Apart from the Ocean, part 5

[estirise]

Here's "Apart from the Ocean" part 5.

You can find the first couple of parts here, if you missed them.


Title: Apart from the Ocean (part 5)
Author: estirose
Fandom: Kamen Rider Kiva
Words: ~900
Characters: Shinoda Aya (OC), Kuramae Noboru (OC)
Warnings/Rating: 13+/PG-13
Prompt: Table 2, prompt: Car
Summary: Aya has to live with the fact that monsters don't think like humans.
Author's Notes: I'm hoping to use as many of the 25 prompts as I can for one story, and am therefore designating parts as I go along. Any left over prompts will be used as snapshots on Aya's life. Since the characters are Japanese, I've used Japanese name order here. The universe itself belongs to Toei and TV-Asahi, as does the original version of Kuramae Noboru.

Aya's thoughts were racing as she looked at Kuramae-san. He was wearing different clothes, she noted, and a badge like Dr. Hamagaki's. With a picture. Before she could quite realize it, her fist was meeting Kuramae-san's stomach.

The punch had less effect than she expected. "You bastard," she seethed, annoyed that even with her upper-arm strength, she couldn't punch him that hard.

"Aya," he said, and then amended, "Shinoda-san."

She responded by punching him in the stomach again. She didn't want to hear his lies, and maybe if she hit him hard enough or often enough, he'd stop talking. "You befriended me to kidnap me?"

"No," he said, and he gasped a little at a third punch. "I befriended you because I thought you could help me find the monsters you were obsessed about."

"What?" she said, distracted enough to stop punching him for the moment.

"I was down in Hiroshima because I had rumors that there might be a couple of Franken there," he said. "I ran across your lecture, attended it, met you. Started talking to you. I was delighted to meet someone as into the creatures I was seeking as much as I was. I had a suspicion that you were more than you seemed - confirmed it later - but that's not why I befriended you."

Aya could have told him that as far as she knew, the only surviving Franken lived somewhere in Tokyo and knew her father, but she was still furious enough that she wasn't going to tell him that. Let him chase down the sole Franken by himself, for all she cared. "Suspicion?"

"You look abnormally young for your age," Kuramae-san said. "Other things that I can't really articulate. Which way is the ocean, by the way?"

"A few kilometers to the left," she said automatically, and he smiled. She glared at him. "What?"

"Merman trait," he said. "You seem to know where the ocean is at all times. Survival trait, actually." He grinned wider. "I go looking for Franken, and I end up dating the first Merman we've come across."
"You took a car so that you didn't leave a trail when you took me... wherever you took me. Here. Do you even have a sister?" It was slowly falling into place. The car, her aparment, the boxes in the room. He had taken her out of Hiroshima to kidnap her and give others a chance to scour her apartment and bring her belongings to the research facility.

"Yes. She's actually the one that was trying to track down the Mermen," Kuramae-san said. "And she actually does live where I said she lives - she was following a lead on some inland Mermen. She'd be thrilled to meet you."

"I bet," she said sourly.

"Your father's the Merman, right?" Kurimae-san asked. "How old is he? Did he tell you? What does he look like? We'd like to meet him."

Aya debated on whether to cooperate. They'd taken her against her will, and she was presumably a prisoner there. Dr. Hamagaki had implied that she was going to be a mother whether she wanted to be or not. On the other hand, if she handed her father to them, maybe they'd pay attention to him and let her go. "If I tell you, will I be let go and returned home?"

"I can't promise that," he said. "You're Merman; your Clan is nearly dead, we have to protect the bloodline you carry. But... I know you well enough that I think I can make this easier for you."

"Easier how?" she asked.

"Well," he said, "give you relative freedom within the facility. Let you choose who you want to sleep with."

"I'm not particularly interested in passing on the Merman bloodline," she said tightly. "I don't like my father and what he represents."

Kuramae-san nodded seriously. "I'll see what I can do. Though getting you free from having kids means we need to find your father - and you may have to become more like what you apparently despise."

Aya took a deep breath. She wasn't going to be free. For the moment, at least, though maybe if they got used to her then she could break out. It worked in the movies. And Kuramae-san had a point; if they had her father they had a much better DNA sample there than they had with her. She could deal with the other part later.. "You're going to pick out one sole young teen out of the city of Tokyo? I'm not sure my father even *has* a fixed address...."

"Young teen," Kuramae-san said thoughtfully. "So, a century to a century and a half old. Would you be willing to help an artist draw him so we can find him a bit more easily, tell me all you can about him? The sooner you can, the sooner we can start bothering him and less you. Plus, I can push what I can of what you want easier that way."

"Yes," Aya said. She didn't know if he would keep his word, but she hoped he would.