GARO Fanfic - Anguish (Chapter 2nd)

Fanfic placed after chapter 15 and before the 17th.


Kouga was reading when Kaoru arrived. A bouquet of red and white roses that covered a half of her face aroused his curiosity, but before he could consider whether to do a comment or not, Gonza went ahead.

“Oh, Kaoru-sama, what beautiful roses!”

“Yes, they are”. She beamed. “A messenger delivered them to me at work today”.

“A secret admirer, I suppose?,” the butler added in complicity.

“Oh, no, they’re from Rei Suzumura, another Makai Knight. Do you know him?”

“Not very well ...” Gonza had lost his conviction all of a sudden. His eyes escaped to Kouga and, after welcoming her, he went away.

Wham! The big book closed suddenly between Kouga’s hands, and scared Kaoru. He got up from his chair. While he was approaching to her, he felt all the muscles in his body getting an almost painful tension. Kaoru opened his eyes a lot and made a step back when he stopped in front of her.

“I wonder if your brain does something else than enabling you with an unprecedented ability to chatter and to put yourself in trouble”.

Anger replaced alarm in her face.

“Why do you care?”

“This guy wants you dead, and you ask why do I care? Your memory is very short”

“You should know, this,” she suddenly placed the bouquet at his nose, “is his offer of peace!”

He pushed her arm away, as if the flowers could contaminate him.

“He said it and you believe him!” Kouga could not believe that this woman to trust that turncoat. “He knows I’ll protect you, so he wants to take you away from me”.

Kaoru’s look softened, with a touch of sadness which did he to wonder if he had gone too far in his comments.

“No, Kouga, Rei doesn’t wish me any harm”.

Kaoru buried her face among the roses for a moment, a gesture that forced him to suppress his impulse to take them one at a time and to squelch them among his fingers.

“How can you know this?”

Her eyes focused on him.

“For a reason I don’t know, who he wants to harm is you, Kouga. And sometimes he thinks that threatening me will hurt you”. She giggled without any joy, and some few tears moistened her eyes. “Poor miserable! But I’m safe. You do have to take care. I couldn’t persuade him to...” She turned his face away. “I’m sorry”.

Kouga knew such an assumption was largely true, and he was ready to take it. But he had a bad feeling about the phrase she had left without ending.

“You didn’t want to put up in between, right?” Pause. She did not reply. “What did he do to you?”

“It’s nothing”. Kaoru hurried to the stairs, but a strong and offhand grip grasped her free arm.

“What did he do to you?”, he repeated. He softened his clutch when felt a warm tear on his hand. “Tell me.”

These last words were so gentle that she turned to look at him, as if she did not believe. His hand left her go.

“Well, I ... I went to ask him ... to make peace with you”.

Kouga felt moved by her courage. And her innocence. If he had dared, he would have embraced her right then. His beautiful careless one. He invited her to continue:

“He said no...”

“It is obvious, isn’t it?” Another giggle, unaccompanied by her eyes, turned her face into a mask momentarily.

“What did he say? Perhaps I’ll be able to deduce what he’s against me”.

“I don’t think so. He just...” She sighed. “He tried to kiss me”.

It was like a slap.

After being astonished, Kouga steeped in fury. Now he understood everything! Rei wanted to win Kaoru to weaken him, to make him angry, so he could make a mistake. But he must not fall into this trap. He will protect her because Rei would end up killing her. However, he would not intervene until she or he did something unusual, such as leaving his own area of influence, or... better not think about it. If such a thing happened, nobody could stop him, and will kill Rei if needed: he won’t allow anyone to threaten Kaoru’s life!

Forgetting her presence, Kouga closed eyes and breathed deeply several times to control his anger. And asked to his soul strengh enough to bear which was going to fall upon him.