Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/7980259. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Rape/Non-Con, Underage Category: M/M Fandom: the_GazettE Relationship: Kai_(the_GazettE)/Aoi_(the_GazettE), Reita_(the_GazettE)/Ruki_(the GazettE) Character: Aoi_(the_GazettE), Kai_(the_GazettE), Ruki_(the_GazettE), Reita_(the GazettE), Uruha_(the_GazettE) Additional Tags: Alternate_Universe_-_Supernatural, Witchcraft, Shapeshifting, Magick_& Spells, Angst Series: Part 5 of Summoning Stats: Published: 2016-09-07 Words: 2638 ****** Mist ****** by inkstrain_(orphan_account) Summary Spells only work with cooperation. Notes Rape triggers. Please tread carefully. The stream was crystal clear and icy, and its touch on his toes made him pull back with a sharp gasp, breath forming a white cloud in the air following his abrupt and surprised exhale. "Yuu-sama? Is something the matter?" He turned towards the shapeshifter located a little far back and behind, cloak making him nothing but a dark and obscure figure under the fading light of dusk since he was turned away–Yuu was completely bare and so he dared not look. "The water's too cold." He whispered, pulling his dark yukata back on and shivering as he allowed his eyes to wander, staring at what they'd been forced to leave behind on the other side of the water. "Winter's catching up too quickly." And indeed, it was. Without Uruha, a certain coldness was settling upon the land as it became aware of the loss of its Master, creeping upon all living things from the nest outward. It forced Yuu, his Guardians, and the ravens under his command to leave and seek new shelter. At the rate Winter was going though, it looked like they would have to find another place to stay in very soon. "Food is becoming scarce." Shinji had turned at as was advised of him to do, his eyes grazing the other side of the water as well as he spoke almost to himself. "I wonder where Kai is, and if he has found tonight's meal yet." Yuu, who was smiling and sharing a bunch of grapes to the very crow who'd brought it for him with the bird currently perched on his shoulder, perked up slightly at the mention of the Guardian who had come out of nowhere because he liked Kai. He was gentle and caring, and he had taken charge in a way Shinji hadn't the first three nights since Uruha's disappearance. "If you were so worried, you shouldn't have let him look. He's not as familiar with the area as you–it's his first time, it shouldn't be a problem he's taking so long." Shinji took several pieces of grapes once he'd offered it with a sigh, popping one of the fruits into his mouth without saying anything else. He was distracted, eyes straying–he had been all morning, in fact. Sighing at his failed attempt at a casual conversation, Yuu nudged the crow under its beak as it gave him a rough little nuzzle before flying off, looking around himself. "You're scaring me, Shinji. You look like you've been waiting for someone or something all day. I'm just not sure who or what it is." His Guardian's beautiful eyes, as vivid in its shade of green as it was in brown, turned towards him with a cloud of guilt. He sighed and hung his head, fist over his heart. "I apologize, Yuu-sama. I am awaiting the Spirits." Yuu lifted a hand and placed it upon Shinji's shoulder, patting it soothingly as he looked around himself, chewing on his lower lip for a bit before replying. "I understand. Uruha has told me all about them, and that they only appear in time of great need. If they haven't made an appearance... doesn't it mean Uruha is still alive?" Before the conversation could move forward however, suddenly there was the sound of movement on the underbrush, and both Yuu and Shinji tensed up, the former yelping in fear as an unnaturally large brown fox came barelling out towards them. "Aaaaaah!" Yuu cowered and hid behind Shinji with a scream, but the shapeshifter merely laughed as he approached said fox instead, leaving the raven-haired on his own and much confused. Watching the four-legged animal as it stopped abruptly, he only noticed that it had something on its mouth: it dropped the rabbits it was biting the ears of on the ground and yipped happily, tail wagging before it was turning in place, growing it seemed before promptly turning into a smiling Kai. Wait, what? Kai was a shapeshifter too? "I found dinner, Yuu-sama!" He exclaimed happily, approaching Yuu who was gaping at him still, raising a fist over his heart and bending on the waist for a bow. "I apologize for scaring you, but I couldn't wait to show you these rabbits! They're big, fat, and... and Yuu-sama?" Now it was at this point that Yuu glanced from him to the rabbits and began crying, a hand over his mouth as his gaze eventually settled and remained on the butchered furries lying lifeless on the dirt. "You-you killed them?" He asked in a shaky voice. Rushing forward and pummeling the other's chest with his fists. "You rabbit-murderer, look at how cute they are, how could you have killed them?!" Kai didn't even move away from the half-hearted attack, shocked and speechless as he turned to Shinji who was scratching the back of his head with a sheepish smile. "Uh, did I not mention? Yuu-sama does not eat meat." In his mirror, even Ruki had to laugh at that oversight and the irony of it all—wasn't Uruha a cannibal and was supposed to eat Yuu? There was an annoying whine, followed by paws clawing on the ground. Yuu turned his head to other way with a sniff, knees tucked close to his chest with his arms around it as he threw a random stick onto the darkness. "Leave me be." There was a soft yip, followed by nails scrambling on stone and dirt, before a warm and wet nose was nudging the side of Yuu's arm. Lifting his head with a pout, he found the fox gazing at him imploringly. It had the stick in its mouth. "What do you want, rabbit-murderer?" The fox whined again, dropping the stick and lifting a paw, clawing the air several times before that same paw covered the side of its face, near its right eye. It almost looked cute, head bent like that in the guise of "hiding"... "Just leave me alone." Yuu picked the stick up again and threw it harder and further–it hidt the trunk of a tree and bounced back near them though. For a moment, he and the fox stared at it in silence, before the animal stood up, nudging the stick using its nose until it was right at the raven-haired's very toes. They had been playing catch since dinner ended. "Stop it." The fox yipped again, apologetically, turning in circles before settling beside him with a few inches of distance between them. There was only silence for a bit, just Yuu fuming before he felt something furry burrowing by his side, near his waist. Another whine, a pleading one. When Yuu looked down, the fox had its head turned up and was gazing at him with wide, watery eyes that shimmered under the light of the moon. "Don't try to be adorable." Far off, there was the sound of a laugh—Shinji no doubt–as Yuu faced forward again, only to suddenly be licked by the ankle. He shrieked and giggled in surprise, moving away from the fox who had jumped away after being startled itself, and then suddenly it was bending forward on its paws, lower half of its body high in the air and tail wagging. Yuu stared at the pouncing position–hold on a minute, was the shapeshifter seriously playing with him right now? Crawling backwards, he shook his head slowly as the fox followed his progress, raising a hand up as if to ward off the incoming attack. "Don't even try Kai, I'm still furious tha-ump!" The fox pounced anyway. For a long while, there was only the sound of giggling and rolling around, and Yuu's amused cries of no, stop it, it tickles! To those with the Sight, they would have seen how the auras of a dark-haired young man and a fox had turned a strange type of pink that was the telltale sign of tampered emotions. The playful licking eventually slowed down, and gasping for breath with it misting around his face as he lay exhausted on the ground, Yuu looked up as the fox slowly turned into Kai once more, hovering above him with a smile. "Am I forgiven, Yuu-sama?" The Guardian asked without pulling away, their faces close and noses nearly touching. Their auras pulsed, grew brighter and stronger—and so did every infested fruit that had been subject to the love potion. Ruki smiled. Yuu's eyes were on those lips as he nodded his head, opening his arms and seeking missing warmth that Kai gave. And in the cradle of a warm cloak, he whispered, eyes closing. "Yes." Uruha, who was watching all this from the Mirror, thrashed and pulled at his chains, growling and spitting blood and saliva at the sight of how he was slowly but surely losing Yuu. After what felt like years of captivity, which was in reality just a span of two weeks, Akira slowly began to realize that he was locked away and made unable to talk for a reason. He discovered, eventually, that as the High Priest's source of magick, not only did Ruki have access to all his thoughts, feelings and memories, why he did too: the connection went both ways and, on days his captor was most vulnerable, he could see into Ruki's head himself. It wasn't a very pretty place. "Come here boy." Ruki appeared to be a mere child in this memory, eight or nine maybe, cheeks rounded and flushed with youth and innocence. He was so short and cute, and he was grinning eagerly as he ran up towards the stern-looking man by the table. It was the same man in the cottage. "Yes Papa?" The man, apparently his father, lifted him up by the armpits, seating him on his lap to his delight, and Ruki giggled happily at that. "Have you packed your bags?" Little Ruki nodded his head eagerly in response, bangs bouncing with the movement. "I have! I only packed needed items, like you said!" His father smiled slightly and nodded, patting the top of his head and making Ruki flush with the affection. Akira didn't know how he knew it, but he did: affection wasn't something the man gave his son much, if at all. "Good boy. They'll be here any moment." "That was the only instance he told me I was a good boy, you know. It was also the last." Akira was startled out of the scene he was watching but it continued to play out even as he became physically detached from it, so to speak. Beside him, the High Priest was watching the memory unfold himself, but with a rather clinical scrutiny, arms crossed. In the dreamscape, Akira still had the ability to speak and so he did–this wasn't the first time he was in Ruki's head, but the other had never joined him before or even let him know that he was aware of this... breach of privacy. "I'm sorry, I just–" Ruki turned to him with a wry smile, closing the distance between them and lifting a hand to trace the edges of his mask with a finger, shutting him up. No matter how harmless the other looked, Akira had learned never to expect anything less but violence from him. The recollection of scattered body parts, his team in pieces, flashed at the back of his mind. "I know you've been rummaging around in my mind. You're free to do so. I've been doing the same to yours, anyway." He pulled away and wrapped his arms around Akira then, cradling the base of his skull, the scene still ongoing in the background. In a steady whisper, Ruki spoke beside his ear, still holding him. "Now watch." "Only this much gold for my boy? Look at him! He is fresh, and young. He has never been touched!" There were two men seated calmly on the other side of the table from the old man, and while Ruki's father looked absolutely furious, they were calm. "He is too fragile. We will still have to break him and build something from there, before we can start selling his services. It is this amount or nothing. Your choice." Ruki was standing by the open doorway to his bedroom, confused and with a knapsack by his feet, not quite understanding what the men were talking about as he looked from his father to their guests. "Papa?" When the silence became too long was when he spoke, but no one acknowledged him. Instead– "Fine, take him. This will do." Akira struggled, tried to turn his head away from the events that happened next, but it was more than just Ruki's limbs keeping him still because he realized he was unable to close his eyes either. And so he watched in horror as the two men lured Ruki in with their soft voices and gentle smiles, beckoning him to leave home, telling him sweet little lies that the boy believed. All of it just before they began violating him. "NO, NO, STOP IT, STOP!" Akira's screaming was so loud that it scratched his throat, but he couldn't stop because he was helpless to do anything but see. Little Ruki's cries and pleads and own screaming were as deafening, and by the time that it was over with the image of the boy lying on the floor spent and crying, broken... Akira felt himself sagging against the Ruki of now as whatever magick that had been holding him was finally undone, and with tears and saliva dripping down his chin, he held the High Priest back so tightly that he felt himself squeezing the air out of the other. Ruki was unruffled and calm, soothing his back with a palm and whispering comforting words against the patch of skin on his neck as the memory ended, shrouding them in the darkness of dreamless sleep. "There, there Akira. Ssh. That was a long time ago, and over." Akira's entire body was trembling so hard, but Ruki kept him together as he pulled back to cup his cheeks with his delicate hands, looking up at him with cold and seemingly-dead eyes. "Do you understand now? Why I must do what I need to? Humans like them, the same as you would have become if it wasn't for our meeting, they can't continue living." He was nodding, nodding and still seeing the little boy that the High Priest had been as he was forced to do things he didn't want and the waterfall flooding out of his eyes wouldn't stop. "Then will you become one with me willingly?" Ruki was still talking, calming him down as they sank to the floor, and it was in this state that Akira awoke against his crucifix and chains all by himself, a snivelling mess as he struggled with his bonds. He had not answered yet, but he was going to have to, eventually. Where he was seated by the altar with the Priestesses of Balance on either side of him and a bit far back from whence he was, Ruki's lips curled into a contented smile behind his crow mask, inhaling the sweet scent of incense into his starved lungs. "I have another memory we can use. Extract it and show him." His late Master's words of years back resonated in his head as he closed his eyes and allowed another scene to play out in Akira's consciousness for later and as soon as his masked captive succumbed to sleep. Your pain is your power. Let them see it. And then, when they are not looking, find use in their enjoyment or pity. You have drowned in hurt and survived—it is now their turn to choke on what once was your misery that is now theirs. Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!