Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ La Femme Fatale ❯ Prologue

Standard disclaimers apply. As I have told you before and ever… I'm poor. @_@x

This is an A/U fic, a collaboration between me and Tracy Leigh Meier, my dear beloved cousin in the whole negaverse! ^_^

For almost a century, an unfortunate clan had been the target for assassinations. Its women-elder or young-seemed to be wiped out, one by one, in the face of the planet. And now its year 2002, and the so-called 'curse' will have to recur all over again… sooner or later. Somebody has to stand up and stop this madness before it consumes all women in its line.

La Femme Fatale

Prologue

Shanghai, China

1880

It was a turbulent and gloomy night, the stars were hidden under heavy clouds, and the moon would not rise until midnight.

Occasionally, a flash of lightning would illuminate the white and empty road before a lady wrapped in a black cloak riding swiftly on a horse, when the flash becomes extinct, and all returned to darkness.

The storm was growing worse: the flashes of lightning succeeded one another more rapidly. She could hear the thunder roar, and the wind, the precursor of a storm, blew across the plain, ruffling the hood of her cloak.

A little beyond the ride, the storm broke.

Instead, she rode more briskly.

Another flash illuminated the road for her, and in the bluish light she distinguished an enormous, but dimly illuminated manor on the banks of a river which she forded.

On entering the courtyard of the house, the girl sprang off her horse and, paying no further heed to the animal, threw the reins into his neck and ran to the front steps. Two grooms run out from the stables to get the horse she had left. A servant, who was about to hurriedly fetch her with an umbrella was dismissed angrily by a hand sway.

Half-running, she opened the door and two more servants of obviously Chinese roots bowed at once upon her passing. Before rising up to the immense staircase in the center of the wide hall, she stopped and recklessly discarded her dripping cloak, whom one of the two servants earlier had caught behind her.

Arriving at the topmost flight, a stout-looking Chinese, who obviously looks like the chief manservant of the mansion, worriedly received her.

Without speaking to the butler, the lady continued to walk so quickly that the latter had some trouble keeping up with her. She passed through several rooms furnished with sophistication of which even the most powerful daimyos in Japan had not even an idea, and finally arrived at a bedroom that was a marvel of both taste and richness.

In the alcove of this room was a door concealed by a tapestry, which the girl opened with a little gold key that she wore hanging from her neck by a chain of the same metal. The butler followed discreetly behind, who closed the door behind them.

They were in a small chapel completely covered by silk tapestries threaded with gold and brilliantly lit by a multitude of candles. Over a kind of altar and under a blue-velvet canopy surmounted by blue and white feathers was a full-length portrait of a young girl of her teen-age years; that has enchanting eyes, as blue as a starlit night sky.

The butler curtsied; the girl smirked.

Indeed, the portrait was so perfect in likeness that anyone that might see it will gasp in surprise; it almost seemed as though the girl in it was about to speak.

The former eyes narrowed upon gazing at the portrait. But at the sound of a cry nearby and another servant's shriek, she rushed inside the adjoining dressing room.

She found a man, lying on a sofa, his hand pressed over his stomach.

"Li Mei," said the man in pure Chinese diction, in a faint voice, "I'm glad you came."

"Yes, my father," replied the girl, "but do not speak anymore. Kuan-Yin and the others will be carrying you to your bed…"

"Be silent! Kuan-Yin, let no one enter my room. I will speak to my daughter alone."

"But father…!" repeated the girl.

"Listen to me," the man said feebly, suppressing his pain. "I h-have to give y-you my instructions b-before I-I die."

"Father, please…"

"Obey me, Li Mei! Don't you see I have no time to lose?"

The girl shut her eyes quickly and gestured Kuan-Yin, the butler and Wan, her father's personal nurse, to leave them. Holding her father's hand, she bursted into tears and kneeled beside his sofa.

Summoning all his remaining strength, he spoke. "Li Mei, bring me the box in which the ribbon of your mother is kept."

Hesitating at first, the girl stood up and got the box laid in the altar beneath the portrait and handed it to the man.

"Here, my child," said her father, "is the only remembrance I have gotten from y-your mother during the s-short time she was with me-this pink ribbon-before she was taken away from me. You will take this to h-her in J-japan, my native c-country, as a l-last memento from me…"-he looked around for something-"and you will add this letter," said the man, clasping his daughter's hand. He had just strength enough to put the letter inside the box with the ribbon, making a sign to her that he can no longer speak.

A last, painful contraction in his stomach, which this time he had not had the power to fight, made him fall from the sofa to the floor.

The girl cried out.

The man tried to glance over the portrait, and struggled to whisper the name of the girl, as if marvelously gazing down at him.

But before he did, death stopped his last thought, which remained impressed on his face like a last kiss of love.

A thunder ripped the dark sky, drowning the cries of his wretched daughter.

Hours later, the servants came knocking at the room's door, calling to their masters.

The dead man remained stiff on the floor, while his daughter stood, face void of any expression, in front of the portrait.

Not minding the pleadings of the people outside, she had her eyes remain fixed to the blue pools of the girl's image.

Outside, rain and wind continued to smash the window pane of the mansion.

Holding out a dagger hidden at her bosom, she fidgeted it and held it firmly, whispering each word as if to pierce the woman illustrated in the portrait:

"Father… by your merciless death, I swear I will avenge you. You still had many lives to live… hopes to cherish… and things to love…"

"… but your emotions were bound to be in vain… unreciprocated… tarnished, and…"

"… forgotten."

Looking at the woman's image with cold and anger in her eyes…

"You destroyed him. And that's why I will destroy you."

"You have no right to be happy."

"Nor live a normal life you have deprived my father with."

"With that, I curse you…"

"…along with your family…"

"… blood was owed…"

"… and so blood will be the cost…"

"… I'll be seeing you in hell."

Lightning struck the window glass, just as the girl plunged the knife to her own chest.

Tell me what you think! I know it's a little short, but the next would justify its cause. Thank you so much! ^_^;;