Kyuuketsuki Duo: The TV Series Episode 12
Bad Religion -- Part 6
Duo spent the whole day fidgeting, and the moment the final school bell rang, he was off on the hunt. School attendance, on the whole, didn't mean too much to him, but absences would bring him to the attention of his teachers, who might just realize that he didn't have any parents to sign his excuses. Besides, with the brief scan of the area that he had done last night, he couldn't find anything that warranted throwing his schedule off. But that didn't mean that he didn't think about it all day long.
*****
Soon after ringing the doorbell, the two boys heard voices approaching from the other side of the door. Quatre had just enough time to throw Trowa an uneasy glance before an upset-looking Meiran jerked the door open. Over her shoulder, they could see an equally upset Wufei, his arms crossed formidably across his chest, and his lips pursed tightly together as if that were the only thing keeping angry words from flowing out.
"Well?" Meiran nearly snapped, making an effort at hospitality. "Come in already."
Quatre smiled weakly and stepped over the threshold almost hesitantly, though reassured by the steady, calm presence Trowa exuded at his back as they entered. He had known the two Chinese teens to argue from time to time, as they were both strong, stubborn, and opinionated people, but Quatre somehow always knew that they never meant any of the harsh words they exchanged, and that it only managed to strengthen and solidify their relationship, for some complicated reason. This time, however, it just felt like there was a little more to it.
He found himself wishing that Duo hadn't rushed off after school today, but then he chided himself for thinking such uncharitable thoughts. Duo had made his excuses earlier that day, telling him that he had something else he needed to attend to and therefore they would be unable to work together on their math. No, work with him on his math, he mentally corrected himself. Duo never needed his assistance; in fact, half the time he didn't need to work at all on his math. Quatre had discovered that many times, when he had thought that the braided youth had been taking notes in class, he had actually been working ahead on his homework assignments. In any case, Duo's absence had him walking into the briar patch he now found himself in.
Meiran led them to the kitchen table, where they would work. The two guests followed her without speaking, with Wufei falling in behind them menacingly. Even after they had all seated themselves, a heavy silence descended upon the room.
"Um, guys?" Quatre ventured tentatively, not really wanting to start pulling notebooks out of his bag until he was sure he wanted to stay. "Is... everything okay here?"
"Hmpf," Meiran huffed. "Nothing's wrong, Quatre. Only Wufei is being even more of a crazy idiot than normal."
Wufei bristled visibly at the comment. "I am not crazy!" he retorted through clenched teeth. "I am telling you --" he paused, casting a brief, sharp sidelong look at their company, "-- it's true."
"Tell him he's being paranoid," Meiran directed irritably at Quatre.
The poor boy froze minutely, understandably reluctant to be drawn into this conflict. "Well, um, I'm sure he's got his reasons for thinking as he does...," he volunteered, trying to play the soothing peacemaker.
"He thinks--" she bit off the word scornfully, "-- that Duo -- our Duo, Duo Maxwell? The Duo we've known for a while now?" Wufei's chin raised haughtily, unwilling to back down from what he knew to be the truth, no matter her incredulous denials. "He thinks that Duo is..." Here she had to pause to emit a mocking chuckle, unable to really take the accusation seriously. "He thinks Duo is a demon."
Trowa took the information without even blinking. Quatre, however, was not so calm. His jaw dropped just a little before he recovered. "Duo's a what?!" he nearly squeaked.
"The creature we know as Duo Maxwell," Wufei explained with extremely strained patience, "is, more specifically, a vampire that preys on the blood and minds of humanity. But a demon, in a broader sense."
"Oh," Quatre responded dumbly.
"What did I tell you?" Meiran took over. "Is he crazy or what?"
"I am not crazy, woman," Wufei retorted harshly.
"Just because you got the word of some crackpot cult leader to back you up!? Wufei, you can't possibly be so gullible!"
"A vampire," Quatre muttered numbly to himself.
"I told you, I'm not going on his word alone," Wufei grated out at the girl. "I've studied him myself, and if Duo is not a demon himself, then he at the very least consorts with dark powers."
"I would love dearly to see what proof you have of that!"
"A vampire," Quatre repeated again.
"And don't you dare tell me it's because he's got long hair or funny colored eyes, or something equally ridiculous!" Meiran continued angrily.
"Of course not!" Wufei responded, outraged. "I saw him, the other day, in the --"
"Vampire," the stunned blonde mumbled, the cogs in his brain churning away at the problem. "Wait a minute. Just... wait a minute." For some reason, Wufei actually paused mid-sentence. "If he's a vampire, then why is he out during the day?" Meiran backed the statement with a challenging look at her housemate, though she kept her mouth shut. If Quatre wanted to help bring logic into this argument, she certainly wouldn't halt him.
Wufei pursed his lips again, this time in thought. "That, I cannot answer," he answered solemnly, glad that someone was actually making a valid point, even if it was in opposition to himself. "I know only what I have seen and heard."
"Have you actually seen Duo... feeding? Or hurting anyone?" Quatre probed.
Wufei shook his head. "But I have --"
"And where did you get your information from, at first?" he continued, not really paying any heed to Wufei's protest at the moment, but wanting to get some of the background covered first.
Wufei looked a little irritated at being cut off in his explanation, but he answered the question. "Are you familiar with the evangelists that typically congregate around the fountain in the marketplace? I looked at the literature they were handing out." Meiran bit her lip to stop herself from making an acidic comment. "They spoke of a demon that fed upon the darker side of mankind. I looked more deeply into the matter, and met with their leader, who showed me a picture of their demon. It was Duo."
Quatre nodded absently, absorbing the information and analyzing it carefully. Trigonometry might not have been his strong point, but this was. "What's your interest in all this?" he inquired, his eyebrows drawn together in thought as his mind began making connections.
Wufei seemed startled by the question, and Meiran's expression softened noticeably. "What do you mean?" the boy asked guardedly.
"Why do you care? I mean, Duo's involvement in this whole thing aside, there was some reason you even looked into it in the first place. Why?" His tone indicated that he just wanted to know, that he was investigating all angles of the issue before passing judgment, rather than making unfounded accusations.
Wufei stayed quiet for few long moments before answering carefully. His past was an intensely personal thing, yet it would likely help his credibility. He wasn't quite sure why he felt it so vital that these people believe him. Perhaps because they knew Duo, and were his closest friends. "My family...," he started painfully. "I deal in this sort of thing."
"Demons?"
He nodded once. "It is my sworn duty to combat them," he finished softly.
Quatre sensed that that was about all he would say about the matter, but it was enough. He nodded his acceptance of the confession, noting that Meiran seemed to have already been aware of the fact. "Alright. So what's your evidence? Besides an entire cult believing that he is an incarnation of the ultimate evil, that is."
When even Trowa raised an eyebrow at the statement, Wufei knew that it sounded ridiculous once one said it aloud, but once again, he did not back away from what he had witnessed. "The largest piece of evidence I would claim is that I saw him speaking to a demon yesterday, by that same fountain."
"In the middle of the marketplace?" Meiran burst out, unable to stay silent. "Didn't anyone notice?"
He gave her a withering look. "She appeared human. As does he."
Before Meiran could interrupt again, Quatre smoothly interjected himself into the side conversation. "How did you know that she was a demon?" he asked a bit more diplomatically than she would have managed.
"I can tell," Wufei stated with quiet dignity.
Quatre once again accepted the claim as truth for the moment. "Can you tell if Duo is a demon in the same manner?"
"...No," Wufei had to admit. "I've always thought that there was something... off about him, though. And if he is truly as powerful as this cult would claim, then perhaps he could hide his true nature."
"Hmmm. Is there anything else that might prove it?"
Wufei nodded reluctantly. "I... had a run-in with another demon, not too long ago. It tried to take over my mind as I wandered the streets."
A tiny gasp escaped from Meiran's lips. "That night? It was that night, wasn't it?" she realized aloud. "Why didn't you say something, Wufei?"
He refused to look at her as he answered. "It was not your concern, Meiran," he answered quietly.
"Wufei...." She would have protested the dismissal further, had she not known how proud the heir to the Chang line was, did she not know that he was truly under the impression that his was a burden that he was destined to bear alone. She worked on changing that impression whenever she could, but now was not the time.
Wufei took a deep, slow breath and continued his narrative. "I met Duo on the streets, that night. The demon in my head seemed to recognize him, and before I destroyed it, hinted that one of my friends was of its kind."
Quatre digested that newest bit of information as well. "Not to be critical, but can you trust the words of a demon?"
"What reason would there be for it to lie?"
"I don't know," Quatre admitted easily. "I don't pretend to know why demons do as they do. But you should keep the possibility under consideration, and otherwise keep an open mind about everything."
Meiran was studying her blonde friend carefully. "You seem to be taking all of this rather calmly, Quatre," she judged, somehow made suspicious of something.
"I --" Suddenly, Quatre found the twiddling of his hands to be intensely interesting. During the uneasy silence that followed, however, he realized that it wasn't fair to demand so much information from Wufei, and yet not to share any of himself. He took a deep breath, and raised his eyes to meet theirs. "I had a vision last night."
Meiran blinked in surprise. "Excuse me?"
"I... see things, sometimes," he confessed. "Get feelings about things. I can't explain it, but it seems like I've always been... aware of things that I shouldn't be. But last night... it was the strongest thing I've ever felt."
"What did you see?" Wufei inquired intently. He had heard of people who had such skills before.
Quatre wet his lips nervously. He had never told anyone about his abilities before, not Iria, not Trowa, and most especially never his father. Even he himself mostly thought them to be a figment of his imagination, but somehow, right now, it seemed completely reasonable that they were real. "Last night, I took out that charm you gave me, Meiran."
"It had a ward against minor evil," she informed Wufei quietly as an aside, not wanting to interrupt Quatre's narrative. Wufei raised an eyebrow slightly, but otherwise made no comment. It was curious that she felt the need to gift the boy with such a ward, but it was also rare that Meiran chose to use some of the 'mystic' knowledge she had learned as a child from members of his own clan to make such a ward.
"When I unwrapped it and touched it," Quatre continued, "it gave me a sharp shock, and I had this brief, very vivid image of Duo, looking straight at me from within a fog of darkness. It felt like a warning of sorts. But he seemed... different."
"How so?" Wufei asked.
Quatre's eyes unfocused a bit as he turned his attention inward, trying to recall the fleeting image. "His eyes," he decided. "They were... hard. Yet... haunted. And a very light violet, nearly silver, really."
"The ward was warning him against the evil Duo represents," Wufei declared to Meiran triumphantly. "Now will you accept the fact that Duo Maxwell is not who he appears to be?"
"That's unfair, Wufei," she countered. "What if it was warning us that there's some evil out to get him?"
"Wards don't work that way."
"Can you claim to truly understand the way they work?"
"Wufei," Quatre cut in again. "Ever since the day Duo came to our school, I'll admit that I've always thought that there was something odd about him, something beyond the way he seems so distant sometimes, and that I have, admittedly, gotten some funny feelings from him. But I have never, ever gotten the impression that he meant anyone any harm whatsoever."
"He's good at hiding things," Wufei rebutted. "For instance, the fact that we don't know just what it is he rushes off to go do when he suddenly announces he's got somewhere to be. Or the fact that we don't know where he lives."
"And it's his own business where he rushes off to! And... and maybe he doesn't want us visiting his home because it must be awkward. I mean, he doesn't live with his parents, he's said. Maybe his home situation isn't comfortable." Quatre struggled to rationalize the entire situation. On the one hand, he couldn't believe that they were even entertaining the idea that Duo might be a demon, and yet, if he had to name the one person he would not be surprised to discover was some sort of otherworldly creature, he would likely have named Duo Maxwell without hesitation.
Wufei turned to Trowa. "You've haven't said a word at all. What do you think?"
Trowa shrugged minutely. "Duo's different."
"Look," Quatre argued as Wufei rolled his eyes at the calmly unhelpful statement. "Duo may be different. He may even be some weird demon bent on devouring men's souls. But he's my friend, and he's your friend, too. And I've never known him to lie, or be malicious, or cruel, or anything like that. So unless I find out definitively what he is, if anything, I am not going to go judging him. I'm sure there is a good explanation behind everything."
"And how would you suggest figuring that out?" Wufei challenged. "Would you propose just asking him?"
"Oh yeah, that would go over well. Hey, Duo, can you help me on my math homework? And by the way, I've been wanting to know if you were an evil demon or not." His tone was about as snippy as it ever got.
The two of them spent some time glaring at each other before Wufei broke the contest. "I was supposed to meet with the cult's leader tomorrow night. You can come with me," he proposed. "Talk to him. See what he's talking about."
Quatre wanted to say no. He wanted to proclaim the entire situation was ridiculous. He wanted to go find Duo right now and tell him about the preposterous allegations, and he wanted Duo to laugh and explain everything away. He wanted to believe that everything he knew about his friend was not a lie. He wanted to do all of that, but to his horror, he found that he just wasn't sure, and so he found himself agreeing.
TBC...
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