Love or Loyalty (Project K fanfiction)

Chapter Two - Caged

Izumo slowly opened his eyes, grimacing at the sharp pain in his leg and throbbing head. The room around him was dark, with just enough light to see beyond arms reach. As far as he could tell, he was in a cage with bars not much more than a meter high, meaning that Izumo would have to crawl around on his hands and knees to move around the small enclosure.

He checked his leg to see that it had been bandaged, but the wound was so deep that without any painkiller moving would be very difficult and painful. He could he faintly hear a steady breathing rhythm close by. Izumo slowly and carefully dragged himself to the sound, trying to see if it was Yata. After what felt like several minutes, Izumo found the source of the sound and was relieved that it was, in fact, Yata and that the younger male was still alive. Suddenly Izumo stiffened as he heard a scratching sound close behind him followed by a grunt from some type of large animal. Twisting his body around slowly, Izumo looked to where the sound came from, only to come face to face with a pair of bright green eyes. After a moment of simply steering, Izumo realised that the eyes belonged to a girl, or more specifically the same girl Yata had tried to rescue earlier. She was sickly thin and her brown hair was shaggy and unkept, dragging on the ground as she moved to look at Yata through the bars that separated her from the two boys. Izumo noted that she was still wearing the muzzle from before with a collar around her small neck. The girl grunted again as she looked from Izumo to Yata with an expression of concern. "He's alive" Izumo stated, and the girls expression softened with relief. "You... Are you alright?" he asked her softly. The girl looked up at him seemingly confused. Before Izumo could ask again, the girl suddenly looked afraid and crawled away quickly. A moment later, Izumo heard the sound of a door being unlocked. Suddenly light spilled into the room, revealing a man standing in the doorway. The man entered the room and stood in front if the cage that Izumo and Yata were currently locked in.

"My, my." he said in a surprising friendly tone "I didn't expect to have to deal with the kings and their clans so soon!"

"Who are you?" Izumo asked, glaring daggers at the man in front of him.

"Eh? I thought you would know that, Izumo Kusanagi..." the man said with a glint of either joy or madness in his eyes. Izumo decided it was probably both.

"Why did you bring us here?" Izumo asked.

"Why? Well you see, I enjoy training strains. They are simple creatures, like dogs!" the man nodded to himself as though he was telling some profound truth. "Yes, with proper training they can be wonderfully useful and loyal. However, some require... discipline, to understand their place, and I very interested in seeing how much of my discipline a clansman needs until they too accept their new master..." the man was clearly insane.

"Go... to... Hell..." Izumo looked and saw that Yata had woken up and now was glearing at the man.

"Well well! I wasn't sure if you would survive the wound that 37 gave you but apparently I was wrong to doubt the strength of HOMRAs vanguard." Yata grimaced as he tried to move, but seemed determined to not back down from the insane man that was now opening their cage door. Seeing their opertunity, Izumo and Yata tried to use their aura on the man. When nothing happened, they boys felt confused and looked at each other.

"These cages are special." the man explained. "Your powers won't do you any good." stepping forward he grabbed Yata and pulled him up. Yata struggled but with his wound the man easily restrained him and pulled out a collar. Izumo tried to stop him but instead received a kick to his head leaving him dazed. The man clipped the collar around Yata's throat, then dropped him to one side. He then pulled out another and grasped Izumo by his bad leg dragging him closer. Izumo tried to fight back but was quickly overpowered and soon wore a collar like Yata and the girl. Then he left the cage and locked it once more. Izumo tried to hit the man one final time only to feel the collar around his neck suddenly release a large amount of electricity through his body. Izumo screamed as the pain grew only to abruptly end, leaving him to collapse to his side as his consciousness began to fade...

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Author Note
Hello! What's gonna happen next? Who is this mysterious girl? Find out in the next chapter, "Green eyes"!
As always, please let me know what you guys think in the comments.
Hinode out, Peace!