Chapter 3: Vow
Cry, cry,
I want to see your soul.
I want to see your soul.
Karakura Town, Karakura Old Town
4:59 p.m.
4:59 p.m.
"FANG!" Kinkajou screamed. Her voice hit a pitch that Ichigo had never heard from her before; she sounded like a frightened little girl rather than a hardened delinquent.
Immediately, the beating of Fang came to a complete halt. The yakuza looked up, the initial anger contorting their ugly faces quickly morphing to terror when they recognized whom it was. Kinkajou flew forward, as beautiful and deadly as a harpy. "GET AWAY FROM HIM! NE LE TOUCHE PAS!" she shrieked, and the gang scattered like a flock of crows. In their wake clattered a knife to the ground, the silver blade slick with crimson.
Kinkajou flung herself to the ground beside Fang's limp body, her knees sinking into the puddles of blood and staining her jeans scarlet. Ichigo followed her more slowly, one eye on the yakuza as they cowered in the back of an alley, a dead end.
Kinkajou cradled Fang's head in her lap. "Fang, Fang..." Her breathes heaved in her chest. "Fang, ne meurs pas, ne me quitte pas, reste avec moi... I'm talking to you, dammit, wake up!"
Fang's body gave a very faint jerk. "Henri... Il doit être," he slurred. "Tu sens mauvais."
Kinkajou's eyes lit up with such happiness that they might have been set aflame. "Shut up," she growled, but she couldn't keep the laughter out of her voice. "You smell worse."
"I can't... deny that." Fang shifted slightly, causing more blood to spill from the terrible wound in his midriff. Ichigo didn't flinch; he had seen worse. But he didn't have the heart to tell Kinkajou that the wound was mortal.
Fang went on in a very thick French accent. "I'd tell you... désolé... I dragged you down all this time..." Fang's breathing became more shallow and uneven, his dark lashes fluttering in tune with his failing heart. "But... you would jus'... slap me."
"Damn right I would," Kinkajou told him, tenderly brushing the strands of hair out of his eyes. "But why are you saying this now?"
Fang coughed up a mouthful of blood before he smiled lopsidedly at her, his bloodstained teeth ruining the comforting gesture. "In Japan... they call it a... two-minute warning... I think."
The smile faded from Kinkajou's lips. "What do you mean?"
"I have to go now." Fang coughed again, the sharp movement jostling his wounded belly even more.
Kinkajou's grip on his shoulders tightened. "Hey, you're not going anywhere!" she shouted. "Do you hear me?!"
"No," Fang told her, smirking as he weakly tapped the right side of his head. "But... I've always been... a li'l deaf in this ear." When Kinkajou's facial expression didn't change, he went on, "Don't be so... uptight. You're killing me, Kink..."
The first tear climbed hesitantly out onto Kinkajou's lashes, trembling there in place as though quite nervous about the imminent descent. "Don't even joke about that," she reprimanded him quietly.
"What, do you want me to die... crying? You're so... boring." Fang let out a laugh, which quickly turned into another hacking cough. The blood spurted onto Kinkajou's shirt, but she didn't seem to notice. "Anything else to say?"
That first tear fell onto Fang's face and rolled down his cheek, tearing away a strip of crimson as it went. "You're not allowed to die on me, you stupid jerk." Her voice was clipped as it held back tears, but it was free with all the affection the world had to offer.
"D'accord." Fang leaned up, bracing himself on his single elbow, and he looked Ichigo directly in the eyes. In that moment, the two of them were very much alike; one was dying and the other had both arms, but they were rather the same as the other, man and man. Although Fang's eyes were quickly growing foggy and glazed, they were as sharp and intense as deep blue ice. "You..." His voice broke, blood trickling between his chapped lips. He coughed and then said more clearly, "You had better... take care of her... you hear me?" Those piercing eyes narrowed. "Or I'll come back... from the dead... and I will haunt your miserable ass... till you die. Tu me comprends?"
The words would have been empty to anyone else, but this threat sent a chill down Ichigo's spine. "I will," he said solemnly.
Fang looked Ichigo in the eye for a moment longer before giving the slightest of nods. Then he glanced back at Kinkajou, was as silent as the grave. "Rendez-vous en enfer, amour," Fang said with a roguish grin, and then he took in one last shuddering breath and died.
Kinkajou's facial expression didn't change; it was as though she had just been watching a particularly dull TV show. She gingerly lowered Fang's head to the ground and closed his eyelids with one tender finger. Then slowly, purposefully, she got to her feet and glanced at the yakuza.
The gang had a bit of a problem itself: as much as they wanted to flee, they had to go around Kinkajou and Ichigo to do it. And still, Kinkajou watched them. Uninterested. Dully. As if they weren't exceptionally fascinating. Then, before Ichigo's eyes, she transformed into the Alley Cat of Karakura.
"YOU BASTARDS!" Kinkajou shrieked, a wild and insane light gleaming in her eyes. She snatched up the knife still soaked in Fang's blood and charged forward, the blade rising and burning sanguine, ready to eat more flesh and spill more blood.
Ichigo wasn't quite sure what had jolted him into action; he just found himself holding her back, looping his arms around hers and pinning them behind her back in an armlock even she couldn't wrench herself out of.
"Let go of me, Ichigo!" Kinkajou growled. "Lâche!"
"No!" Ichigo shouted. "Kinkajou, stop it! This is pointless!"
"Let GO!" The knife flailed in Kinkajou's struggling arms, but she couldn't free herself enough to find a target to stab at.
The yakuza eased backwards until their backs hit the wall, the whites of their eyes showing in their terror.
As soon as they moved, Kinkajou howled, "I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL RIP YOUR GUTS OUT!"
"Kinkajou!" Ichigo jerked her several paces back, causing her to spit and snarl like a rabid dog. "Fang wouldn't want this! You're not a murderer!"
Kinkajou snapped her head to the side so she could meet his gaze. Her eyes were bloodshot and feral, her beauty gone, replaced by something just short of insanity. "I am a murderer, Ichigo! I've killed people before, many people, people you might've known! They were rats, and I killed them! This is no different! I'll kill them, and you can't stop me!"
"It's completely different!" yelled Ichigo. "You kill to survive, not for vengeance! That's stupid!"
"Let me go, Ichigo!"
"No!"
"I'll cut your leg off!"
"Go ahead! I won't let you go!"
"Pourquoi?!"
"I made a promise!"
Kinkajou stopped struggling. Her breaths, wild and ragged in her breast, were the only sounds other than the echoing of Ichigo's voice off the tight alley walls.
"I made a promise," Ichigo went on, "that I would protect you no matter what, and I'll be damned if I let you become someone you're not, you stupid moron!" His voice softened. "Don't turn into someone Fang and I don't know."
Kinkajou dropped the knife. The tip skewered the pavement an inch from Ichigo's shoe, and the blade fell on its side, small and ownerless, bloodlust gone, duller than Ichigo's words. Kinkajou's back relaxed, the tensed muscles loosening, so Ichigo tentatively released her. She stepped away from him, looking smaller than ever, She didn't look at the yakuza as she told them, very quietly: "Get out."
The gang looked alarmed to suddenly be addressed. "What?" one of them asked oafishly.
"VA T'EN!" Kinkajou roared, her voice so full of venom that the guys jerked as if physically hit, and then they ran past in a stumbling gait and was gone in the flicker of an eyelid.
After they had gone, Kinkajou's shoulders slackened, all the tension blown away in the wind the yakuza left behind, and she looked down at Fang's body.
"Are you gonna bury him?" Ichigo asked quietly.
"No." Kinkajou's voice was barely a whisper, as though she were incapable of normal speech after all the yelling. "I'm putting him in the dumpster."
"Wha...?" Ichigo blinked. This hadn't been what he was expecting, but he doubted that she was kidding around.
Kinkajou gave him a weak, understanding smile. "Fang told me once that if he died before me, I was supposed to throw him in the dumpster. 'Toss me out with the rest of the trash,' he said." Something loosely resembling a laugh trickled out of her mouth. "Help me, will you?"