Shadows within darkness

So, here is chapter 4!

Thanks to Golden Kitsune and Kerianya for reviewing, I am glad you liked it!

4

“Oy brat, ya ain´t tryin´shitin´me again, do ya?!” a pissed redhead snapped, dangerously flashing his knife just to emphasize what would happen if they tried anything stupid on him again. After 6 months of chasing the brothers through the country his patience had worn considerably thinner and despite the triumphant feeling of finally having tracked them down and effectively cornered two of them, he still missed the main character.

Snorting, Kadaj shook his head, damning his bad luck. Now of all times, when they were weak from hunger and separated from each other the annoying redhead had to pop up to bother them with his pitiful revenge thingy.

“Ya bedda nat…” Reno warned, easily playing with the sharp blade. Loz was sitting hunched in a corner of the street where they had intended to wait for Yazoo and some fat prey, but instead Reno had shown up. Before they could even thing of bolting, the man had held his rusty, but nontheless dangerous weapon under Kadaj´s chin and growled at them to stay frozen to the spot. Since then two hours had gone by and no one else had come to their hiding spot.

Biting his dirty nails, Loz silently cried, not caring about Reno´s unnerved bellowing to shut the fuck up, yo!

“Maybe… maybe sumthin happen…” he mumbled, looking sick with worry and so much not like the big bulky guy that had knocked Reno out in a similar alley to the one they had been hiding in just a few months ago.

“Oh yeah? ´d serve da little bitch right, yo,” the man snarled, impatiently shifting his weight to the other foot and peeking through the darkness.

His cruel remark only made Loz wail harder and earned him a furious glare from the other brat, that crouched down next to his brother and tried to calm him down somehow.

“Dun´cry Loz, surely he´s a´right…” Probably was just clever enough to stay away from the trouble, Kadaj thought darkly. Maybe he was sheming something for their rescue…

“Bud… bud he looked kinda sick earlier…”

Kadaj pressed his lips into a thin line. It wasn´t like he couldn´t understand his brother´s concerns. To tell the truth, he felt that something wasn´t right too. It should have taken Yazoo no longer than half an hour, one at maximum. By now the sun had almost gone down completely and there was still no sign of their brother… Come to think of it, he really had been looking very pale and stressed earlier, it only hadn´t become so apparent because of his unusual looks…

“A´right,” Kadaj decided, rising to his feet again “We gonna search for him.”

“We ain´t doin such thing,” Reno immediately objected, suspiciously eyeing the brothers.

“He ain´t comin´here if he hasn´t by now,” Kadaj tried to reason, looking tired.

“What if he does?” the other countered, lifting his chin in a rather stubborn manner.

“Why dun ya stay here an find out?” Kadaj answered sweetly, hoping against all hopes. Of course Reno only snorted, but after scratching his head (and pulling out a flew from his messed hair), he motioned the boys with an unwilling gesture of his chin to move in front of him. Pressing the knife into Kadaj´s back just for good measure, the trio shuffled along the alleys, occasionally shouting their brother´s name.

After what seemed to be an hour, the shouts had become even more frantic, but there was no sign of Yazoo whatsoever.

Tiredly, Loz had gone off ahead, an inner feeling driving him through the narrow alleys. Something was wrong, very wrong, he felt it with every fiber of his being. He couldn´t quite explain where his uneasiness came from, but it had always been like this and his intuition had never failed him before.

There was a strong bond between him and his brothers, something not physical but mental, and it was especially strong with Yazoo. Loz didn´t know if every siblings shared this closeness but what he knew was, that it provided him with a task, a responsibility. He wasn´t good with making decisions like Kadaj or had Yazoo´s talent for deceiving people. No, Loz was the one to protect the other two and make sure that no one harmed them, he was their guardian and he took this duty very serious.

What made him so miserable right now was the sickening certainty that he had failed his brothers, not only because Reno had found and threatened them. But also because his connection with Yazoo had gone alarmingly weak and it was fainting with every minute of his inability to find his brother.

Almost running through the mud, the oldest stormed through the dock area, shouting his brothers name with a hoarse, dry voice. Eventually he glanced back towards the other two and informed them over his shoulder that the next alley would only be another dead end, when he stopped mid-sentence and breathed harshly as he noticed something out of the corner of his eyes.

Then he bolted forward, vanishing in the shadows the run-down shacks cast over the streets. Cursing, Reno prodded the other boy with his knife to follow the dipshit and shuffled after him. Kadaj was suddenly gone too, not caring for the blade in his back anymore when he saw his brother kneeling in the dirt and cradling a frail, bloody creature in his arms, wailing loudly.

With shaky legs, he stopped beside Loz and tried to get a look at the naked, dirty figure his brother was hunched over, but the next moment he wished he hadn´t as his stomach recoiled at the sight.

“What da hell´s wrong…” Reno angrily inquired, finally coming to stand next to them and taking a curious look over the brother´s shoulders.

“Holy shit!”

The boy lay in a puddle of his own blood, mud and some slimy white secretion, Reno would rather not want to think about their origins too hard. Blood was oozing out of some severe wounds and from between his legs. A hip had been dislocated and stood out from the rest of the body in an awkward angle, looking very painful. The body was blemished with countless purple bruises, standing out against the white skin that had become even paler from the severe bloodloss. The only thing that had been spared was the boy´s face, if one overlooked the split lip.

Gulping Reno glanced to the side, half-heartedly announcing “Serves him right, yo, da fag sure had it comin´…”

The furious, utterly shaken look that Kadaj shot him with teary eyes made him shut up instantly and nervously shifting his weight. It wasn´t like he hadn´t wanted his revenge too, but he had thought about something more along the line of letting them pay back tenfold the amount they had stolen from him and maybe exploit them a little and let them work their asses of for him for a while. It wasn´t like he was a monster or something, yo.

Somehow the redhead even got the hang of it why the brothers did what they did, life surely was a bitch to orphans and all they did was trying to survive…

“Yo, ya brotha still alive?”

“I-I dunno…” Loz sobbed, holding his ear over the boy´s face to hear if he was breathing. To his immense relief there was still a small out-and intake of air, although it was really flat.

“He´s breathin!”

“Okay then listen brat,” Reno ordered Kadaj, who automatically snarled at him since he hated nothing more than being bossed around. But given the circumstances, he forced himself to listen, though. Seeing the change on the boy´s eyes and knowing that he had his attention, Reno continued tightly “Ya stayin´here with da brute. Ya brotha an me gonna go get sum help.”

Letting go of his beloved brother really reluctantly, Loz listened to the instruction of going to search for some linen so that they could stop the bleeding, while Reno would go to find a barber surgeon or something. Inwardly he doubted that anyone would be willing to help. These things happened on a daily basis and no one would cry after a useless child, an experience he had made himself. They hadn´t any money too, but he refused to just give up.

Instinctively Reno had taken the lead and he would be damned if he let the brat just die without giving him a decent piece of his mind first!
Feeling that Kadaj was well enough alone with his brother (and somehow also sensing that he was the most useless and swamped right now, even more so than the crybaby) he parted with Loz and with a grim expression darted for the next taverne.

Kadaj stood awkwardly next to his bleeding brother, not being able to avert his gaze from the poor sight, though all his senses screamed at him to shut his eyes and just pretend that nothing happened, everything was alright…!

In all the years they had been doing this, it actually had never crossed his mind that someday they would find themselves at the receiving end, or that one of their shemes could backfire at them…

Of course he had been aware that the possibility theoretically existed, but he´d never thought that…
It was all his fault, wasn´t it?! He was the leader, he was responsible that everything went smoothly. If only he had been more attentive this wouldn´t have happened! They could have found other ways of obtaining food and… and…

A strangled sound escaped his throat as he sank down to his knees and with shaking hands brushed some blood stained silver strands out of his brother´s face. Yazoo´s eyes were open but emptily stared into nothingness. The blood flowed inexorably from the deep scratches and cuts. Just what had they been doing to him…

Choking, Kadaj pressed his little hands against one of the wounds in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding, but only more liquid seemed to well up between his dirty fingers, as the sun finally vanished behind the horizon.

“He is going to die.”

A low, smooth voice startled the boy and he scaredly stumbled back on all four. From the shadows engulfing the alley two glowing red eyes bore into his own and slowly a figure emerged from the darkness. With slow strides, a handsome, well dressed man came towards them, his piercing, fathomless gaze shifting from the smaller boy to Yazoo.

“Don´t come near him!” Kadaj hissed and in a fit of braveness threw himself over his brother to shield him from any harm. The man made something deep inside him scream and trash with fear, so that he wanted to run very, very far away, but his iron will hindered the boy from giving in to this primal instinct.

Unfazed the man observed the two brothers for a moment, his inhuman eyes taking in the injuries Yazoo had suffered.

Finally he opened his mouth again, directing his weighty question at the smaller boy who observed him with wary eyes.

“Child. Do you want your brother to live?”

Instantly the hostility vanished and was replaced by hope and relief.

“Woud ya- Could ya do dat?”

“I can.” Ignoring the happy cries from Kadaj, he added calmly, shifting his gaze back to Kadaj, and searching his face .”There is one condition, however.”

“What´s it, I dun´care ya can hav´anything ya want from me!” the boy offered, beyond desperation now and frantically stroking over his brother´s head with shaking hands to soothe Yazoo -and himself- ,silently telling him to not worry anymore, that help had come for them.

“Then I request his life.”

“What?! Bud ya yest sa-”

“I will not kill him, if that is what you are concerned about. However, if I save him I demand that you severe every tie with him. To you your brother will be dead from now on. You will not search for him or attempt to take him back once you decide to put his fate into my hands,” the man elaborated with an indifferent look to his fair features.

“Bu-bud…”

“It is your decision. Let him die here or rest assured that he will live.”

Biting his lips, tears streaming down his muddy face, Kadaj looked from the cloaked man whose frame stood out before the rising full moon, to his slowly hemorrhaging brother. How could this have happened?!

And why did HE have to make the choice?!

How could this man expect him to decide something like this, that was just downright cruel! But if he didn´t hurry there was no decision left to be made anymore.

“A-a´right ya can have him…” Kadaj finally choked, looking totally lost and overwhelmed. Before he could even end the sentence or take a decent farewell, the man had already taken the lifeless form of his brother into his arms and as suddenly as he had appeared, he had just vanished into the darkness, leaving the miserable boy all to himself.

“I´ve bandages!” Loz shouted, skidding around the corner with some washed out sheet he had stolen, draped over his shoulders and panting.

“I found a healer!” Reno breathed, rounding the other corner with an elderly man in tow.

“Where´s ya brotha?!” the redhead asked baffled, as he only found a puddle of blood, and kneeling next to it, the wide eyed boy who stared at them with his eyeballs almost popping out of their sockets.

And then Kadaj just screamed.

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