Walk forward, into the world

Title: Walk forward, into the world
Author: Ainzfern
Genre: Ai no Kusabi – Post OVA
Code: Iason/Riki
Rating: NC-17
Parts: WIP – 6/?


///In the inner sanctum of Jupiter tower, Iason Mink, most favored son of Jupiter herself, once again closed his eyes and opened his mind to her gentle but instant probing. She only spent a moment or two reviewing his most recent progress with the negotiation between Iason and Chey Neeson, projecting her approval with the results thus far, before inevitably turning her attention to a specific course.

A most familiar course, by now.

Although it was a deeply uncomfortable process, he had to admit that it didn’t hurt at all and the fact was, discomfort or not, he had done this so many times now that he was actually getting used to it.

He smiled, sensing her amusement with his realization.

And, it was with no small sense of relief that he also sensed an end approaching. He could feel that she was almost finished with her most unanticipated quest. That she almost had the answers she had been seeking. Very soon, he was pleased to understand, she would not need to do this anymore. Very soon, they would be able to return to their usual form of communing, far more comfortable and impersonal but, for now...

“Think of him again,” she urged him gently.

Sighing, Iason let his memory throw up image after image. Riki the Dark. Riki the mongrel. Riki his pet, sweat drenched and aching back with pleasure on Iason’s fine sheets. Riki his nemesis, cursing and snarling of his hatred and despair. Riki his beloved, walking back into a rapidly crumbling building, his steps slow with agony, to see out his last moments at Iason’s side.

He felt his conscious mind being softly urged back, felt her taking over, the sensation not unlike a finger gliding across the pictures in his head. She was flipping past them now, stopping, seemingly at random, before moving on.

Katze willingly assisting Iason to bring Riki back to him after his year of freedom… Raoul, warning him to watch his back, swearing to him that he would never tamper with his memories… Riki, begging him for Guy’s life, for the life of the monstrous animal that had mutilated Riki’s body...

His own helpless reaction to that tearful plea.

His death, just for those few terrible moments before Raoul’s medical team had revived and stabilized him in the ruins of Dana Bahn. It had been felt - briefly, yet so keenly, by Jupiter. So much so that she had cried out, for the first time in her long existence, from this thing known as pain.

Riki, once more… passing swiftly over his earlier years where Iason had used every trick he could to break his Pet’s will, and moving beyond to after his return. She paused, looking deeply into their most intimate moments, concentrating not so much on the searing physical pleasure that Iason experienced when he fucked Riki, but on the things that he felt inside of himself. The intense gratification, the joy, he experienced when Riki reached the exquisiteness of orgasm because of Iason’s touch. The powerful, unbreakable feeling of protectiveness that rose up within him when he held Riki’s vulnerable sleeping form close to him in the night. The sharp burst of rare bright pleasure he got from seeing Riki’s face light up when something pleased or amused him.

The fact that he could look at this half-wild mongrel and find him beautiful, not because he was perfect or designed to please, but just because he was Riki…

“I understand,” Jupiter told him, her voice warm with affection. “I must forgive you.”

He felt a surge of gratitude.

“I must allow you… or I fear all my Elite will fade and perish.”

Confused, Iason frowned, even in his half-waking state. He was not sure what she meant, but in the next moment, she made it all clear.

“You may love, Iason Mink. I grant you this gift. You, who are my first and my dearest; you may love.”

Sorrow came to him, because he understood the terrible pointlessness of her permission. There was no-one left for him now. The only one he could possibly have wanted to share this with was gone.

He felt her endless compassion, her deep sadness, filling him utterly. And, most unexpected of all, he felt her remorse.

And he felt the very moment when she decided to tell him the truth.

“Riki is not dead, Iason. Riki lives, just as you do.”

And, in the next instant, as a dreadful scream of unspeakable rage and anguish beyond enduring echoed through the inner sanctum, Iason was not at all surprised to realize that this inhuman sound was tearing out of his own shuddering chest…///

******

The first thing that Raoul noticed, when Dane led him into Iason’s penthouse, was how dark it was. Only a single lamp placed in one corner of the main room was lit, casting a small pool of light across the floor and barely illuminating the two figures seated in the centre around the low table.

“Ah, good,” Iason’s voice greeted him. “You made good time. Please, my friend, come and sit with us.”

Perplexed by the oddness of this meeting, Raoul moved towards his usual seat. He glanced at Iason’s other guest, recognizing Katze, his face a pale oval in the dim light.

“Iason,” he greeted the Elite who sat opposite him, his pale blue eyes the only clearly visible thing in his shadowed face. “May I know what this is all about?”

“I think that you already do, Raoul,” Iason replied, his voice soft and steady.

A trickle of unease wandered up Raoul’s spine. Glancing at Katze, his eyes narrowing, he tried to read the ex-Furniture’s expression. Tried to guess what Iason was alluding to.

“There’s no point in looking at him like that,” Iason told him, his voice still deathly quiet. “At this moment in time, he knows no more about this than you do.”

Stiffening slightly, Raoul shook his head. “Iason...”

“It’s funny, don’t you think?” Iason leaned sideways slightly, switching on another lamp beside the table, blinking as the brighter light filled their immediate area, “That people are so often prone to making mistaken choices, in the genuine belief that they are, in fact, doing the right thing.”

Softly, so softly that Raoul almost missed it; Katze drew his breath in with a sudden gasp.

A certain suspicion began to rise in Raoul’s mind. He stared closely at his friend’s shuttered expression before looking once more at Katze.

The Furniture’s face was a picture of trepidation, his normally pale complexion appearing almost chalky as the blood drained from it. He looked, in all honesty, like a man who was terrified that he was about to be exposed.

Which made no sense. If he didn’t tell Iason, then who in the world did?

“You already know what I’m about to say, don’t you?” Iason was asking him.

Nodding, Raoul set his jaw and met his friend’s eyes. “I believe that I do, Iason.”

“Would you care to have the honor?”

Peripherally, he noted Katze turn his head sharply to stare at him. “Very well. If it pleases you to hear it from me,” he vented a slow sigh. “Riki is alive.”

“Oh, Shit.” Just upon the cusp of hearing, Raoul noted Katze’s soft but fervent curse.

Iason’s full mouth twitched, just slightly. “There… was that so difficult to do?”

“Iason, I must know. Who told you this?”

“Jupiter did.” Iason smiled coldly, his face composed and calm, only his dangerously glittering eyes displaying the true depths of his anger. “Not more than two hours ago. I suppose I don’t have to tell you how fortunate the timing of that was. Has she chosen to tell me yesterday, it might have seriously affected my performance at the negotiation in Partia… and all of your efforts to keep me focused on my service of Amoi would have proved worthless.”

Raoul said nothing; his mind was far too full of stunned surprise to even consider voicing a remark.

Jupiter? Jupiter herself had informed Iason of the truth?

Why?

“I am wondering, however,” Iason was continuing as he steepled his long fingers under his chin and pursed his mouth thoughtfully, “Why, in all the time that I have been back, did neither one of you two do me the courtesy of informing me?”

“It was my decision, Iason,” Raoul shared a brief glance with Katze, seeing the Furniture’s eyes fill with relief. “I believed that Jupiter would not approve.”

“I see.”

“I honestly thought your life was at risk.”

“Hmm.” His cold gaze flicked towards Katze. “And you, Katze? Was that your belief as well?”

Miserably, Katze nodded in silence.

Iason turned his icy gaze back to Raoul, but the words he spoke were clearly directed to both his guests. “Even though Jupiter herself had ordered Riki’s treatment?”

All of a sudden Raoul simply felt tired. And relieved, to a certain point, he couldn’t deny that. It was over. For good or for ill, it was over. He sighed heavily, his tension draining away as he replied in a tone that was laced with deep weariness. “Iason,” he rubbed his eyes briefly with one elegant hand, “Jupiter’s perception of the universe is so far beyond me that I could not even imagine being so bold, or foolish, as to attempt to second guess her will. She gave us no other instructions beyond the point that you two were to be healed. I simply did not know if she intended to eventually kill him, or to punish him as an example, or to hold him against you as surety.” Raoul sat forward, his eyes beseeching Iason to believe, to understand, “I made the best decision that I could based upon the information I had at the time and, believe me, Iason, at no point did I intentionally act out of any form of malice towards you.”

“It’s true,” Katze added in a low murmur. His gaze was still averted, as if he was still not willing, or even able, to meet his former master’s eyes. “We did it to protect you… and him.”

“Where is he, Katze?”

Pulling in a shuddering breath, Katze lifted his scarred face. “In a black market safe-house, just outside of Midas.”

“You took him back to Ceres?” Iason’s voice suddenly dropped to a deathly hiss.

“He’s safe. I made sure to place him as far, demographically, as I could, from his former home.” Katze lifted both hands rapidly in a placating gesture. “Believe me, Iason… no one from Bison, no one in Ceres, knows that he’s there.”

Slowly, Iason eased back into his chair. “I see.” Then, with a strange little smile flitting across his face, Iason reached down beside the cushion on his chair, retrieving a slender bound document, which he placed on the low table in front of Raoul. “I would like you to have a look at this for me, Raoul, if you would.”

Blinking, perplexed by the sudden unexpected turn to the conversation, Raoul closed the fingers of one hand around the spine of the document, lifting it up and scanning the cover notes. “It’s draft legislation. Syndicate seal.”

“Yes,” Iason stroked his chin for a moment, looking intently at Raoul’s face. “It pertains to the legalization of ‘Companions’ as opposed to Pets. It is only a formative idea at the moment but, if passed, it will allow those members of the Elite, who wish to, to upgrade their Pets to the status of a Companion. And, as a Companion, those individuals will be afforded all the same rights as the middle caste citizens of Tanagura. They will no longer be allowed to be sold; they will be allowed to acquire gainful employment, purchase their own assets, and be protected by the laws of Amoi.”

Aghast, Raoul dropped the document back onto the table as if it had burned him. “Are you insane?” He demanded, rising to his feet, “What you are suggesting will undermine the very fabric of Amoi civilization!”

In comparison, Iason remained completely unruffled, still seated in that same calm pose. “On the contrary, my friend, I believe that this will actually save it,” He glanced briefly at Katze, who had slumped back in his chair in shock, his jaw slack with disbelief. “Right now, Raoul, the Amoi Elite is on the brink of imploding into itself, stagnating through lack of change, unable to grow, or reform, or learn anything new. It is asking for a revolution again, one that Amoi might not be able to survive this time.”

“Iason, see reason,” Raoul held his hands out. “Jupiter may be prepared to allow you to personally, privately, have what you want, but... I don’t see how she would ever agree to this.”

“I don’t see why not,” Iason’s small smile never wavered. “It was her idea.”

As he gracelessly slumped back into his seat, his legs suddenly too weakened by his astonishment to hold him up anymore, a tiny disconnected part of Raoul had to appreciate the fact that this was the second time in one night where he’d been left too stunned to speak.

“And now, Katze,” Iason paused as he retrieved the document and slipped it back down beside him on his chair, frowning slightly when the ex-Furniture did not respond. “Katze…” Iason repeated, his tone sharpening slightly.

Blinking slowly, as if waking from a dream, Katze met his former master’s stare with dulled eyes. “Yes?” his voice was shaking slightly, tight and low with obvious pain.

Surprisingly, as Raoul observed them, he saw Iason’s expression soften noticeably, a certain light of understanding entering his pale eyes. “Despite what you may believe, I can understand why this might not please you so much,” he gestured to the document beside him, “But you have always served me with loyalty, Katze, and you will not be forgotten. Have patience.”

Drawing in a deep breath, Katze carefully composed his expression, once more attaining the usual sardonic mask that he wore. “Patience, Iason?” his mouth quirked into a half smile, “That, I can do.”

“Good,” Iason rose to his feet, his expression hardening once more. “So now, you will drive Raoul and I to your safe-house immediately,” he ordered in a tone that brooked no possible refusal. “It is time to finish this charade once and for all.”

TBC…