Deep

The soft hiss as a metal blade was drawn out of its sheath was more than enough to rouse her. Sleep had not come easy to her these past few days, and she had only begun to doze when she heard the creak of her door opening. At first she thought that it was nothing, that it was just Sekharion or Khayeseadae coming in to check up on her, but the sound of metal rasping against wood was a more than clear indication that, whoever had come into her room was certainly not someone who wished her well.

Still, she did not give any indication that she had heard, but instead maintained the steady, even breathing of sleep, even as her hand reached under her pillow for the dagger she hid there for such emergencies as this.

Her fingertips had barely reached the sheath when a soft whistling cut through the air: the sound of a dagger blade homing in for her heart. Knowing that she had been called on her bluff, she threw the covers into the intruder's face, and used the resulting moment of confusion to grab her dagger, and tumble out of the way, heading for a relatively safer corner of her room.

She lifted the dagger as she moved into a knife-fighter's stance. "Who are you?"

The figure turned to her, and she shivered at what she saw: dark hair the color of rotten wood, only partially hiding eyes that glowed with a sick green eldritch light. The thin mouth twisted into the semblance of a smile, and moved as the owner of said mouth spoke: "What does it matter to you, Dragon Mage? You will die, anyway." The words escaped as a sibilant hiss that made her skin crawl.

only had barely enough time to twist out of the way as the dagger sang through the air, aiming for her face. She caught a whiff of something sharp and bitter on the blade: poison, one that she knew was made by only one being in all the worlds.

She parried her opponent's dagger with her own, and rolled across the floor so that she was too low to be reached by her opponent. She was on her feet in an instant, once again in that defensive posture. She had been trained for such situations as this, and she was not about to let that training go to waste.

    "You're a male Green," she murmured under her breath. "I recognized the scent of poison on the dagger." Her eyes narrowed as thoughts swept through her mind in quick succession, recognizing the assassin. "You're Méreg, aren't you?"

The Green Dragon's smile was as poisonous as his dagger. "My use-name is Méreg, but you do not know my true name, and hence you have no power over me." There was a flash, and stiffened when she found herself staring into swamp gas-green eyes, and cold metal biting into her throat. "And now, you die."

A howl, cold and clear like the winter wind, tore through the air, making Méreg turn towards its source. Taking that as an opportunity for escape, shoved the dagger away from her neck, and dashed towards the door, slumping heavily against the person standing there as the poison started to kick in.

An arm clamped itself firmly around her waist, supporting her as her knees gave way. She looked up, and caught sight of a firm jaw-line, with some light brown hair touching it just so towards the ears. She opened her mouth to say his name, but stopped dead in her tracks, knowing that if Méreg heard his name, the Dragon would no doubt use it against him.

Tezuka's voice was clear and commanding when he spoke: "I command thee, Houkou⁽¹⁾! Heed thy master, and destroy thine enemy before thee!"

Another howl tore the air, and craned her head so that she was looking over her shoulder. A beautiful white dog-like creature stood between her and Tezuka and Méreg, its five different-colored tails sweeping the air and charging it with what felt like electricity. One tail – a fiery red one – snapped through the air, and a surge of fire swept across the room towards Méreg.

The Green, however, was too quick, and managed to dodge it with the preternatural swiftness that was inherent of his race. He moved across the room to a safer corner, well away from the arc of the fire, but the moment his feet touched the floor a rumble passed through the entire house: Tezuka's shikigami⁽²⁾ had waved all five tails, and hence caused a small earthquake to occur. Méreg lost his balance, and ended up crouching on the floor – only to lift his head as a wave of electricity was headed towards him.

winced at the scream that resounded throughout the house – a sound that only seemed to make the poison sweep faster through her bloodstream. Already her head was throbbing painfully, and her insides were on fire. She inhaled sharply, and the scent of ozone cleared her mind enough to make her think around the pain in her body. She reached out, and grasped Tezuka's arm, clinging hard to keep her balance, and looked up.

Wherever Méreg was, he was already gone. The fire and the lightning had done quite a bit of damage to her room, but that was something she could live with. "Where's…Méreg?"

    "He escaped through the window," Tezuka replied, and sure enough, noticed that the drapes that normally covered her window were flapping gently in the breeze that the opened windowpane let in.

nodded, and then winced as a stab of pain burned its way from her abdomen all the way to the back of her eyes. She felt the urge to retch, but swallowed hard, trying to keep it all down and together. She knew that she had an antidote somewhere…she just couldn't remember-

She didn't even know that she had toppled until Tezuka caught her, steadying her and holding her against him to keep her up. His voice was low and worried. "? What's wrong?"

opened her mouth to respond, but another surge of pain caught up with her then, and all that came out of her mouth was an incoherent, raspy croak. The throbbing in her head was steady now, and seemed determined to pound her brain cells into oblivion. She closed her mouth so tightly that her lips were nothing more than a thin line, her teeth grinding together in an effort to countermand the pain as the poison continued its chemical destruction of her body. She knew that this was a slow-acting poison, and while that did give her enough time to find the antidote, she did not know how much damage it would do to her between this moment and the time she took the antidote.

She heard Tezuka swear, and winced when his fingers touched the wound on her throat. It was shallow, but it was all that was needed to introduce the poison into her bloodstream. "This looks poisoned."

    "It is." She hissed when his fingers moved against the wound. "It's slow-acting… It will take a while to kill me. There should be enough time to find the antidote before I-" She gasped as a massive spasm of pain wracked her body, her back arching in a convulsion. She squeezed her eyes so tight against the pain that she could see it as dull red stars against a black field.

Tezuka swore again, and when opened her eyes she saw blood on his hands and on his chest – her blood, the blood that had just spurted out of her nose and that she had retched out of her mouth. In the brief moment of numbness before the next pain surge, idly wondered where Tezuka's shirt had gone, but the thought was obliterated once more by a long wave of fire across her nerves.

A loud crash resounded from outside, setting off a whole series of alarms. Apart from the magical safeguards that had set up – and which had been broken by Méreg – there was also an actual technological one, to prevent ordinary humans from gaining entrance into her abode.

A low, rumbling moan came through the opened window, and it made shiver. That did not sound remotely human.

She felt Tezuka shift, and the next thing she knew she was being lifted up – bridal-style, no less – in Tezuka's arms, and he was walking out of her room, heading directly for his. "What are you doing?"

    "Those were ghouls," he replied, not answering her question directly. "I will make sure that they do not get into the house."

    "What are you talking about?" pressed her hands against his chest, attempting to make him let go, but her efforts were feeble. The poison was already taking its toll. "This is my house. If there are any intruders, I'll deal with them."

Tezuka's voice was clear, almost painful in its logic. "You are in no condition to fight, . You would only get yourself killed faster than the poison takes to work. As long as there is a chance for you to still survive this, you are going to stay up here, look for that antidote, while I handle the ghouls downstairs. Do you understand me?"

opened her mouth to argue, but fell silent as a fresh wave of pain assailed her senses. It was too much for her to keep in this time: the groan that escaped her came from deep inside and showed just how much she was hurting.

She felt Tezuka stop, hesitating, and she knew that he was deciding whether or not he would go downstairs and deal with the undead horde that had shown up at her doorstep, or stay with her, the faster to find the antidote before the poison finally took her.

Just then, one of the nearby windows flew open, and when looked over Tezuka's shoulder, she had to wait until the flurry of white feathers finally cleared to give her an idea of who had just arrived.

    "?"

--~*~||Ω||~*~--

wasn't surprised when she was able to set foot into this particular house – never mind that it had been quite a while since the last time that had happened. She had been invited in before, and she knew that an invitation into this house was permanent. What surprised – and unnerved – her was the fact that, first of all, the people who were with her at the moment had managed to get in when she knew that none of them, or at least, had not received or accepted an invitation, and second, that there were ghouls trashing the ground floor.

The situation immediately put her on guard, since it only meant one thing: either was dead and the protective barrier she had set up around her house had gone down with her, or that someone had broken the barrier.

If she were to be honest, neither situation sat very well with her at all.

    "?"

's head turned in the direction of the croak, and blinked at what she saw: the onmyoji Tezuka Kunimitsu, standing in the hallway in nothing but what appeared to be pajama bottoms, carrying a bloodied in his arms. Even from this distance could already smell the poison that had in her bloodstream, and she frowned, moving closer to the Dragon Mage, who seemed to be really fighting the good fight against whatever it was that was wreaking biological havoc on her body.

    "What the hell happened to you?" asked quietly. She allowed energy to flood her fingertips, and these she pressed to the wound against 's throat, ignoring the girl's pained hiss as her powers cleaned and closed the wound. She could not deal with the poison – that was Draconic poison and hence completely out of her league – but at least she could help deal with the pain.

She heard a curse, and looked around to face Kirihara, who was staring down to the ground floor. "We've got to stop them," he muttered. He had never been in 's house before – had never met her personally, in fact – but was well aware of what sort of reputation had amongst the members of the Ten of Swords: a little mysterious, a little withdrawn, but always reliable in terms of information, and maybe, if they asked nicely enough, she would find time to pull out her sword and fight alongside them.

But that did not matter one bit now. They had to stop the ghouls from doing what they were doing, because the last thing they needed was for aforementioned ghouls to find 's basement. knew as well as the rest of the Ten of Swords that if these ghouls were indeed sent by Echizen, them finding 's basement was like handing him control over most of the supernatural world.

And really, there was no way that they were going to allow that to happen.

She turned to Niou, Marui and Kirihara. "You three go and deal with the ghouls, make sure they don't make it down into the basement." She looked at . "You are staying right here with me. We're going to treat and make sure to stop whatever's killing her."

blinked. "Me? But I'm not a doctor."

    "Doesn't matter. You're Forsaken, and that's all that counts."

Tezuka raised an eyebrow. "Forsaken?" he asked, not because he didn't know what a Forsaken was, but because he knew exactly what a Forsaken was, and what it meant to have one around.

    "Long story," replied with a wave of her hand, and she nodded towards one of the nearby rooms. "Put her in there." She grinned teasingly then at the all-too-serious onmyoji, and smacked him gently on the chest with one of her wings. "And put a shirt on."

His face remained still as ever as they moved into the room, which turned out to be a study, and laid out on the couch, but grinned to note that he was already leaving the room – most likely to do just as she had told him to.

Inasmuch as she would have liked to tease Tezuka – she had never had such an opportunity before, and she was more than glad to have something to ruffle him now – there were other, more important matters at hand, something that was brought quickly home when she heard make an awful retching sound, which was followed by the sight of her leaning over the couch and spewing blood over the floor.

gathered power back into her hands, and pressed those hands against 's body, hoping that she could at least soothe the pain and make it marginally more bearable. She knew that pain alone could kill a person if not handled properly, and she was determined to back up in her little battle against the poison.

She smiled down at the Dragon Mage, trying to reassure her by injecting some humor into the situation. "What was the onmyoji doing without his shirt? You two doing something I shouldn't know about?"

snorted feebly, but there wasn't much conviction behind it. "Nothing happened, , and you are well aware of that." She shuddered as a spasm of pain ripped through her, and she moaned quietly.

    "Damn it," swore, and she focused again, trying to pinpoint the source of 's agony, and having no luck at it at all. She had no idea as to how Draconic poisons worked, since they were well out of her league to begin with, but she knew that even if she couldn't cure , she could at least deaden the pain, make it easier for her. Still, in order to do that she would know just what the poison targeted, and she didn't know anything about that.

She looked over at , who was standing to one side, apparently staying away after seeing vomit blood. Downstairs there were bangs and yelps and the usual concerted screaming as ghouls were slaughtered wholesale, and could tell that, between the events that had just happened, vomiting blood, and being so close to actual carnage, wasn't really doing all that well.

Still, she had to admire the kid for being able to hold out for so long. Most others – human or otherwise – didn't.

    "," she said, causing the girl to look up with a somewhat startled expression on her face. "I need your help. Come here for a second."

nodded, and gave the puddle of blood a wide berth before she moved stand next to . "What do you want me to do?"

    "You know how I said that, as a Forsaken, you can 'scry' for information? Well, what I'm going to ask you to do isn't going to be much different. I want you to scry 's body, and find out what the poison's doing to her."

blinked at what had said. "You want me to scry her body?"

rolled her eyes, realizing that found the idea rather scandalous. "There's nothing wrong with that, . I just want you to follow the path of the poison, and tell me what it's hitting. That way I'll know how to keep the pain down."

    "Can't you just cure her?"

    "This is Draconic poison, . If it were something else, then I wouldn't have any problems, but if it's poison created on another plane entirely, then all I can do is stop it from doing any more damage. To really get rid of it, we'd need a Dragon with healing capacities, or an antidote."

    "I've got an antidote," wheezed.

patted her hand. "Good. But here is going to tell me what I need to do in order to stop the poison from spreading farther and doing more damage to you."

    "But I don't know how!" protested.

    "Just scry!" growled. She was getting really impatient, and she could sense from the way that 's life force was fluttering that they didn't have a lot of time before the poison did truly irreparable damage.

stiffened slightly at the command, but calmed down quickly enough. She sat down in a nearby chair, and closed her eyes, focusing on and on the poison in her body, while worked on what she could do: meaning keeping 's soul in her body and making sure that she didn't slip away before it was too late.

After a few minutes that seemed like hours to , inhaled sharply, and opened her eyes. She stared at as if she had just seen something horrific, not speaking, stunned, as it seemed, into silence.

    "Well?" demanded impatiently. "What did you see?"

    "There was this…I don't know how to really describe it… It looked like this green-colored liquid in her veins. It was burning out her heart and her lungs." shivered. "It looked like it was alive, eating her lungs and her heart."

nodded her head. Now that she knew what the poison was doing, she would be able to do something in order to stop it. She closed her eyes, positioned her hands over 's chest, and fed her power into the Dragon Mage. From behind her closed eyelids, she envisioned her power as a luminous white fog, while she envisioned 's damaged organs as a field of trees and a beautiful meadow, engulfed in sickening green ooze. She manipulated the white fog so that it swept the green ooze off the trees and the meadow, leaving it clear and clean – though she had to struggle hard to keep it from seeping in, and even then, she could not prevent little trickles from getting through.

Still, it was enough, and she sensed relax. After allowing the Dragon Mage some time to breathe, she said: "Tell where the antidote is. She'll go and get it." In order to forestall any protests from , gave her a look, saying that she would do this, or face the consequences later.

coughed, and then responded: "There's an ampoule hidden in the base of the large dragon statue at the entrance of the library."

winced. She knew what that meant. She looked up at , and gave her a small, wry smile. "Hope you're a fast runner. Looks like you're going to have to run the gauntlet of ghouls downstairs."

    "What?!"

Proceed to [ The Eleventh Divide ]

Return to [ The Ninth Divide ]
 

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Kage
17.July.2006

NOTES:

(1)= A houkou is a canine spirit, said to have five long tails and a white body, related somewhat to the inugami, or dog spirits. According to Japanese folklore, the tails are supposed to represent the five elements of Eastern philosophy (Fire, Wind, Wood, Metal, and Water), and when they are used together are capable of producing earthquakes. Houkou are tree spirits since they live inside trees to which they are spiritually connected, and are willing to do anything in order to scare trespassers away from their territory and to protect their tree. Apart from having the ability to wield the five elements, they are also capable of creating illusions (making them remarkably similar in that respect to the kitsune). [SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houkou]

(2)= Shikigami are the Japanese version of spirit familiars in the Western conception of magic. Although they are most often portrayed as being made out of or summoned from paper, this is not always the case, even if this is how they are popularly depicted. The "paper spirit" portrayal of shikigami is actually a play on the name: when written in Kanji, the second element of the word "shikigami", which means "god" or "spirit," can also be pronounced the same as the Kanji for "paper." Hence, shikigami can mean "paper servant" if the second Kanji is written with the symbol for "paper."

In this story, I am following the more traditional route of shikigami: spirit familiars that can be summoned by powerful onmyoji to do their bidding. [SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikigami]

THEME MUSIC: "At the Emperor's Palace" – Tan Dun