khardicdrunk
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Hi again. Going through my computer I remembered I'd written this as well, a random Soul Calibur 3 story starring Xianghua and Seung Mina (or Seong Mi-Na). Again, it is also posted on AVGDID
*************************
Seung Mina sighed. “Sure is a nice little place she has.”
Things had been exceedingly quiet in the last couple of months, and so Mina had decided to visit a particular person in China. She decided after much deliberation to leave Scarlet Thunder at home in Korea, but there was a reason aside from “walking stick” that she had taken a sturdy staff with her. It certainly wasn’t what she was used to, but it was close enough without being too obviously a weapon. At first she had been worried that her Chinese was not up to scratch with more modern times and that her appearance would cause problems, but she seemed to have been accepted well enough. She sighed again, taking in the full façade of the place. Mina recalled that it was called “Lotus Garden” and was apparently built to be a retreat for the Ming Emperor now run by a high ranking general.
“Mina!” A voice yelled out from behind her, and she turned with a smile.
“I came as fast as I could,” Xianghua said breathlessly, leaning on her knees.
“So,” Mina eyed the garden again, “You live here?”
Xianghua laughed, rising to her full height, “Of course not. I just train here in the mornings, but the person who manages it lets me use one of the buildings out the back whenever I want. Such a nice man.”
“For a general,” Mina muttered.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing,” Mina turned to Xianghua.
“Let’s go inside then. Come on!” Xianghua grabbed Mina’s hand, and began dragging her away from the main gate. “The garden is open to the public, but they’re not supposed to know about where we’re about to go so we’ll have to use the back door.”
Mina allowed herself to be dragged by the excited girl, inspecting her from behind. She wore a pink floral pattern tunic, a pair of baggy ended teal trousers and a pair of blue slip on shoes that were common among martial artists – in fact Mina was wearing a similar but black coloured pair.
“Well?” Xianghua asked as they came to the inside of a small building that could have been a comfortable home for a family.
Mina took a moment to catch her breath, wiping her palms on her slit-side pants. She could feel the sweat from under her dark grey top, and wondered why Xianghua wasn’t tired at all. “It’s very…isolated.”
“That’s the point,” Xianghua pipped happily, “‘For all your more private needs’” the general said.
Mina nodded absently, looking around. “You’ve got a couple of weapons here,” she noted, “This place must be safe if you’re willing to leave them here.”
“You didn’t bring yours,” Xianghua said, a hint of disappointment in her voice.
“No, it could have caused problems. But I got a stick. Why, were you hoping for some sparring?”
Xianghua walked past Mina, towards her small but relatively extensive rack of weapons, “Sorta.” She giggled as she picked an item from the rack, “Although, maybe it’s not so bad that you didn’t bring it.” She turned, holding out what looked like a giant calligraphy brush in an aggressive stance. “Draw.”
Mina struggled not the howl with laughter at the ridiculous weapon, and something behind Xianghua caught her eye. “Ooh, can I use that?”
Xianghua followed Mina’s point, and grinned. She was pointing at the bamboo handled feather broom propped up against the table.
“I can’t see why not.”
Mina traded her staff for the broom, feeling the added weight of the broom head. Much more like Scarlet Thunder, she thought to herself.
“Now, to make things a little more interesting,” Xianghua said, tiptoeing towards Mina with an evil grin on her face. Mina looked on, a suspicious glare in her eyes. “If I win, then…” Xianghua leaned close to Mina’s face and whispered something in her ear.
Mina’s eyes widened as what Xianghua was saying sank in. “What?” she recoiled back, shocked but grinning mischievously. “But if I win…” Mina leaned in, whispering something in Xianghua’s ear. The other girl giggled in a childish fashion.
“Deal.”
Without warning, Mina swung the broom’s head down and up in a quick pair of slashes, and Xianghua danced away, a frown on her face. “That wasn’t fair!”
“I’m playing to win,” Mina replied with a grin, this one predatory.
Xianghua flourished with her weapon briefly, before lunging in. Mina deflected the first two horizontal strikes, ducking under the third and sweeping her broom in a low arc and watching her opponent’s feet skipping over the bamboo easily. She slinked to one side as the brush stabbed down, crossguarding with the broom handle as the brush moved in an upward slash. Mina rode the impact up to her full height, and stopped her counter attack mid step as Xianghua made precise slices at her. Mina slowly backed into the corner of the room purely from the tide of the duel, grimacing as she realised that Xianghua was trying to deprive Mina of the space she needed to use her weapon effectively, and that she was doing it successfully. There were no visible openings in Xianghua’s attack to reverse the movement, but a quick, dangerous, glance behind her allowed Mina to see that she was close enough to the building’s door to make it outside. Still, she needed a break. There! Mina dropped low as Xianghua made a lunging horizontal slash, rolling to the side – both out of the corner and close to the door. Xianghua smiled for a moment before reaching out with a turning kick. Mina took the impact on her broom handle, and stumbled a few paces backwards from it. She blocked a series of attacks before risking a thrust, skipping backwards as she did so. She felt her toes on the doorstep, and she half turned and somersaulted down the flight of four stairs. She continued to back pace as Xianghua leapt out from the doorway, brush making precise movements but finding only air. Xianghua’s feet hit the ground, faltering as she misjudged her landing. With a triumphant cry, Mina moved in for the kill, knocking aside Xianghua’s hasty defence and disarming her. She was about to move into another attack when she noted too late Xianghua’s grin. With a curse Mina found that her weapon wouldn’t move. Xianghua tightened her grip on the empty end of Mina’s broom, jerking it towards her and grabbing out with her other hand to catch the handle between Mina’s hands. With a deft twist, Xianghua wrenched the broom from Mina’s grasp, stepping back and holding the broom head to her opponent’s face.
“You let go of the brush on purpose so I’d be distracted,” Mina groaned with the realisation that had hit upon sight of Xianghua’s grin. “That’s dirty.”
“I play to win,” Xianghua laughed, “And I won. You know what that means, don’t you?”
The thought of pleading entered her mind, but she had lost – not entirely fairly but completely – and now it was time for her to keep her end of the deal.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Stop here.”
Seung Mina did as she was told, struggling not to turn around and face Xianghua. The other girl held the broom in her off hand, and had used the brush to prod Mina back into the building before marching her into a back room.
This will be perfect. Xianghua had thought, No one will hear a thing so I can make her laugh as loud as she can.
“Lie down, on your stomach,” Xianghua commanded, “And don’t move.”
Mina obeyed again, begrudgingly. She was being treated like a prisoner – which, she admitted to herself, was the entire point. She wasn’t going to live this down anytime soon. She could hear Xianghua rummaging around, and there was a light puff as something was dropped on the straw matted floor. Mina grunted in surprise as her arms were pulled behind her back. Xianghua leant her weight onto her captive, taking one of the ropes she had retrieved and lashing Mina’s wrists together. Once Xianghua was done, Mina tested the knots, frowning at the security of them.
“I don’t really want to know how you’ve been practising,” she said, before Xianghua placed a finger across her lips.
“Shh,” she giggled, before continuing.
Taking another rope, Xianghua lashed one of Mina’s ankles to the broom handle.
“What are you doing?” Mina tried to crane her neck around but couldn’t see anything other than Xianghua’s back.
Ignoring Mina’s question, Xianghua repeated with the other ankle, leaving a foot or so of space between Mina’s feet. She took a fourth rope, anchoring it onto the wrist bonds and threading it twice around the broom handle before slowly pulling Mina’s feet up like a drawbridge, securing the end of the rope onto Mina’s wrist bonds again. Xianghua stood up quickly, hurrying over to the side of the room. Mina could see her bringing back a chair, and a puzzled look crossed her face.
“Snug fit,” Xianghua said happily as she placed the chair’s legs so that Mina’s legs were between them. The chair was also high enough so that the bottom of the seat didn’t so much as touch Mina’s arms, more vulnerable to breaking now that they were being slightly stretched.
Mina began to wiggle against her bonds, and Xianghua tutted, holding the broom handle so that it touched the two chair legs. She sat on the seat now, and grabbed another rope from her pile.
“I can’t have you moving too far,” she was saying as she lashed the broom to the chair leg, quickly repeating with the other end before her already helpless captive could begin to struggle again.
Mina tried kicking out her legs – even with the strange hogtie she should have been able to move them somewhere – but now that the broom was tied to the chair, itself held down by Xianghua’s weight, there was a slight and inconsequential creak…and nothing else. A slight fear born from excitement shot through her mind.
She’s making a lot of effort to make sure my feet don’t move, she thought, Don’t tell me…
“Do you remember what I said to you before we started?” Xianghua said casually, leaning back and looking at the back of Mina’s head.
“‘If I win then I get to tie you up and do whatever I want’?” Mina replied as calmly as she could, even though she had a bad feeling of what was coming next.
“Precisely,” Xianghua said, her voice in a low tone full of put-on malice. “And do you know what it is that I want to do?”
She felt Xianghua’s weight moving off the chair again, and Mina opened her mouth to say something else, but her sentence became a muffled grunt as a wad of cloth was forced into her mouth. A strip of what felt like silk was tied across it to hold it in.
“We’re nice and isolated.” Xianghua was talking as if lecturing a child, and seated back on the chair, “But the sound may travel quite a distance.”
Biting into her gag, Mina tugged at the ropes, the beginnings of angry tears welling in her eyes. Why? Why, of all things, why did she have to do this? If she had any doubts before, then Xianghua’s mention of sound erased them completely.
She was still wearing her shoes, but regardless Xianghua’s first touch against Mina’s feet almost evoked a giggle. Xianghua ran her fingers over Mina’s exposed instep, slowly moving towards the ankles and then the heels. Sliding her finger in between the warm flesh and the cloth, she slowly removed the obstruction that was the shoe, dropping it to one side and grinning. Mina’s toes were already squirming as she tried to move her foot away, suppressing a squeal as she felt her captor’s feather-light touch brush across her sole. Xianghua moved her attention to the other foot, this time simply grabbing the shoe and removing it, although she maintained the slow and gentle movements as an opening bout of torture for Mina. In delaying the main event Xianghua was trying – extremely successfully – to build fear in her prisoner, making the end reaction much more volatile. At least, that was her plan.
“A broom head made of feathers,” Xianghua noted casually, reaching down and plucking out two. Mina was trying to say something, and fought against the secure ropes. Xianghua held up the feathers and smiled. “These will do nicely. See?” She stroked behind Mina’s ear with one, “Nice and soft, but nice and firm at the same time.”
Growling, Mina shook her head to get the feather away. She’s going to pay for this.
Without warning, Xianghua dragged the tip of the feather across the length of Mina’s foot, and she tensed, holding in the laugh that signified utter defeat. Grinning, Xianghua took a feather in each hand, and began her work. She kept it uneven and unpredictable, moving each feather to that they hit every part of each foot. Mina was shaking, but to her credit still had not begun truly laughing. Xianghua continued to grin. She liked breaking down strong defences.
She worked the right feather across the bottom of Mina’s toes, taking the left up and down the length of Mina’s other bared sole. Xianghua heard a drawn out and involuntary squeal escape from Mina’s mouth, and knew she was close. She switched her left feather, stroking left and right across the skin just below Mina’s toes, using the right to brush up and down her arch. Xianghua counted to twenty, before using both feathers in random swirling patterns on either foot. Mina squealed as Xianghua reversed the feathers for this, using the hard tips of the quill. Suddenly it stopped, and Mina opened her eyes without realising she had squeezed them shut. She began to breathe in relief that she had managed to wear out Xianghua’s patience before Xianghua had worn down her mental fortitude, but the notion was short lived. Discarding the feathers, Xianghua resumed using her fingertips, now able to cover the entire area of Mina’s feet with her wriggling fingers. It was too much, and Mina broke, screaming with laughter and squealing with what she tried to deny was happiness. She began trying to rock her body around in an effort to loosen the ropes, but all she succeeded in doing was make Xianghua’s job easier. Her feet were flailing wildly against the imprisoning ropes but Xianghua’s roaming fingers always followed, the light strokes of fingernails adding a penetrating touch to complement the lighter brushings of her fingertips. Mina struggled to breathe now she was laughing so much, and soon it became a circular motion of air.
It took a few moments for Mina to realise, but she let out a quiet moan as Xianghua stopped as suddenly as she had started.
“Now,” Xianghua said, herself feeling slightly out of breath, “Wasn’t that fun?”
Another small groan.
“Well, I must be going,” Xianghua continued, standing up and walking to the chest of drawers in the side of the room. Mina looked around at her, confusion wandering into her mind as Xianghua turned around, holding another strip of silk.
“Nothing to worry about,” she said quietly, crooning as if to soothe a child – that same lecturing voice she had used before, “Just a little something to make things interesting.”
Mina tried to move her head away, but despite the lack of weight on the chair she was still virtually immobile. The strip of silk fell across her eyes, gently pulled tight and wrapped around again before being knotted off behind her head. Her vision plunged into darkness, Mina whimpered into her gag, moving her head around and trying to somehow see through the blindfold. Although she said nothing, Mina still heard the telltale signs of Xianghua leaving and closing the door. She tried yelling into her gag, but Xianghua ignored the protests. She considered yelling again in the hope that someone would hear her to help, but decided against it. For all she knew she could be yelling for an entire day and would achieve nothing but killing her voice. With a quiet sigh, she resigned herself to staying put…
By her reckoning an hour had passed when someone arrived in the room. Mina hadn’t heard the door opening, but the window was closed with a gentle creak. Footsteps, different from Xianghua’s, approached the as yet helpless Mina, and she tugged against the ropes, making vague attempts to cry for help.
“Keep it down,” a voice, strong and female, hissed, “That gag is probably in your pretty mouth for a reason.”
Mina stopped struggling, nodding slowly. The woman had spoken in Japanese, but both her travels and her learning allowed her to understand.
The woman snorted a laugh, “Evidently you can understand. Good, I’m in no mood to run through my long vocabulary of languages to see how I can talk to you.”
Mina felt the woman kneeling down next to her, and could almost feel her gaze as she was inspected. A blade, from the sounds of it short, was unsheathed, and Mina caught her frightened squeal in her throat as her mind berated her.
Damn it, if you’re going to get killed then you might as well let something know about it!
There was an impact of steel against wood, and Mina felt one side of the broom falling away from the chair leg. Another impact, and the other end came free, the chair lifted away. Mina froze as the felt the cold steel against the flesh of her arm, waiting until it had sliced through the rope binding her hands and moved away before rolling to the side was best she could with the broom still bound to her legs, and sat up on her knees. She closed her eyes before pulling away the blindfold, opening them slowly so that the sudden in pouring of light did not blind her. She reached back and undid the knot of her gag, spitting out the cloth with a dry grunt. Mina looked up at her rescuer, blinking in surprise when she found that the room was empty. She undid the knots holding her ankles to the broom and stood up, her leg muscles sending a shiver up her body as they stretched out. Sighing, Mina recovered her shoes. If she caught Xianghua then she’d tickle her until her eyes popped out. Noting that the windows in the room were large enough for her to escape through, a number of ideas that chained into a plan formed in her mind…
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“I’m back,” Xianghua lilted softly so Mina would hear, “You must be hungry.”
She slid open the door, and dropped her cloth wrapped bundle of steamed buns. “My ropes!” Hurrying to where the chair lay on the ground, she dropped to her knees and inspected the frayed pieces of her beloved ropes. There were two lengths still intact, and Xianghua grabbed them up and coiled them quickly, as if worried that they would somehow be cut to pieces like the others had been. She stood up, looking around. There was no sign of Mina, however one of the top hinged windows was open, propped up by a round stick. As Xianghua got closer, she realised it was her large calligraphy brush, and she pulled it gently from the window, letting the flap fall shut and smoothing out the bristles. A folded piece of paper was attached to the bottom, and Xianghua pulled it free, shaking it open and reading what had been written on it.
“Sorry to prop the window open with your brush. I won’t bore you with the details of my miraculous escape. There is a hut on the edges of the city near the river. Come there tomorrow two hours after sunrise. Bring it.”
Underneath the writing was a crude drawing of the large brush, and the entire message had been signed “Mina”, a rough caricature of the author near the name. Xianghua frowned.
“Oh well,” she said, sitting on the chair, “I’ll guess we’ll have to play another time.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Panning her vision around one last time, the kunoichi rose from the crouch she had adopted atop one of the roofs.
“Quiet, secluded and with places to hide,” she mused, “Perfect…”
*************************
Seung Mina sighed. “Sure is a nice little place she has.”
Things had been exceedingly quiet in the last couple of months, and so Mina had decided to visit a particular person in China. She decided after much deliberation to leave Scarlet Thunder at home in Korea, but there was a reason aside from “walking stick” that she had taken a sturdy staff with her. It certainly wasn’t what she was used to, but it was close enough without being too obviously a weapon. At first she had been worried that her Chinese was not up to scratch with more modern times and that her appearance would cause problems, but she seemed to have been accepted well enough. She sighed again, taking in the full façade of the place. Mina recalled that it was called “Lotus Garden” and was apparently built to be a retreat for the Ming Emperor now run by a high ranking general.
“Mina!” A voice yelled out from behind her, and she turned with a smile.
“I came as fast as I could,” Xianghua said breathlessly, leaning on her knees.
“So,” Mina eyed the garden again, “You live here?”
Xianghua laughed, rising to her full height, “Of course not. I just train here in the mornings, but the person who manages it lets me use one of the buildings out the back whenever I want. Such a nice man.”
“For a general,” Mina muttered.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing,” Mina turned to Xianghua.
“Let’s go inside then. Come on!” Xianghua grabbed Mina’s hand, and began dragging her away from the main gate. “The garden is open to the public, but they’re not supposed to know about where we’re about to go so we’ll have to use the back door.”
Mina allowed herself to be dragged by the excited girl, inspecting her from behind. She wore a pink floral pattern tunic, a pair of baggy ended teal trousers and a pair of blue slip on shoes that were common among martial artists – in fact Mina was wearing a similar but black coloured pair.
“Well?” Xianghua asked as they came to the inside of a small building that could have been a comfortable home for a family.
Mina took a moment to catch her breath, wiping her palms on her slit-side pants. She could feel the sweat from under her dark grey top, and wondered why Xianghua wasn’t tired at all. “It’s very…isolated.”
“That’s the point,” Xianghua pipped happily, “‘For all your more private needs’” the general said.
Mina nodded absently, looking around. “You’ve got a couple of weapons here,” she noted, “This place must be safe if you’re willing to leave them here.”
“You didn’t bring yours,” Xianghua said, a hint of disappointment in her voice.
“No, it could have caused problems. But I got a stick. Why, were you hoping for some sparring?”
Xianghua walked past Mina, towards her small but relatively extensive rack of weapons, “Sorta.” She giggled as she picked an item from the rack, “Although, maybe it’s not so bad that you didn’t bring it.” She turned, holding out what looked like a giant calligraphy brush in an aggressive stance. “Draw.”
Mina struggled not the howl with laughter at the ridiculous weapon, and something behind Xianghua caught her eye. “Ooh, can I use that?”
Xianghua followed Mina’s point, and grinned. She was pointing at the bamboo handled feather broom propped up against the table.
“I can’t see why not.”
Mina traded her staff for the broom, feeling the added weight of the broom head. Much more like Scarlet Thunder, she thought to herself.
“Now, to make things a little more interesting,” Xianghua said, tiptoeing towards Mina with an evil grin on her face. Mina looked on, a suspicious glare in her eyes. “If I win, then…” Xianghua leaned close to Mina’s face and whispered something in her ear.
Mina’s eyes widened as what Xianghua was saying sank in. “What?” she recoiled back, shocked but grinning mischievously. “But if I win…” Mina leaned in, whispering something in Xianghua’s ear. The other girl giggled in a childish fashion.
“Deal.”
Without warning, Mina swung the broom’s head down and up in a quick pair of slashes, and Xianghua danced away, a frown on her face. “That wasn’t fair!”
“I’m playing to win,” Mina replied with a grin, this one predatory.
Xianghua flourished with her weapon briefly, before lunging in. Mina deflected the first two horizontal strikes, ducking under the third and sweeping her broom in a low arc and watching her opponent’s feet skipping over the bamboo easily. She slinked to one side as the brush stabbed down, crossguarding with the broom handle as the brush moved in an upward slash. Mina rode the impact up to her full height, and stopped her counter attack mid step as Xianghua made precise slices at her. Mina slowly backed into the corner of the room purely from the tide of the duel, grimacing as she realised that Xianghua was trying to deprive Mina of the space she needed to use her weapon effectively, and that she was doing it successfully. There were no visible openings in Xianghua’s attack to reverse the movement, but a quick, dangerous, glance behind her allowed Mina to see that she was close enough to the building’s door to make it outside. Still, she needed a break. There! Mina dropped low as Xianghua made a lunging horizontal slash, rolling to the side – both out of the corner and close to the door. Xianghua smiled for a moment before reaching out with a turning kick. Mina took the impact on her broom handle, and stumbled a few paces backwards from it. She blocked a series of attacks before risking a thrust, skipping backwards as she did so. She felt her toes on the doorstep, and she half turned and somersaulted down the flight of four stairs. She continued to back pace as Xianghua leapt out from the doorway, brush making precise movements but finding only air. Xianghua’s feet hit the ground, faltering as she misjudged her landing. With a triumphant cry, Mina moved in for the kill, knocking aside Xianghua’s hasty defence and disarming her. She was about to move into another attack when she noted too late Xianghua’s grin. With a curse Mina found that her weapon wouldn’t move. Xianghua tightened her grip on the empty end of Mina’s broom, jerking it towards her and grabbing out with her other hand to catch the handle between Mina’s hands. With a deft twist, Xianghua wrenched the broom from Mina’s grasp, stepping back and holding the broom head to her opponent’s face.
“You let go of the brush on purpose so I’d be distracted,” Mina groaned with the realisation that had hit upon sight of Xianghua’s grin. “That’s dirty.”
“I play to win,” Xianghua laughed, “And I won. You know what that means, don’t you?”
The thought of pleading entered her mind, but she had lost – not entirely fairly but completely – and now it was time for her to keep her end of the deal.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Stop here.”
Seung Mina did as she was told, struggling not to turn around and face Xianghua. The other girl held the broom in her off hand, and had used the brush to prod Mina back into the building before marching her into a back room.
This will be perfect. Xianghua had thought, No one will hear a thing so I can make her laugh as loud as she can.
“Lie down, on your stomach,” Xianghua commanded, “And don’t move.”
Mina obeyed again, begrudgingly. She was being treated like a prisoner – which, she admitted to herself, was the entire point. She wasn’t going to live this down anytime soon. She could hear Xianghua rummaging around, and there was a light puff as something was dropped on the straw matted floor. Mina grunted in surprise as her arms were pulled behind her back. Xianghua leant her weight onto her captive, taking one of the ropes she had retrieved and lashing Mina’s wrists together. Once Xianghua was done, Mina tested the knots, frowning at the security of them.
“I don’t really want to know how you’ve been practising,” she said, before Xianghua placed a finger across her lips.
“Shh,” she giggled, before continuing.
Taking another rope, Xianghua lashed one of Mina’s ankles to the broom handle.
“What are you doing?” Mina tried to crane her neck around but couldn’t see anything other than Xianghua’s back.
Ignoring Mina’s question, Xianghua repeated with the other ankle, leaving a foot or so of space between Mina’s feet. She took a fourth rope, anchoring it onto the wrist bonds and threading it twice around the broom handle before slowly pulling Mina’s feet up like a drawbridge, securing the end of the rope onto Mina’s wrist bonds again. Xianghua stood up quickly, hurrying over to the side of the room. Mina could see her bringing back a chair, and a puzzled look crossed her face.
“Snug fit,” Xianghua said happily as she placed the chair’s legs so that Mina’s legs were between them. The chair was also high enough so that the bottom of the seat didn’t so much as touch Mina’s arms, more vulnerable to breaking now that they were being slightly stretched.
Mina began to wiggle against her bonds, and Xianghua tutted, holding the broom handle so that it touched the two chair legs. She sat on the seat now, and grabbed another rope from her pile.
“I can’t have you moving too far,” she was saying as she lashed the broom to the chair leg, quickly repeating with the other end before her already helpless captive could begin to struggle again.
Mina tried kicking out her legs – even with the strange hogtie she should have been able to move them somewhere – but now that the broom was tied to the chair, itself held down by Xianghua’s weight, there was a slight and inconsequential creak…and nothing else. A slight fear born from excitement shot through her mind.
She’s making a lot of effort to make sure my feet don’t move, she thought, Don’t tell me…
“Do you remember what I said to you before we started?” Xianghua said casually, leaning back and looking at the back of Mina’s head.
“‘If I win then I get to tie you up and do whatever I want’?” Mina replied as calmly as she could, even though she had a bad feeling of what was coming next.
“Precisely,” Xianghua said, her voice in a low tone full of put-on malice. “And do you know what it is that I want to do?”
She felt Xianghua’s weight moving off the chair again, and Mina opened her mouth to say something else, but her sentence became a muffled grunt as a wad of cloth was forced into her mouth. A strip of what felt like silk was tied across it to hold it in.
“We’re nice and isolated.” Xianghua was talking as if lecturing a child, and seated back on the chair, “But the sound may travel quite a distance.”
Biting into her gag, Mina tugged at the ropes, the beginnings of angry tears welling in her eyes. Why? Why, of all things, why did she have to do this? If she had any doubts before, then Xianghua’s mention of sound erased them completely.
She was still wearing her shoes, but regardless Xianghua’s first touch against Mina’s feet almost evoked a giggle. Xianghua ran her fingers over Mina’s exposed instep, slowly moving towards the ankles and then the heels. Sliding her finger in between the warm flesh and the cloth, she slowly removed the obstruction that was the shoe, dropping it to one side and grinning. Mina’s toes were already squirming as she tried to move her foot away, suppressing a squeal as she felt her captor’s feather-light touch brush across her sole. Xianghua moved her attention to the other foot, this time simply grabbing the shoe and removing it, although she maintained the slow and gentle movements as an opening bout of torture for Mina. In delaying the main event Xianghua was trying – extremely successfully – to build fear in her prisoner, making the end reaction much more volatile. At least, that was her plan.
“A broom head made of feathers,” Xianghua noted casually, reaching down and plucking out two. Mina was trying to say something, and fought against the secure ropes. Xianghua held up the feathers and smiled. “These will do nicely. See?” She stroked behind Mina’s ear with one, “Nice and soft, but nice and firm at the same time.”
Growling, Mina shook her head to get the feather away. She’s going to pay for this.
Without warning, Xianghua dragged the tip of the feather across the length of Mina’s foot, and she tensed, holding in the laugh that signified utter defeat. Grinning, Xianghua took a feather in each hand, and began her work. She kept it uneven and unpredictable, moving each feather to that they hit every part of each foot. Mina was shaking, but to her credit still had not begun truly laughing. Xianghua continued to grin. She liked breaking down strong defences.
She worked the right feather across the bottom of Mina’s toes, taking the left up and down the length of Mina’s other bared sole. Xianghua heard a drawn out and involuntary squeal escape from Mina’s mouth, and knew she was close. She switched her left feather, stroking left and right across the skin just below Mina’s toes, using the right to brush up and down her arch. Xianghua counted to twenty, before using both feathers in random swirling patterns on either foot. Mina squealed as Xianghua reversed the feathers for this, using the hard tips of the quill. Suddenly it stopped, and Mina opened her eyes without realising she had squeezed them shut. She began to breathe in relief that she had managed to wear out Xianghua’s patience before Xianghua had worn down her mental fortitude, but the notion was short lived. Discarding the feathers, Xianghua resumed using her fingertips, now able to cover the entire area of Mina’s feet with her wriggling fingers. It was too much, and Mina broke, screaming with laughter and squealing with what she tried to deny was happiness. She began trying to rock her body around in an effort to loosen the ropes, but all she succeeded in doing was make Xianghua’s job easier. Her feet were flailing wildly against the imprisoning ropes but Xianghua’s roaming fingers always followed, the light strokes of fingernails adding a penetrating touch to complement the lighter brushings of her fingertips. Mina struggled to breathe now she was laughing so much, and soon it became a circular motion of air.
It took a few moments for Mina to realise, but she let out a quiet moan as Xianghua stopped as suddenly as she had started.
“Now,” Xianghua said, herself feeling slightly out of breath, “Wasn’t that fun?”
Another small groan.
“Well, I must be going,” Xianghua continued, standing up and walking to the chest of drawers in the side of the room. Mina looked around at her, confusion wandering into her mind as Xianghua turned around, holding another strip of silk.
“Nothing to worry about,” she said quietly, crooning as if to soothe a child – that same lecturing voice she had used before, “Just a little something to make things interesting.”
Mina tried to move her head away, but despite the lack of weight on the chair she was still virtually immobile. The strip of silk fell across her eyes, gently pulled tight and wrapped around again before being knotted off behind her head. Her vision plunged into darkness, Mina whimpered into her gag, moving her head around and trying to somehow see through the blindfold. Although she said nothing, Mina still heard the telltale signs of Xianghua leaving and closing the door. She tried yelling into her gag, but Xianghua ignored the protests. She considered yelling again in the hope that someone would hear her to help, but decided against it. For all she knew she could be yelling for an entire day and would achieve nothing but killing her voice. With a quiet sigh, she resigned herself to staying put…
By her reckoning an hour had passed when someone arrived in the room. Mina hadn’t heard the door opening, but the window was closed with a gentle creak. Footsteps, different from Xianghua’s, approached the as yet helpless Mina, and she tugged against the ropes, making vague attempts to cry for help.
“Keep it down,” a voice, strong and female, hissed, “That gag is probably in your pretty mouth for a reason.”
Mina stopped struggling, nodding slowly. The woman had spoken in Japanese, but both her travels and her learning allowed her to understand.
The woman snorted a laugh, “Evidently you can understand. Good, I’m in no mood to run through my long vocabulary of languages to see how I can talk to you.”
Mina felt the woman kneeling down next to her, and could almost feel her gaze as she was inspected. A blade, from the sounds of it short, was unsheathed, and Mina caught her frightened squeal in her throat as her mind berated her.
Damn it, if you’re going to get killed then you might as well let something know about it!
There was an impact of steel against wood, and Mina felt one side of the broom falling away from the chair leg. Another impact, and the other end came free, the chair lifted away. Mina froze as the felt the cold steel against the flesh of her arm, waiting until it had sliced through the rope binding her hands and moved away before rolling to the side was best she could with the broom still bound to her legs, and sat up on her knees. She closed her eyes before pulling away the blindfold, opening them slowly so that the sudden in pouring of light did not blind her. She reached back and undid the knot of her gag, spitting out the cloth with a dry grunt. Mina looked up at her rescuer, blinking in surprise when she found that the room was empty. She undid the knots holding her ankles to the broom and stood up, her leg muscles sending a shiver up her body as they stretched out. Sighing, Mina recovered her shoes. If she caught Xianghua then she’d tickle her until her eyes popped out. Noting that the windows in the room were large enough for her to escape through, a number of ideas that chained into a plan formed in her mind…
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“I’m back,” Xianghua lilted softly so Mina would hear, “You must be hungry.”
She slid open the door, and dropped her cloth wrapped bundle of steamed buns. “My ropes!” Hurrying to where the chair lay on the ground, she dropped to her knees and inspected the frayed pieces of her beloved ropes. There were two lengths still intact, and Xianghua grabbed them up and coiled them quickly, as if worried that they would somehow be cut to pieces like the others had been. She stood up, looking around. There was no sign of Mina, however one of the top hinged windows was open, propped up by a round stick. As Xianghua got closer, she realised it was her large calligraphy brush, and she pulled it gently from the window, letting the flap fall shut and smoothing out the bristles. A folded piece of paper was attached to the bottom, and Xianghua pulled it free, shaking it open and reading what had been written on it.
“Sorry to prop the window open with your brush. I won’t bore you with the details of my miraculous escape. There is a hut on the edges of the city near the river. Come there tomorrow two hours after sunrise. Bring it.”
Underneath the writing was a crude drawing of the large brush, and the entire message had been signed “Mina”, a rough caricature of the author near the name. Xianghua frowned.
“Oh well,” she said, sitting on the chair, “I’ll guess we’ll have to play another time.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Panning her vision around one last time, the kunoichi rose from the crouch she had adopted atop one of the roofs.
“Quiet, secluded and with places to hide,” she mused, “Perfect…”
