1:10pm
        A knocked sounded at the door; she did not look up from the wet pillow that her head had lain from for the whole morning, wet from the tears that her body had wrung from her swollen red eyes.  Her breakfast that had been brought to her bedside had not been touched; she had not shifted from her position since late last night when she had cried herself to sleep, and now, she laid there willing herself to fall asleep once again so that she would not feel the immense pain that she was surrounded in.  She did not acknowledge when the maid took her cold breakfast away and replaced it with her lunch; she wasn’t going to eat it anyway.

        The half opened door of her bedroom was suddenly thrown open to the full, the door flinging itself against the wall; when heavy footsteps trotted firmly towards her bed.  Her insides shook like a leaf as he approached, the dulled agony of his beating her were the least of her worries, it was the way that her life, the life in the golden cage, the cage seemed to shrink each time.  The beatings and yelling that she had received last night were nothing, she knew that, today, she would be paraded as a prize, forced to say words that were not true and injury others.  She felt guilty, dirtied, and last night she had tried to compensate for it, she had written a signed press released to tell the truth, but her personal maid had been caught delivering it - the beatings she had received seemed to be only fit as an apology to her personal maid who had been dismissed.

        She heard the rustle of paper at her ears, her ears involuntarily twitched as the rustling came closer.  She felt one of his hot hands on the back of her neck, yanking her head upwards as though she were a kitten, her back arched to accommodate the rough treatment that she was receiving, her body felt too weak to fight as she allowed her limbs to hang uselessly beside her.  Her head turned to face him, there was a maniacal look about him, seemingly pleased in a crazy fashion that she had never seen about him, she closed her eyes to erase yet another horrible face from her memories.  He jerked his hand, shaking her head like a doll, her eyes snapped open at the pain that coursed through her head when he did that; the newspaper only inches from her face as she was forced to see it.  It was then that she cried out in alarm like an injured animal as she saw the picture, Inouye Kenta, her Kenta was with another woman… no… he wasn’t hers, she had been forced to give him up last night…

        “Seira, this was the man you were to marry, are you grateful that I stopped you?”

        She didn’t answer as her eyes tried to scan the page for information, but there was none, only that the woman was the daughter of Hino Imaruru - Hino Rei.  Her eyes closed as countless tears left her body, she trembled like a leaf as she remembered herself truly believing herself to be in love with him… yet perhaps, he had only been like her father, he had been using her for politics.

        “You’re upset aren’t you?  Do you want revenge?”  Her father sneered.

        “No…” she gasped out in raspy breaths, “no…”

        “Nonsense child!” he said as he let go of his hold on her neck, letting her body drop lifelessly onto the bed, “of course you want revenge, and I am going to let you do it yourself, I am going to let you ruin his career with your own hands.”

        “NO!”  Seira screamed, “I don’t want anything to do with politics.”

        “Then you have no choice.”  He snarled at her, she could feel his amazingly hot breath against her skin, she began to have goose-bumps as her body predicted pain, she could feel the heat of his hand as it traveled towards her head despite the fact that he was not touching her.  When his hand clamped onto her skull like a vise, she screamed, her voice muffled in her pillow, her head squirming from the steel like claws that held her, her hands flailed uselessly behind her since she couldn’t see him.  His other hand grasped her hands together behind her and pulled them back as he half lifted her like a feather, whilst his hold on her head hardened, pushing her face in the pillow.  Seira felt that her arms would come lose as her father pushed and pulled her in two different directions; it was although some part of her would be ripped apart.

        She screamed continuously, but no one seemed to hear her as her vision blurred and she felt herself falling into pits of fire, and then stopping, hanging precariously over the scorching flames by her arms tied behind her, her head weighing into the fire by the chain and ball.  And then, she fell, she was consumed by the wraith of flames, coursing throughout her senses, the fire leapt onto her and into her, she felt her privacy being invaded as the fire traveled into the orifices of her body to burn her insides empty.

        The scene changed, she found herself on the desert, still with the same burnt body that had been tortured by the depths of hell, she crawled to find water, but maggots and other insects found her first.  They gnawed at the broken flesh and blood, eating her alive, and groups of vulture diving in to pull off pieces of her, ignoring the fact that she was not dead.  No sound came out of her mouth, nor could she move well enough to fend off the sharp beaks of the vultures that stooped in.  She felt the ground rumble beneath her, and the vultures flew off her, she had not yet had the time to thank the heavens when something, a heavy animal of some sort ran over her like dirt.  As the last bone in her body was shattered, the desert wavered and disappeared.

        She was in war, she had been heavily injured, doctor fluttered around her, shaking their heads as they saw her broken body, shattered by weight, consumed by flames, and invested with infections.  She saw them through her open eyes, and she lip-read their words as a nurse ran towards the doctor saying that they had ran out of anesthetic, he answered that he would operate anyway.  The eye of her spirit widened as she saw the large, sharp butcher knife that he was holding as he plunged it into her body, her guts spilled opened and blood ran freely.  The doctor laughed, and he held the knife, slicing her like butter, stabbing her inactive body as though it was meat from the market.  She wanted to scream, but she was already dead, although the pain continued.  She felt herself pulled away from the scene, but this time, it was different, she was no longer her body, she was her spirit, as it was sucked into a fiery tunnel where her journey ceased as it joined other souls entrapped in the mad body that she was to be vanquished forever.

        Seira sat up in her bed, she was wet from sweat, but she remembered not how they came.  She felt refreshed and strong, her hazel eyes glowing with a tinge of red as she stared into the same emotionless eyes of her father.  She held the thick paper in her hands and ripped it into shreds, letting the pieces flutter on the ground.  She smiled at her father, standing up, she adjusted her flimsy nightdress and sat down again, she took position on his lap, her legs encircling his waist, she arched her back provocatively as she flung her head backwards allow the tresses of her auburn hair to rustle her upper back.  She tossed her head forwards and stared at his father with the same grin that he had used earlier, “I think we have a press conference to go to, and reputations to stain.”

        In one flexible movement, her legs left his waist and she stood in front of him.  Walking with her hips swaying with her newfound confidence, power, and personality, she swiped the hot lunch off the table as she walked past.  She did not flinch as the broth splattered onto her bare feet, and when she stepped on glass, her skin broke and rejoined almost simultaneously, leaving only small stains of her black blood on the edges of the glass.  Her father, Kyoru Aki crackled in laughter as he nodded in satisfaction at the new attitude that his daughter now had, “Imaruru, Inouye, no one wins against the Kuriverse-Shi. (Dark Universe Four)”

1:12pm
        Hino Imaruru cleared his throat for the umpteenth time, he was stressed.  He closed his eyes as powder was brushed on his face, and waved the PR group away as they dogged him over his decision.  He had made his decision, he had made a promise to his daughter, and he would keep it.  It was hard - he wanted to make sure that his decision was no only best to his daughter’s life, but also one that would allow him to be elected, and do something good for the country; it was at times like these he wondered whether the two were reconcilable.

        In a strange way, what Rei’s friends had said made sense; what the second girl had said panged to his heart as he felt the immense guilt on top of what Rei had said, and he had used the first girl’s analysis to try and pacify his advisors.  His daughter had some interesting friends, he concluded, some very special friends who would befriend his daughter, stand by her, help her, despite her temper that even he tried to shy away from.  He reprimanded himself as he thought of the cowardliness of his actions.  It wasn’t that he didn’t care about her, but she was so hard to approach, she was so much like her mother that it hurt him to be with her, she was so headstrong that she frightened him, and she wasn’t a son.  He didn’t understand young women, they were temperamental, emotional, Rei the extremes of both, she wanted his full attention, he couldn’t give her his full attention; he had his work to tend to, a country to work for.  In his mind, he remembered feeling loved enough even if his father never spent time with him, he knew that his father loved him.  Rei was different, she didn’t want to know it, she wanted to feel it; he wasn’t capable of it - why couldn’t she be satisfied knowing it?

        That had been the cause of the gulf between the two of them, a gulf that, by now, would never reach an agreement; the two sides would never be able to understand each other.  She wanted more than he could offer, she wanted more than he had.  There was part of him that hoped that by his actions now, he would somehow be able to salvage the little relationship there was between the two of them, but deep in his heart, he knew that it wasn’t enough.  She wanted him to give up his whole life for her - he couldn’t do that.  She probably thought that he was doing this right now for politics…

        “Imaruru, it’s time.”

        He opened his eyes, his face softened as he saw the lady before him; she was the group leader in his advisory team.  In her late forties, she was extremely professional and proficient with her work; he admired her dedication to her work, she had put all her energies into politics and never regretted it.  “Yes.” He murmured.

        She looked at him with those comforting dark grey eyes as she sat down next to him, “you are doing the right thing, for everyone.” She patted his hand softly, and squeezed his hand, “your daughter will be arriving tonight, you have to try and build something between the two of you.”

        “You don’t think that I try to make amends?”

        “It’s always difficult for young adolescent girls to understand their fathers,” she said as she unsuccessfully tried to push the lose strands of black hair into her bun, “I remember when I was that age, I was a troublemaker, I disliked my father with a passion, but in the end, I was grateful that he tried to know me.”

        “You, Kasugi Yukito a troublemaker?  I doubt it, I bet you were the angel that you are now,” Imaruru laughed, “will you be joining us for dinner tonight?”

        “No, I think you should spend some time with your daughter, it would better for both of us if you could reach an understanding before she meets me, I… I don’t want her viewing me as some sort of competition for her father’s time and affections.”

        “You’re right as usual, Yukito.”

        She smiled at him again and squeezed his hand, handing him the fax she adjusted his tie and checked his graying hair, “it’s time for you to go now.”

1:15pm
        Himaga continued to read his literature, feeling stronger after being fed the soul of yet another person, this one was stronger than the soul that Kyoru had fed him earlier.  This soul was younger, more energetic, and not that her full personality had been unleashed; she was a woman with goals that had previously been suppressed.  Himaga had been unsatisfied with the soul of the earlier one, the wife, she was a weakling; she had no control, no energy, no life and she would be dispensed with soon, for no one was allowed to drag him backwards.

        Since the fall of his “brother’s” hold on Kuriverse-Go (Dark Universe Five), he was more determined than ever to be more careful, first of all, not to let emotions take hold, but also dispose with weakling at the fist sign.  His “brother” had been too kind, taking in the useless, obsolete men from Beryl’s era, and giving them power.  In the end though, soft men never last in positions of power, and Himago was not a soft man.  He would bring Kuriverse-Shi to the top, and he would be chosen as the leader of Kuriverse when his ‘parents’ chose their heir to the power, he wanted to be sure that he was the only possible candidate.

        He looked up from the study as a knock echoed through the room that was once Kyoru’s, “ahh…” he said with his low, and slow tone, “just the man I was after.”

        Kyoru bowed low, “Seira is with us now.”

        “I know, and I felt it.”  He tossed a pile of papers onto the floor and smiled in spite of himself when Kyoru scrambled like a dog to collect them, “these are your instructions for the press conference, don’t mess them up, and make sure that the wife of yours doesn’t get carried away, she is acting like a deranged woman.”

        “Yes sire.”

        “Now go!”  He bellowed, Himaga still enjoyed watching grown men jump out of their skins when he lowered his already low voice and growled.  Kyoru almost fell over himself as he ran out of the room; Himaga laughed to himself and disappeared in a mixture of red and dark purple smoke.

1:31pm
        “Hino-san, we understand that you had announced your joint candidacy with Inouye Kenta-san, how does this new development of his resignation affect your position?”

        “It affects nothing,” came his strong voice as it came over the loud speakers of the conference room, this was to be the apex of his press conference, after reading his speech about his policies, aims and goals for the past fifteen minutes, this was ‘question and answer’.  “It changes nothing at all, this is his resignation letter,” he held up a flimsy piece of fax paper for the press to see, “this is my response to it.”  He ripped it into little shreds and threw the pieces at the reporters, “I do not accept it.”

        “Hino-san!” came the barrage of questions, he held up his hands for silence and pointed to a reporter in the third row, “why are you not accepting his resignation?  Are you not worried about the response from the public to his behaviour?”

        “He followed his heart, he did nothing wrong, and the public cannot hold it against him.  I am not accepting it because he is a good politician, he has good values, and most importantly, he has a vision for Japan, a vision for prosperity for Japan - he cannot be punished for being in love.  True, it is my daughter that he is linked with, but his willingness to resign has told me one thing: he is in love with my daughter; there is no other reason for the relationship and I will receive him with open arms.  He resigned as a sign of loyalty, but I am telling the people of Japan, his passion, loyalty, good vision, combined with my experience and vision, is the best combination there can be, the personal lives should be left out of this campaign.”

        He pointed to another reporter, “Hino-san, but this is your daughter that he is linked to.”

        “I realize that,” he cleared his throat, “and I don’t think that she could have chosen anyone better than Inouye Kenta, I have personally nurtured him for the past years, he is my protégé.  I know him well enough to know that he is a gentleman, that he does not act out of greed.  Think about it ladies and gentlemen, I trust him with my daughter, and I most certainly would trust the running of this country to him.”

        “And what about the press conference that Kyoru Aki-san is holding this afternoon?”

        “I sincerely hope that they will be decent enough to leave the personal lives of people alone, I do not know why his daughter, Kyoru Seira, called off the wedding last night, but it is between the two of them.  I don’t believe that the matter should be further pursued; they only get in the way of more important issue at hand, who should be running this country.  I have answered your questions, but lets get back to what should be on the top of everyone’s minds, the policies, the reasons why the people should trust us…”
 

Chapter 12