My word is my bond 20/24
Sep. 28th, 2017 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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sky_no_yukiTitle: My word is my bond
Pairing: Aiba Masaki/ Matsumoto Jun; Ninomiya Kazunari/ Sakurai Sho
Rating: NC-17 for this chapter
Warning: It’s dystopia mixed with steampunk and futuristic elements combined with elements from the 18th century, I guess... So it’s a little bit darker at some points, but nothing too dark, I promise.
Summary: The world in 2300 has changed. The society is divided in humans and slaves. Slaves are born and sold to fulfil their masters’ needs and desires. There are only a few masters who see their slaves as humans – like the Sakurai brothers. But it’s hard to hide this, when the rest of the world wants to see the slaves as ‘things to use’ and not as humans.
Note: I tried my best with the steampunk genre, but I think it became a mixture between some genres, nevertheless I hope you’ll like my new multi chapter <3 Sakumiya and JunBa will both have a lot of spotlight, and Ohno will be part of the story too ^__^
“It’s really beautiful here in the north,” Aiba said when they stepped out of the car. It was a little bit colder than at home, and the area was dustier than it had been at home. The city where they stopped reminded Aiba of the old books he had read. “It looks a little bit like in grandpa’s wild west stories.”
Sho nodded at him. “I guess it’s not far away from that, especially when I look at the guys over there. Aiba looked at three men standing there together, observing them closely. He could see the guns under the coats and he was sure that they wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.
Aiba gulped. It was the first time he wished to be back at home. “Where do we need to go?” He asked Ohno.
“I got told that there is a mine outside town under that small hill over there. The doctor here will meet us now, and he’ll tell us about his research. He told me that he fears that the sickness around here is linked to a certain material they get from the mine. Maybe it’s in the air, or mixed with the water. He told me that they drink the water from the lake, and I am not sure if that’s a good idea,” Ohno explained.
“Is there a sick person we can meet?” Sho asked. “Maybe we can get a guess what’s the reason for the illness around here.”
“I think he’ll show us everything around here. I just hope that we don’t get in danger with the other people. I heard that they aren’t overall happy to see strangers around here,” Ohno said. “Let’s get to this bar over there. Doctor Kamenashi waits for us there.”
The bar was dusty and small and smoke covered the air. In the corner of the bar sat young man, who smiled at them, while the others around only stared at them unfriendly – at least Aiba had the feeling that they weren’t happy to see them here.”
“Ohno-san, thank you so much for coming,” Kamenashi smiled at them. He bowed. “I am so happy about that, really. The situation becomes more and more dangerous and slowly I am running out of ideas what I can do.”
They sat down at the table and Kamenashi waved at the barkeeper. “Three beer, Haruko.”
The man nodded without a word and took three bottles from a fridge behind him. He came up to the table and placed the bottles there – again without saying something.
“Don’t be afraid, the people here are careful when it’s about new people. They have experienced so many robberies and murder during the last years that they don’t like strangers around here. But I told them that you are here to help them,” Kamenashi explained.
“Is there a patient with these symptoms you talked about?” Ohno wanted to know.
Kamenashi nodded. “The barkeeper’s wife. She is upstairs if you want to take a look at her.”
“That would be great,” Sho said.
Aiba turned to the barkeeper. He really didn’t look all over nice, but in his eyes there was a certain tiredness and he seemed really worried. “Can you tell us some things?” Aiba asked him.
The man nodded and came up to them. “What do you want to know?” His voice was hoarse.
“Did your wife eat something special? Or did she drink something she never drank before?” Aiba asked. He took out his small notebook and waited till the barkeeper started talking.
“She didn’t do anything special,” he said. “But…,” he said and made a pause. “Wait a moment.” He rubbed his chin. “Last week she told me about some flowers she had picked up. She was outside town and she told me that she took some water from a fountain for the flowers and she drank a few sips of the water.”
Aiba wrote that down and looked up. “What symptoms were the first?”
“She told me about stomach-ache and soon she threw up and her skin got grey,” the man said. He really seemed to suffer because of the situation.
“Can we visit her?” Sho asked.
The man nodded. “Follow me.”
They stood up to get upstairs. The rooms were small, and even though it was cleaned it looked dusty. Aiba could see two young girls standing at the doorframe upstairs. They were hardly older than 10 years. “Hello,” Aiba said with a smile, but the barkeeper immediately stopped him.
“Please, they are just the slaves here, you don’t need to talk with them,” he explained. “My children are with their grandparents. They shouldn’t see her mother suffering.”
In this moment Aiba decided to switch off his mind during this journey. He had already guessed that this area wasn’t the best for slaves, but he also knew how dangerous it could become for non slaves, so he definitely needed to stay quiet. “You’re right,” he just said, but it seemed enough words for the barkeeper. He smiled at him and gave him a friendly nod.
“Here is her room,” he said and let them step into a small bedroom where a woman laid on a bed. She was sweating and her breathe was slow and sometimes it stopped for a moment. She looked pale and dark rings spread under her eyes. If there wouldn’t have been the small movements of her chest, Aiba would have guessed that she was dead.
Sho handed Aiba gloves. He put it on and stepped closer to the bed. He placed his hand on the woman’s neck to check her pulse. “Far too slow,” Aiba said, earning a nod from Sho.
“Look,” Sho said. He held up the woman’s hand. On her fingertips were small black patterns. “Have you seen something like this anywhere before?”
Aiba tilted his head. No, he hadn’t seen that symptoms anywhere before. But he had a small guess what it could have caused. “Ohno-san, you said something about the mine.” Aiba turned to his friend.
“Yes, every patient was somehow connected to this mine. They were either in the mine or somewhere around it,” Ohno said. He turned to Kamenashi. “Or do you have other information?”
Kamenashi shook his head. “No, it’s exactly like you said. They are connected to this mine. It’s the only thing they all have in common.”
“I think we need to see that mine and the area around,” Aiba said. He opened his bag and pulled out a bottle with small white stones in it. “I am not sure if that can help her by now, but it can’t make it worse either. So cook some water and place a small piece of stone in the water. She shall drink it – slow sips,” Aiba explained. “When her body is poisoned it can maybe help her getting rid of the poison in her blood.”
“I will tell the slaves to cook the tea,” he said. Suddenly Aiba could see something in guy’s eyes. There was something he wanted to add, but he didn’t dare to.
“Your slaves take care of your wife?” Aiba asked.
The man looked at the ground. He shook his head. “I don’t want to cause any problems or make you leave without helping my wife and the others here, but our slaves are like children for us. They didn’t want to leave the place, that’s why they stayed here and decided to help my wife.” He sighed. “We don’t have own children. But everyone here believes that our children died some years ago.” He looked at Aiba and suddenly his eyes were filled with worry. “Please don’t stop helping us, just because my wife and I were too good-hearted.”
Aiba smiled at him. “Don’t worry, it’s okay. We are here to help the sick people and not to judge about other things.”
The man bowed. “Thank you so much.”
“Can you guide us to the mine?” Sho asked the man.
“Yes, of course. I will guide you. Kamenashi-san knows the area, but I was raised here, I know every rock and tree. I will come with you,” the man said. He gave the bottle to the two girls and told them what they should do with it and took his coat to leave this place together with them.
~~~
Nino turned in the bed. He had again dreamed about Sho and him. It had never happened to him that he dreamed about someone else. Nino felt Jun next to him moving. He turned to look at his friend’s face. He had never seen Jun so relaxed and calm. When they had slept next to each other back in the shop, Jun had been moving a lot in sleep. He had often yelled and talked in sleep, but now he was calm and there was even a smile curling around Jun’s lips.
Nino wondered if he looked better too. Was he healthier? Was he happier? – Yes he definitely was, and it was the first time he really had deep feelings for someone, that he even pushed away the things he got taught years ago: Never ever allow yourself to feel something. No pain, no sadness, no tiredness, but the most important thing: no love. You aren’t allowed to feel anything for anyone higher than you. And slaves aren’t humans, so you can’t love something which isn’t human.
Jun opened his eyes and looked at Nino. “Everything okay?” Jun asked sleepy.
“Yes, everything is perfect,” Nino replied. Yes, it was really everything alright. He listened to his inner voice and there was no bad feeling, no worry, no fear. The only bad feeling he had was when he thought about Sho, Ohno and Aiba in the north. But when they’d be back here, he’d give everything he had to Sho. God, he sounded so stupid and cheesy, but in the end he didn’t care about it. When he looked at Jun and how happy he looked, he wanted this too. Jun had always been the more emotional one. He was never been allowed to be like this, but Jun had never managed it to switch off his feelings, and that was the perfect way in Nino’s eyes. He himself had tried to let feelings happen, but he had serious problems with it.
“Then why aren’t you sleeping?” Jun yawned. He rubbed his eyes and sat up.
Nino shrugged. “I am not sleepy.” He and Jun had occupied Aiba’s bed, while Ryo slept in Jun’s room. They had spent hours talking about this and that, just to distract themselves from the nervousness.
Nino turned on his back and stared at the ceiling. “Two more days.”
“Mhm, I wished that they’d be already over. I hate this waiting and this fear that something might happen to them.” Jun’s voice was a little higher than usual. He was definitely worried. Nino had only experienced Jun one time like this. It had been when Nino had been ill back in the shop. He had been about to die, but he had been able to hear Jun’s voice talking to him every day. Maybe he had wanted to calm himself down more than to coax Nino gently.
“What are we doing if something happens to…” Nino had his eyes closed when he said these words. He didn’t want to look at Jun, because he could already imagine Jun’s eyes. He knew his friend and he knew how broken Jun could look like when he thought about something bad.
“No.” For Nino’s surprise Jun’s voice was strong and powerful. He had hardly ever heard his friend talking with an equal intense voice. He turned to look at Jun. His eyes were sparkling, and he had his hands in fists. “I am sure that everything will be alright, they’ll be back in two days and they’ll return without being hurt.”
Nino’s lips turned into a small smile. “It’s nice to see you that strong-willed. And I just want to believe you.”
“I hope you are right.” Nino and Jun almost jumped out of the bed when they heard Ryo’s voice from the door. “I am sorry, I didn’t want to scare you, I just can’t sleep either.”
Nino robbed closer to Jun. “Come, it’s enough space for the three of us in this bed.”
Nino could feel sleep overwhelming him, and even though the worry was still making something in him jumping up and down, he fell into a restless sleep.
~~~
Aiba walked behind Sho and Ohno who were talking with the bar owner and Kamenashi about the area around here. Aiba listened closely, but he also wanted to look around on his own. There wasn’t much nature anymore around, except some almost dried trees and plants. It was a sad picture surrounding him, and Aiba wished to be back at home in his garden, with all his flowers and animals around .He wasn’t even sure if anything alive was still out here in this area.
“And there is the mine.” Aiba almost bumped into his brother when they suddenly stopped. He was concentrating on the small trees not far away. They had hardly any leaves and the tree-trunk looked almost black. This was definitely not normal.
“Hey, watch out, Masaki,” Sho said, grabbing for Aiba’s arm to prevent him falling down.
“Have you seen the plants?” Aiba asked his brother.
“Yes, it doesn’t look good. There is something in the water I guess,” Sho mused.
His brother was probably right, this all must have been connected to the water. “Can you show us a near fountain?” Aiba asked the bar keeper.
He nodded at him. “Sure.” He turned round. “Not far from here, over there, is a small fountain. It’s not big, but back in my youth I was used to get my fresh water there. I once worked in the mine.”
They walked to the place the bar keeper had pointed at and Aiba could immediately see that there was something wrong with this water. “Sho-kun,” he said and pointed at the other side of the small river the fountain had created. This was really nothing nice to look at. There were at least five animal corpses on the ground.
Aiba searched for a way across the river and walked up to the animals. He knelt down to take a closer look at them. There was a rabbit followed by a fox and some birds. “It looks like the birds and the rabbit drank from the water, but the fox …” Aiba pulled out gloves from his bag and turned the fox’s body. “He didn’t drink it.” Aiba shook his head. “I am not an animal doctor, but it looks like the fox ate parts of the rabbit and died afterwards,” Aiba mused. He could see blood around the fox’s mouth and a part of the rabbit was already missing. “And there are no animals around to eat them. That’s rather unusual.”
“You’re right.” Sho knelt next to him. “There aren’t even flies around here. That’s not normal.”
“Can you guess the reason?” Kamenashi asked. He stood behind Aiba, looking down at them while the bar keeper tried to stay in the background. He probably wouldn’t admit it, but he seemed to be afraid of this situation.
Aiba shook his head. “I can make a short test, but I am not sure if this will give us an answer.” He took a scalpel and cut a piece of the rabbit’s meat. “Give me the serum and the test tube.” Sho handed him the things and Aiba put the meat in the tube and let the serum drop onto the meat. The liquid turned from transparent to pinkish.
Aiba and Sho exchanged a look. That was definitely not good. “It seems the animal was poisoned. And if I am not completely wrong, I would say that the reason is the water. There is something in it what makes animals and humans sick.”
Sho nodded. “It just seems that animals die immediately, while humans have a stronger immune system. But in the end they all end up in bad condition. What is in this mine?”
The bar keeper shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Oh come on,” Kamenashi huffed. “You worked there, you know what they are doing down there.”
The bar keeper stared at the dead animals. He bit his lips nervously. He definitely seemed to think about what to say now. He knew more than he wanted to tell them. “Your wife.” Aiba made him look at him. “We can only help her if we know what’s going on there. We aren’t able to find a solution for this all if we don’t know what the reason behind this is.”
“Okay,” the man said. “I worked there, and I signed a contract that I wouldn’t talk about the happenings down there. I am not sure about everything either. I just know that they experimented down there.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Kamenashi asked.
“The guys from the other side,” the man’s voice changed into a whisper like he feared that someone might hear him.
Aiba was sure that he could see Kamenashi’s colour in his face fading. “You mean?”
The man nodded. “Some years ago some real bad men decided to occupy this mine to test various things. Most of the experiments were about finding a powerful weapon against the enemy. And the best way to defeat everyone is a powerful poison you can even mix into food, water or pour it out of an airplane down into cities.”
Aiba shuddered. Was there really someone doing this? This couldn’t be. “Are you sure?”
The man nodded. “I worked down there. But I don’t think that they wanted to poison anyone here, I rather guess that there went something terribly wrong. In the end they live here on their own, so I don’t think that they wanted to kill themselves.”
“Why haven’t I seen this?” Kamenashi breathed out. “It’s so obvious.”
“Let’s go to this mine and check things out,” Sho suggested.
“No, no,” the man held him back. “That’s a bad idea. They shouldn’t see you here. They are really evil.”
Masaki patted his shoulder. “But we need to warn them. I am sure they don’t want to do this.”
“But maybe we shouldn’t interfere in this. We were here to find the reason, and we did this job.” Ohno stepped to Aiba.
“Satoshi,” Masaki said.
“Oh, I know this face, you want to help them till you convinced everyone about your theory, but Masaki we should really make our way home.” Ohno tried it again, but he was right, Masaki wouldn’t give up now. He was asked to come here to help them, and his work wasn’t done by now.
He took his bag and started walking to the mine followed by Sho and Ohno, but suddenly everything around him got black and he could just hear a yell right behind him and some voices screaming names and tangled things. Soon everything got numb around Masaki and he fell into a kind of sleep.
A/N: I am back with this one too <3 So what do you think about the end? What happened to Aiba? And what will happen back at home? WIll they get back home? Or are Ryo, Jun and Nino alone from now on?
Pairing: Aiba Masaki/ Matsumoto Jun; Ninomiya Kazunari/ Sakurai Sho
Rating: NC-17 for this chapter
Warning: It’s dystopia mixed with steampunk and futuristic elements combined with elements from the 18th century, I guess... So it’s a little bit darker at some points, but nothing too dark, I promise.
Summary: The world in 2300 has changed. The society is divided in humans and slaves. Slaves are born and sold to fulfil their masters’ needs and desires. There are only a few masters who see their slaves as humans – like the Sakurai brothers. But it’s hard to hide this, when the rest of the world wants to see the slaves as ‘things to use’ and not as humans.
Note: I tried my best with the steampunk genre, but I think it became a mixture between some genres, nevertheless I hope you’ll like my new multi chapter <3 Sakumiya and JunBa will both have a lot of spotlight, and Ohno will be part of the story too ^__^
“It’s really beautiful here in the north,” Aiba said when they stepped out of the car. It was a little bit colder than at home, and the area was dustier than it had been at home. The city where they stopped reminded Aiba of the old books he had read. “It looks a little bit like in grandpa’s wild west stories.”
Sho nodded at him. “I guess it’s not far away from that, especially when I look at the guys over there. Aiba looked at three men standing there together, observing them closely. He could see the guns under the coats and he was sure that they wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.
Aiba gulped. It was the first time he wished to be back at home. “Where do we need to go?” He asked Ohno.
“I got told that there is a mine outside town under that small hill over there. The doctor here will meet us now, and he’ll tell us about his research. He told me that he fears that the sickness around here is linked to a certain material they get from the mine. Maybe it’s in the air, or mixed with the water. He told me that they drink the water from the lake, and I am not sure if that’s a good idea,” Ohno explained.
“Is there a sick person we can meet?” Sho asked. “Maybe we can get a guess what’s the reason for the illness around here.”
“I think he’ll show us everything around here. I just hope that we don’t get in danger with the other people. I heard that they aren’t overall happy to see strangers around here,” Ohno said. “Let’s get to this bar over there. Doctor Kamenashi waits for us there.”
The bar was dusty and small and smoke covered the air. In the corner of the bar sat young man, who smiled at them, while the others around only stared at them unfriendly – at least Aiba had the feeling that they weren’t happy to see them here.”
“Ohno-san, thank you so much for coming,” Kamenashi smiled at them. He bowed. “I am so happy about that, really. The situation becomes more and more dangerous and slowly I am running out of ideas what I can do.”
They sat down at the table and Kamenashi waved at the barkeeper. “Three beer, Haruko.”
The man nodded without a word and took three bottles from a fridge behind him. He came up to the table and placed the bottles there – again without saying something.
“Don’t be afraid, the people here are careful when it’s about new people. They have experienced so many robberies and murder during the last years that they don’t like strangers around here. But I told them that you are here to help them,” Kamenashi explained.
“Is there a patient with these symptoms you talked about?” Ohno wanted to know.
Kamenashi nodded. “The barkeeper’s wife. She is upstairs if you want to take a look at her.”
“That would be great,” Sho said.
Aiba turned to the barkeeper. He really didn’t look all over nice, but in his eyes there was a certain tiredness and he seemed really worried. “Can you tell us some things?” Aiba asked him.
The man nodded and came up to them. “What do you want to know?” His voice was hoarse.
“Did your wife eat something special? Or did she drink something she never drank before?” Aiba asked. He took out his small notebook and waited till the barkeeper started talking.
“She didn’t do anything special,” he said. “But…,” he said and made a pause. “Wait a moment.” He rubbed his chin. “Last week she told me about some flowers she had picked up. She was outside town and she told me that she took some water from a fountain for the flowers and she drank a few sips of the water.”
Aiba wrote that down and looked up. “What symptoms were the first?”
“She told me about stomach-ache and soon she threw up and her skin got grey,” the man said. He really seemed to suffer because of the situation.
“Can we visit her?” Sho asked.
The man nodded. “Follow me.”
They stood up to get upstairs. The rooms were small, and even though it was cleaned it looked dusty. Aiba could see two young girls standing at the doorframe upstairs. They were hardly older than 10 years. “Hello,” Aiba said with a smile, but the barkeeper immediately stopped him.
“Please, they are just the slaves here, you don’t need to talk with them,” he explained. “My children are with their grandparents. They shouldn’t see her mother suffering.”
In this moment Aiba decided to switch off his mind during this journey. He had already guessed that this area wasn’t the best for slaves, but he also knew how dangerous it could become for non slaves, so he definitely needed to stay quiet. “You’re right,” he just said, but it seemed enough words for the barkeeper. He smiled at him and gave him a friendly nod.
“Here is her room,” he said and let them step into a small bedroom where a woman laid on a bed. She was sweating and her breathe was slow and sometimes it stopped for a moment. She looked pale and dark rings spread under her eyes. If there wouldn’t have been the small movements of her chest, Aiba would have guessed that she was dead.
Sho handed Aiba gloves. He put it on and stepped closer to the bed. He placed his hand on the woman’s neck to check her pulse. “Far too slow,” Aiba said, earning a nod from Sho.
“Look,” Sho said. He held up the woman’s hand. On her fingertips were small black patterns. “Have you seen something like this anywhere before?”
Aiba tilted his head. No, he hadn’t seen that symptoms anywhere before. But he had a small guess what it could have caused. “Ohno-san, you said something about the mine.” Aiba turned to his friend.
“Yes, every patient was somehow connected to this mine. They were either in the mine or somewhere around it,” Ohno said. He turned to Kamenashi. “Or do you have other information?”
Kamenashi shook his head. “No, it’s exactly like you said. They are connected to this mine. It’s the only thing they all have in common.”
“I think we need to see that mine and the area around,” Aiba said. He opened his bag and pulled out a bottle with small white stones in it. “I am not sure if that can help her by now, but it can’t make it worse either. So cook some water and place a small piece of stone in the water. She shall drink it – slow sips,” Aiba explained. “When her body is poisoned it can maybe help her getting rid of the poison in her blood.”
“I will tell the slaves to cook the tea,” he said. Suddenly Aiba could see something in guy’s eyes. There was something he wanted to add, but he didn’t dare to.
“Your slaves take care of your wife?” Aiba asked.
The man looked at the ground. He shook his head. “I don’t want to cause any problems or make you leave without helping my wife and the others here, but our slaves are like children for us. They didn’t want to leave the place, that’s why they stayed here and decided to help my wife.” He sighed. “We don’t have own children. But everyone here believes that our children died some years ago.” He looked at Aiba and suddenly his eyes were filled with worry. “Please don’t stop helping us, just because my wife and I were too good-hearted.”
Aiba smiled at him. “Don’t worry, it’s okay. We are here to help the sick people and not to judge about other things.”
The man bowed. “Thank you so much.”
“Can you guide us to the mine?” Sho asked the man.
“Yes, of course. I will guide you. Kamenashi-san knows the area, but I was raised here, I know every rock and tree. I will come with you,” the man said. He gave the bottle to the two girls and told them what they should do with it and took his coat to leave this place together with them.
~~~
Nino turned in the bed. He had again dreamed about Sho and him. It had never happened to him that he dreamed about someone else. Nino felt Jun next to him moving. He turned to look at his friend’s face. He had never seen Jun so relaxed and calm. When they had slept next to each other back in the shop, Jun had been moving a lot in sleep. He had often yelled and talked in sleep, but now he was calm and there was even a smile curling around Jun’s lips.
Nino wondered if he looked better too. Was he healthier? Was he happier? – Yes he definitely was, and it was the first time he really had deep feelings for someone, that he even pushed away the things he got taught years ago: Never ever allow yourself to feel something. No pain, no sadness, no tiredness, but the most important thing: no love. You aren’t allowed to feel anything for anyone higher than you. And slaves aren’t humans, so you can’t love something which isn’t human.
Jun opened his eyes and looked at Nino. “Everything okay?” Jun asked sleepy.
“Yes, everything is perfect,” Nino replied. Yes, it was really everything alright. He listened to his inner voice and there was no bad feeling, no worry, no fear. The only bad feeling he had was when he thought about Sho, Ohno and Aiba in the north. But when they’d be back here, he’d give everything he had to Sho. God, he sounded so stupid and cheesy, but in the end he didn’t care about it. When he looked at Jun and how happy he looked, he wanted this too. Jun had always been the more emotional one. He was never been allowed to be like this, but Jun had never managed it to switch off his feelings, and that was the perfect way in Nino’s eyes. He himself had tried to let feelings happen, but he had serious problems with it.
“Then why aren’t you sleeping?” Jun yawned. He rubbed his eyes and sat up.
Nino shrugged. “I am not sleepy.” He and Jun had occupied Aiba’s bed, while Ryo slept in Jun’s room. They had spent hours talking about this and that, just to distract themselves from the nervousness.
Nino turned on his back and stared at the ceiling. “Two more days.”
“Mhm, I wished that they’d be already over. I hate this waiting and this fear that something might happen to them.” Jun’s voice was a little higher than usual. He was definitely worried. Nino had only experienced Jun one time like this. It had been when Nino had been ill back in the shop. He had been about to die, but he had been able to hear Jun’s voice talking to him every day. Maybe he had wanted to calm himself down more than to coax Nino gently.
“What are we doing if something happens to…” Nino had his eyes closed when he said these words. He didn’t want to look at Jun, because he could already imagine Jun’s eyes. He knew his friend and he knew how broken Jun could look like when he thought about something bad.
“No.” For Nino’s surprise Jun’s voice was strong and powerful. He had hardly ever heard his friend talking with an equal intense voice. He turned to look at Jun. His eyes were sparkling, and he had his hands in fists. “I am sure that everything will be alright, they’ll be back in two days and they’ll return without being hurt.”
Nino’s lips turned into a small smile. “It’s nice to see you that strong-willed. And I just want to believe you.”
“I hope you are right.” Nino and Jun almost jumped out of the bed when they heard Ryo’s voice from the door. “I am sorry, I didn’t want to scare you, I just can’t sleep either.”
Nino robbed closer to Jun. “Come, it’s enough space for the three of us in this bed.”
Nino could feel sleep overwhelming him, and even though the worry was still making something in him jumping up and down, he fell into a restless sleep.
~~~
Aiba walked behind Sho and Ohno who were talking with the bar owner and Kamenashi about the area around here. Aiba listened closely, but he also wanted to look around on his own. There wasn’t much nature anymore around, except some almost dried trees and plants. It was a sad picture surrounding him, and Aiba wished to be back at home in his garden, with all his flowers and animals around .He wasn’t even sure if anything alive was still out here in this area.
“And there is the mine.” Aiba almost bumped into his brother when they suddenly stopped. He was concentrating on the small trees not far away. They had hardly any leaves and the tree-trunk looked almost black. This was definitely not normal.
“Hey, watch out, Masaki,” Sho said, grabbing for Aiba’s arm to prevent him falling down.
“Have you seen the plants?” Aiba asked his brother.
“Yes, it doesn’t look good. There is something in the water I guess,” Sho mused.
His brother was probably right, this all must have been connected to the water. “Can you show us a near fountain?” Aiba asked the bar keeper.
He nodded at him. “Sure.” He turned round. “Not far from here, over there, is a small fountain. It’s not big, but back in my youth I was used to get my fresh water there. I once worked in the mine.”
They walked to the place the bar keeper had pointed at and Aiba could immediately see that there was something wrong with this water. “Sho-kun,” he said and pointed at the other side of the small river the fountain had created. This was really nothing nice to look at. There were at least five animal corpses on the ground.
Aiba searched for a way across the river and walked up to the animals. He knelt down to take a closer look at them. There was a rabbit followed by a fox and some birds. “It looks like the birds and the rabbit drank from the water, but the fox …” Aiba pulled out gloves from his bag and turned the fox’s body. “He didn’t drink it.” Aiba shook his head. “I am not an animal doctor, but it looks like the fox ate parts of the rabbit and died afterwards,” Aiba mused. He could see blood around the fox’s mouth and a part of the rabbit was already missing. “And there are no animals around to eat them. That’s rather unusual.”
“You’re right.” Sho knelt next to him. “There aren’t even flies around here. That’s not normal.”
“Can you guess the reason?” Kamenashi asked. He stood behind Aiba, looking down at them while the bar keeper tried to stay in the background. He probably wouldn’t admit it, but he seemed to be afraid of this situation.
Aiba shook his head. “I can make a short test, but I am not sure if this will give us an answer.” He took a scalpel and cut a piece of the rabbit’s meat. “Give me the serum and the test tube.” Sho handed him the things and Aiba put the meat in the tube and let the serum drop onto the meat. The liquid turned from transparent to pinkish.
Aiba and Sho exchanged a look. That was definitely not good. “It seems the animal was poisoned. And if I am not completely wrong, I would say that the reason is the water. There is something in it what makes animals and humans sick.”
Sho nodded. “It just seems that animals die immediately, while humans have a stronger immune system. But in the end they all end up in bad condition. What is in this mine?”
The bar keeper shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Oh come on,” Kamenashi huffed. “You worked there, you know what they are doing down there.”
The bar keeper stared at the dead animals. He bit his lips nervously. He definitely seemed to think about what to say now. He knew more than he wanted to tell them. “Your wife.” Aiba made him look at him. “We can only help her if we know what’s going on there. We aren’t able to find a solution for this all if we don’t know what the reason behind this is.”
“Okay,” the man said. “I worked there, and I signed a contract that I wouldn’t talk about the happenings down there. I am not sure about everything either. I just know that they experimented down there.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Kamenashi asked.
“The guys from the other side,” the man’s voice changed into a whisper like he feared that someone might hear him.
Aiba was sure that he could see Kamenashi’s colour in his face fading. “You mean?”
The man nodded. “Some years ago some real bad men decided to occupy this mine to test various things. Most of the experiments were about finding a powerful weapon against the enemy. And the best way to defeat everyone is a powerful poison you can even mix into food, water or pour it out of an airplane down into cities.”
Aiba shuddered. Was there really someone doing this? This couldn’t be. “Are you sure?”
The man nodded. “I worked down there. But I don’t think that they wanted to poison anyone here, I rather guess that there went something terribly wrong. In the end they live here on their own, so I don’t think that they wanted to kill themselves.”
“Why haven’t I seen this?” Kamenashi breathed out. “It’s so obvious.”
“Let’s go to this mine and check things out,” Sho suggested.
“No, no,” the man held him back. “That’s a bad idea. They shouldn’t see you here. They are really evil.”
Masaki patted his shoulder. “But we need to warn them. I am sure they don’t want to do this.”
“But maybe we shouldn’t interfere in this. We were here to find the reason, and we did this job.” Ohno stepped to Aiba.
“Satoshi,” Masaki said.
“Oh, I know this face, you want to help them till you convinced everyone about your theory, but Masaki we should really make our way home.” Ohno tried it again, but he was right, Masaki wouldn’t give up now. He was asked to come here to help them, and his work wasn’t done by now.
He took his bag and started walking to the mine followed by Sho and Ohno, but suddenly everything around him got black and he could just hear a yell right behind him and some voices screaming names and tangled things. Soon everything got numb around Masaki and he fell into a kind of sleep.
A/N: I am back with this one too <3 So what do you think about the end? What happened to Aiba? And what will happen back at home? WIll they get back home? Or are Ryo, Jun and Nino alone from now on?
