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May All Be Pain or Love	By : Skwishee Category: > Kyo/Kaoru Views: 5673 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know the members of Dir en grey. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
Disclaimer: I don't own Dir en grey. period. End of story. Non profit, and this is FICTIONAL.

Author's Note: PLEASE review, it makes me happy. New chapter should be up soon. :3

“Though their limbs were torn, their hearts could not be repressed.” - ‘Battle’ by Ch’ii Yuan (332-395 B.C.)

Sometimes fear is an innate reaction. Being told that you or those that you love are going to die, for instance, can leave misery to putrefy inside of you, anxious and fearful of what is to come and how something as powerful and as esoteric as death will choose to take you. Will it be quick or slow, painful or painless? Will you be satisfied with the world as you will have left it, having said or held your piece? Will you have, without a doubt, settled the score with love and beat back the conjecture of that, as it was unrequited? Because that’s the most important thing, you know.

To have everything end for me was unthinkable. I thought, even for all the precarious things that had happened in only a few days, that I was well in control of everything around me. Things were uncertain, but by no means were they so serious that they’d warrant something like death to come and call. The girl at the brothel...was it a brothel? Had I wandered into Pontocho? Yes, I guess I had, I hadn’t even noticed. When she opened her mouth I hadn’t expected her to really say it, like the sake that soaked my stomach was making me hallucinate, not images, but words. At the very least I wanted her to be a liar, as at that moment I accused all whores of being. How could she, didn’t she know I controlled everything? Didn’t she know that everything was alright as long as I went back to Kyo? Together even Enma couldn’t bring the world down without our saying so.

How could it have been then, looking down at the little path I’d walked everyday of my adult life, that the shinigami were ignoring my will and moving two by two into the woods, my sins on their backs as they sought to bring them back to me.

I never made it to the house. I had come close to it, had been only steps away from entering that night, but the gods had given me every intimation that I was not to go in it at all. I had tried nevertheless, in vain, but I had the satisfaction at least to know that I had made it that far. Kohana had been right, the one dismal truth she’d spoke all night. There was a siege being lain as sure as I could see it.

The first of the three large gates that led to Miya-tei had already been breached, but the bushi had stalled at the second. They milled around the posts in their reluctance to move into the wood. I suspected they knew where Miya-tei’s blind spots were, because their position was so carefully placed that I was almost certain the guards in the outer turrets hadn’t been able to see them at all. If our guards had missed them at this vantage I worried then that no word of warning would reach the house.

The wind whipped through the trees below the hill, sparking to life an eerie whistling sound. I crouched down low and surveyed the scene trying to determine a way to get down the path without being spotted by one of Ryozen’s boors. It was steep though, with the residence sitting at the bottom of a rolling hill tucked behind Kiyomizu-dera. It was rocky and uneven and offered almost no cover, even in the dark, because the twenty some lanterns that encircled Kiyomizu no butai, 12 meters above where I was crouched, were bright enough to illuminate the path below making it near impossible to come down the run unnoticed.

One thing was certain: I needed a way down that would take me away from the bushi and give me a slight edge of surprise. That was all the advantage I could muster for myself. My head was still cloudy from all the alcohol, but the strong gale force wind and the anxiousness that welled up inside me were enough to keep me relatively sober.

I craned my head to the side so that I could catch a glimpse of the Kita So-mon which led to the main sub-temple of Joju-in. This was originally a private temple and garden for the emperor Go-Kashiwabara until the end of his reign in 1526. I knew the little path that ran back through the woods from the other side of Miya-tei also ran up around the pond in the emperor’s garden. If I stayed under the eaves of the platform above I suspected I could have run to Joju-in without being spotted, then down the little path and through the woods to the west side of Miya-tei. It wasn’t the quickest or my most preferred way of getting there but at this point it seemed my only option.

I stepped back and ducked under the weaved scaffolding that came down from the temple. It was tight, but fitted snug against the side of the hill I could move enough to be unseen. Some of the bushi were still quarreling at the first gate, but the rest of them had already disappeared, broken of their hesitation. I didn’t have much time.

Quick as I could I worked my way through the cross-sections and to the other side. The hill before me was steep, but I managed—after a few failed tries— to propel myself upward until I was up enough to grab hold of the lattice work that wound the wall. The wall itself I struggled with as my balance was lost to the staggering amount of sake I had consumed. Finally, when I was beginning to become angry with myself for getting so drunk, I managed to go over it, albeit very ungracefully. >From there I ran as fast as I could through the garden and into the woods.

The forest seemed absolutely alive. The trees on this side were overgrown and doing a fair job of interfering with any forward progress. My feet sloshed in the shallow streams as I ran as fast as I could possibly go, stumbling in my current state. The further in I got the more I seemed to be turned around. I hadn’t been in this part of the woods for years and I cursed my being so backwards in that place. Finally I forced myself to keep still and listen, fearing that I had gone too far, but hoping somehow I could hear the other samurai’s voices in the west.

I thought of all the things I still had left to do before I let the life I’d made for myself come to an end. The list that I mentally composed in only a matter of seconds was already lengthy and I argued that I could very easily add or subtract multiple submissions to it still if I would have slowed down to give it some thought.

There was still the matter of love to consider. As hopelessly romantic as it sounded it was still the reason that I had murdered and became the willing catalyst for this retaliatory campaign. I had no right to be angry in a sense. Had I not looked for that callous satisfaction in taking my revenge, had I let the words those hateful men spoke wash over me and dissipate both Ryozen and Miyamoto would still be nursing our own wounds in perfect cautiousness. If I hadn’t served the house in this way perhaps Kyo would never have dismissed me the way he had, perhaps I never would have run to Aomori and exhumed his secrets. Perhaps then I would have been blissfully ignorant. Perhaps I wouldn’t feel like I was going to die.

I wasn’t ready to give in. I wasn’t ready to watch my family suffer for my own vices. Most of all I wasn’t ready to let him go. Arrogantly I felt like it was my decision when something should happen to either of us, and I was angered that this siege wasn’t of my own design. Should he die that night I would be forced to wage my own war against the gods who left me bereft of any control over my own fate and the one that I thought I governed.

I growled and kicked the tree at my side. Why hadn’t I gone back instead of lingering at the izakaya? My own stupidity was felling me bit by bit and I was swimming in self-loathing, I couldn’t stand there anymore. When I had thought of finally letting my own guilty consciousness drag me down I heard a voice, faint but enough to guide me in the right direction.

I pressed on toward the sound, concentrating on keeping a fast pace. I was getting close, I could smell the chrysanthemums in the courtyard, could smell the water in the pond, enough so that I could picture the wispy algae that grew along the banks and the lotus that floated on top. I came upon the clearing in which my house stood, I could see it from out the tangled vegetation that grew over the little hill I was standing on. The eastern gate, grey against the overwhelming black of night. The doors were closed. The world seemed silent. The white outer walls seemed to go on forever to the south.

Somehow the wind was so loud that it drowned out the sound of a bow being released, the absent sound would have been easily linked to the burning pain that suddenly filled my chest. At first I couldn’t realize what had happened, but I was aware enough to understand that I was under attack. Staggering back I blindly pulled and released two hari from my belt before I gave anything a second thought. The almost silent metal ‘tings’ that came from my doing this were followed by the heavy thud of a body falling from atop the west wall to land somewhere near my feet. Frankly I was amazed I’d found my mark at all.

I couldn’t think of what to do but lurch toward the side of the house and stay close under the eaves so no more archers could target me, but the abruptness of the movement made me double over and I wound up awkwardly propped up against the off white, mortared wall. I studied myself quickly and discovered that the cause of the pain was an arrow with a shoddily sanded black shaft, one I felt sure was leaving splinters in a very uncomfortable place. I tried to curse but all that came out was a sort of frantic cough.

Suddenly I heard a familiar voice from the other side of the wall. “Kaoru?!”
“Dai!” I called out, my voice starting strong but ending rather hoarsely.
“Are you alright?”
I studied myself for a moment, feeling myself breathe and wondering whether I was doing it properly. I forgot how my lungs were supposed to feel normally. I had nothing to compare it to.
“I was hit by an archer...There’s an arrow...Dai, how many have come through?”

“An arrow?! Kaoru...you need medical attention...”
“There isn’t that kind of time! How many!!!???” I said impatiently.
For what felt like a lifetime Dai stayed silent, his footsteps echoed as though he were running circles.
“I saw some archers...there’s mostly infantry...”
“How many?!” I asked again, growing impatient.
On the other side of the wall Dai huffed. “F-five...ten...t—thirte...” He seemed to count under his breath. “I don’t know, maybe fourteen by the front, more at the red gate...probably twenty up there, I can’t see, it’s too dark.”
“Kuso...” I growled. “Where is everyone, where’s Kyo is he alright?”
“We’re holding...Kyo’s in the courtyard. Nevermind him, you need to come through the back passage, that arrow can’t stay...” No...no it couldn’t.
“I’m fine!” I did my best to suppress my coughing to sound authentic. The fact was my lungs were practically forcing me to hyperventilate. I was sure the arrow had torn a whole through one of them.
“Kaoru! I’m not joking, get back here!”
“Dai...” I practically whimpered his name when one attempted inhalation brought forth insurmountable pain and I was forced to double over even more than before. “ Stay alive you bastard...I’ll see you on the other side.”
“Kaoru?!” He called for me but I refused to answer, I was sure I didn’t have the breath for it.

My awareness was so worse for wear that I barely registered the presence beside me. Only when the big club of a hand fell on my shoulder and hauled me back did I whip around in surprise, narrowly missing a heavy blow to the head with an axe in the process. This was no samurai. The man was tall and broad, muscled but with a big belly that hung down over his hakama. He smelled foul. His long hanten was tattered and old, moth eaten.

My sword was drawn and held as firmly as I could hold it. Again the axe swung and swept back and I had only narrowly avoided its head for the second time. This time I was quick to strike, and the man was too big, too slow to avoid my sword. It stuck in his broad belly like a nail in a wooden beam. It was an effort even to pull it back out, now that my right arm was slowly turning numb and my fingers loosened their grip on the hilt of my katana.

He bellowed and fell backwards onto the wall and my head began to reel and I staggered back into a tree. Once I had regained some balance I didn’t bother to look and see where he fell or if he was still alive. I took to my feet and sprinted toward the front of the residence. For a moment I halted before the front gates. The thunder was rumbling in the distance now and the smell of rain sank into the air in a thick curtain overhead, a swelling wind was blustering from the North.

The hinges on the gates were wricked and bent; many of the timbers were cracked and the stone heads of the ka-riu statues had been knocked off by some larger, hammering weapon. Arrows whined and resiled against the stone pillars, flying out again into the gloomy dark. The ground was turning up dust, even though the air was moistening rapidly. Soon this place would be showered in a glossy storm and its scene harrowingly beautiful, even for all the bloodshed.

I turned and sped up the stair; but as I ran I stumbled in my weariness. Despite only having the one wound, all the sake had thinned my blood and I was fast losing too much of it. Vaguely I remember dispatching two more men before I reached the top of the steps.
Four of the archers and two or three swordsmen were down. The rest were so engrossed in the scene that was happening in the courtyard that not one of them noticed me. To take advantage of this I pulled myself off to the side where the wall covered most of my body.

My reaction upon seeing Kyo was more complex than I had expected: I was at once gladder and more distressed to see him than ever before. He’d been standing in the courtyard, the focus of everyone’s attention, so much so that I wasn’t perceived at all, or else if I was no one had cared enough to come for me. The katana, fitted in his hand, seemed an extension of himself, this warlike illusion further validated in the way his hair whipped around him in the rising wind somewhat resembling a deathly pale war banner.

Having clearly been enjoying the upper hand thus far, Kyo’s up till now impenetrable skill was finding itself diminished as another wave of offense found him locked from all sides, staring into the confidant faces of more than ten Ryozen samurai. Immediately he shrank into himself, his stern, proud face failing to uphold that reckless enjoyment he had been feeling from all the bloodshed. Inappropriately the drunken lech in me wondered if he was still somewhat aroused...

Still, to anyone there he seemed to give up suddenly, noticing that the numbers around him were too many to handle on his own. It was perfectly played. The sudden horrified realization that struck his face was performed with so much accuracy that it was believed to be genuine. For a brief moment I worried that it was real, that he really was in danger, but I refrained somehow from striking out to aid him. If I had and he was faking then I would have spoiled his plans and the fight would quickly be lost. Thus, I watched with interest from behind the wall, where I couldn’t interrupt his flawless performance.

He made sure his feet faltered, the kind of hesitant motion that might mark a cornered animal. A lameness that, once executed, told his hunter he was far too beaten to put up a struggle. It was read and recognized.

One of the more handsome samurai smirked victoriously, his outstretched hand directing the tip of his sword through Kyo's honey blond hair. "What do you know...he is as pretty as they say." The katana brought up Kyo's chin delicately. "But he’s no oni, just a whore with a fair ability to masquerade. If no one can see you, no one can tear down this illusion you've built for yourself, isn't that right, Miyamoto-san? Clever..." He growled, pushing his sword enough to make a cut in his throat. Kyo stood unrelenting. "But you fucked yourself...the night you brought your lies into our house. Do you hear me?"

Kyo appeared to recieve this information as if it inflicted deep hurt which he had no intention of showing. His blue eyes rose upward and they belied all of his secrets. The way his eyes darkened, the tongue that wet his lips in a teasing sort of uncertainty, every little motion...they were all my spies. He pulled away from the questing sword and bowed his head. The gale began to pull a flood from the sky, the spate wet and heavy, and the kimono he wore, now heavily weighed down by the accumulative water, couldn’t help but slip off his shoulder.

“Look’s like the gods are undressing our whore!” The leader laughed. “What say you to breaking him in?”
The lecherous encouragement that sounded was enough to give the leader his answer. Kyo’s feet shifted in another parody of nervousness.
The man came forward, brushing his stringy wet hair out of his eyes and threw his arms around Kyo so that his sword was crossways behind Kyo, cutting a line into his back to hold him in place. Throughout the ordeal Kyo never said a word. He wasn’t going to give them the pleasure of hearing him speak.

With Kyo locked in place the man initiated his debasement and I turned away as he kissed him. The bastard kissed him...hatefully and then, then he screamed and I couldn’t help but look back as startled gasps and the sounds of retching filled the air. Kyo had bitten off his tongue and the younger bushi were vomiting near the back wall. I could see the rivulets of blood roll down Kyo’s chin, thick and red. Slowly, as if performing the last graceful act of his life, he closed his eyes and let his head fall back letting the rain pelt him and wash the blood from his face. His eyes...his eyes were something else...someone else.

The bushi stood in shock and confusion, not knowing whether to run or rush him.

His chest heaved, his exhalations disturbing the moisture in the air in a way that reminded me of a wild horse. When at last he opened his mouth again it was to give birth to a brutal scream, raspy, with a vibrato that pulsed around my heart. Straightaway the air seemed to constrict. I couldn't breathe. The men were shrieking, falling back away from him as this noise filled the air like an avian disease. Still, behind the wall I had not felt the full force of his voice. I could tell because the men that were nearest to him were dying, asphyxiating on their own blood. I gasped, a dry horrible feeling with no air to aid it, as one of my lower ribs bent and broke under the heaviness of his tone. I could feel the same one on my left side begin to bow when he ceased his assault and the last man fell at his feet, his voice dying around me and air filled my lungs so forcefully that I was made to stagger backward, gripping the side of the ka-riu so that I wouldn't fall down the stair.

His name fell softly from my lips, like a prayer. All anger or doubt I might have been holding onto flew away with the wind and the sheets of rain that were falling. My chest throbbed, dully aching in the spot where the arrow was. I ignored it. Nothing at that moment could exist but him, not even the splinters or the rough edges of that malevolent lesion, no, not even the crushing wetness that had come to soak my clothes within seconds.

The arrow hadn’t the same sense of priority as I did, nor did the blood that had begun to flow twice as hard since his voice had wrung it out again. My fingers were the first to fail me, forfeiting all feeling and control until my sword was loosed and clanged against the walkway. After that the sensation seemed to spread inside me till my knees buckled and I couldn’t help myself from falling backwards down the steps. I knew that if I didn’t grab onto something now I wouldn’t hit the bottom alive, but my hands failed to respond. I instinctively closed my eyes and braced for impact.

Oddly enough the first thing that hit me wasn’t the stone at all, it was a body and I felt brawny hands encircle my sore limbs and pull me the rest of the way down the stairs in perfect safety. Looking back up I could see Kyo’s bare feet slapping the stone as he ran toward me, but the advance to the gate was growing so thick that before he was even able to set foot on the steps he had been made to take up his sword and engage the enemy once again. His eyes payed little attention to his opponents, all their glowing blue grace was fixed on me.

There was no sound. The too loud surroundings had dulled my ears and everything seemed to thrum like I was underwater. My vision was holding onto time, stretching one minute into ten. I held on to the memory of his face like it was my last breath.

The bottom of the stair was fuller than the top with men: Ronin and Samurai and street thugs that had been hired specifically for reinforcement. My men and theirs, their blood and ours all co-mingling in the fissures on the walks. It seemed...intimate. The beauty of battle bringing us to our own inevitable equality, because in death we were all the same, corpses with no agenda or allegiance. I was being drug back into the throng, roughly as though I were only a stick being pulled along the ground by a child too caught up in their surroundings to notice how the thing was about to break. The rocks caught one of my zori, yanking it from my foot and I watched with disinterest as it clacked to the ground some feet away. As a result then, my bare foot was drug limp, grating on the textured granite. I could feel the tiny grains of dirt underneath my fingernails, each little scratch on my heel, the strong fingers digging into my arm...and his face...a beacon in the night.

When he disappeared from my sight I realized my predicament and began to struggle. When this happened two other men came to aid the first that was desperately trying to control me. Try as I might the hold was just too tight and my muscles were growing weaker and I looked down and saw the red shadow that followed me down the steps and back into the crowd. Miya-tei seemed to be tilting. I started to feel nauseous.

They took me by the hair, these two men. Bigger than the first. Their thick, masculine fingers clutched around the arrow in my chest and led me with it till I thought I would pass out from the pain. Each step made my feet tilt drunkenly. Smaller, sturdy hands held my arms; my chest was forced out and onto the sliver of wood and shale, the thing splintered in my skin with a sick cracking noise. Gaining my second wind I tried to kick at them again and tried to jerk myself free until I heard the quill of the arrow snap and the pain burrow deeper into my chest. They had taken me by the arm then and shoved me forward until I was wobbling after them again.
My hair was stuck to the blood on my face, in the deep, wet scratched on my cheek. Skeletal hands scraped at my clothing as I walked; truly nothing but willowy branches but in this dark they looked like something dead and decrepit. Suddenly I was made to stop and I thrashed my head to clear away the hair in my eyes and found myself recognizing the area and the shrine in the dark.

“I never thought—even in your most horrible of states—that I would manage to catch you off guard, Niikura.” I spun around to face the smaller man and was hit with a wave of disbelief. What was it about this day that warranted betraying me to the highest regard?
“Hirota? How dare you—“
Hirota removed himself from the shadows and stood a few feet away from my heaving form. The pressure in my chest was unbearable. Stepping forward, he broke the rest of the shaft, examining the splintered piece in his hand.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen...to you of all people. That we should be adversaries was unthinkable. You and I, we used to sword fight down in the gully when were kids and when I’d knock you over you wouldn’t make a sound. Just like now, you’re too proud to admit you’re dead.”

“Not like you...” I said snidely. “...who would whine and cry. Nevermind all that, we’re not kids anymore. Obviously things have changed...I thought...you would rather go ronin than ...get in on this feud.” I said through gritted teeth.
He sighed sadly. “I thought about it. I really did, but then you went back on your word, and then it was personal.”
“What?”
“You swore to me that Miyamoto had no part in this, you swore and I believed you!! I even told my master, and he had considered believing as well, albeit reluctantly, but it would have been civil between us, and then you personally kill two of our samurai, one his son and one my friend! It’s personal now. I don’t like being lied to, and I detest being betrayed.” He growled. “Anyway...Once this is over I will be well compensated, especially if I were to bring him the head of Miyamoto’s chief retainer. But listen...you and I both know that I’m not going to do that. Not unless that arrow is in too deep and then I’ll come back here to collect it when you’re dead. I won’t strike a killing blow against you. Not even for what you did or what he’s offering, there’s too much history between you and I...”
I scoffed. “How generous of you.”
“Don’t look so surprised. You have no right. You said it yourself. ‘If we meet at Miya-tei it will be as adversaries.”
“You’re hardly playing fair...”
“It’s not my fault you sought to handicap yourself.”
I sneered, “I think your people are the ones who did a fair job of handicapping me. I can work a bit tipsy, but it’s hard to grip a sword with a shaft of wood wedged in your muscles.”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t worry...we’ll give you a chance to rest up while we go find your lover...”
I almost gasped in disbelief.
“Disgusting isn’t it? I didn’t believe it at first, but the way you cling to him so loyally...I’m doing you a favor, Kaoru. You were a good man and he ruined you.” He grimaced in disgust. “He made you sick...made you a whore...he deserves whatever those men decide to give him. They’ll probably rape him like he raped you...horrible idea, but it seems fair, don’t you think?” He regarded me while I quietly seethed, knowing he was trying to make me mad, trying to provoke me to make him feel justified in harming me. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Since he couldn’t make me come for him he decided on the next best thing.

Maybe he had no inkling of my fear of that place, or maybe he had caught me eyeing it with all the anxiousness of a child wandering scared into a wood as black and as gloomy as a grave. Whichever it had been he had taken one look at the shrine and gave the order for me to be put inside. Instantly the two at my back had shoved me forward and I had thrown one foot ahead of me, against the first red step and pushed back as hard as I could just to keep from being forced upward.

For seconds I had fought in this way, using the leverage of my weight against the wood until they’d had enough and hoisted my legs up and carried me up the stairs themselves. Panic flooded me when they pulled aside the heavy carved door and I began to fight harder against them. Finally the big one grew tired of my struggle and pressed his thick thumb into the split in my chest where the broken front end of the arrow was still visible and I screamed, falling limp as they both dropped my aching body inside. In a matter of seconds they had pulled the door shut and I could hear something heavy being slid in front of it.

No manner of pride was in me in that moment and I began to scream desperately, my fingers raking the door. I had been afraid of Aomori’s inside since I was a child, since I had heard that sound in the dark.

The only light in this hall was a few slats of unobscured moonlight that had by some miracle found their way through the mass of trees outside. A few torch plates were burning dimly down the great hall, but they were too far away to allow me to see any further than that. I tried to get to my feet, but there were loose bits of wood underneath my feet. They clanked together loudly when my body shifted on them. Each time I brought myself up they would roll under me and cause me to fall again.

I grabbed one piece in my hand in order to move it away. It couldn't have been wooden at all. The thing was far too smooth, dry like stone, but long and slender. I finally pushed myself up and moved into the light to see it better.

When the light hit the thing I threw it far from me with a shriek. Bones. I was sliding on discarded body parts, stripped and dry from the warm air. I raked at the entrance again. The wood of the door slid splinters underneath my frantic nails until they were bloody and stinging and I was made to slide down against the thing with tears in my eyes.

I cried. I cried because I didn’t know what else to do. I was a little boy again, about to lose everything I’d ever loved. I closed my eyes and tried to remember everything in a hurry because I couldn’t stand to open them and see my reality. I imagined them all, every last detail or scar of them because I didn’t want to die alone. I felt my hands begin to shake, the trauma to my body finally holding me through my last throes. A semi-violent shudder up my spine and through my ribs sent me back into the cold dark and I began to panic. Where was his face? Why couldn’t I remember it now? His image was dying and I couldn’t remember how to bring it back. All my life I spent memorizing every inch of him, the sound of every breath and now it was all taken from me and I couldn’t even remember his voice.

My frenzied breathing was destroying my lungs. I could feel the arrowhead tear into them on every sharp breath. I was gasping. I ...I was going to die... here in this place...alone... and I prayed that whatever thing was here that it devoured me after I was dead.

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May All Be Pain or Love