An: I am guilty of all charges except murdering my best friend with a spoon.

Disclaimer: Nope. Sorry Me-No-Ownie. Ownership belongs to Yukiru Sugisaki-san. Sorry, I just own what little plot this has, I'm just borrowing the characters for my own evil uses. BWAHAAHAAHAA!

Chapter 11: Of Too Many Doors

…Nothing did.

Or at least nothing he could perceive easily in the darkness, even with his Vampiric enhanced eyes… This was odd in its self really… He had just hit a switch and zilch had happened.

Well, unless you wanted to count his pendant flashing irregularly.

He looked around apprehensively, his whole body edgy and ready to spring at any given time. Something had to have happened! Surely it wasn't broken was it? He removed his foot gradually, waiting for something to happen. Satoshi froze defensively, as a second click was heard, seemingly echoing in his ears. Looking around with critical eyes, he paused again before slowly kneeling down after the moment of contemplative silence.

Peculiarly enough, and thankfully, for him, the brick that had originally been underfoot looked almost exactly the same as the others.

Almost.

It was, in just the slightest, different. He was taken aback at his own obliviousness of that fact. It was something tiny, though it was even small enough for him to find difficult to perceive. It was an image etched deeply in the old stone tile, old and worn with age. A key… A key with the kanji for second of three carved in the etched images grip.

"Three…" He mumbled almost inaudibly before rocking back on his heels and using the motion to swing himself into a standing pose, rubbing his cobalt blue eyes wearily as if to work his irritation away. At least he knew what he was looking for now.

All these seemingly endless doors were starting to grate on his nerves. Hadn't he gone though enough already? It was all too much like a giant puzzle! Had the fortress been built to hide the Key? Could it have been that this had maybe been built to house something else? This was getting all too ridiculously complicated just to hide one Key.

"I can't believe it." Krad's voice was dull as he crawled across the wooden and stone rafter-like beams that crisscrossed the ceiling. His hands clutched the rough wood tightly, he sighed depressively, once again looking around, spying random items all over the place.

Really.

So far he had found a Hikari made necklace, a treasure chest, a hat that reminded him of a witches pointy one, a dead mouse, feathers, long-johns (the underwear stuff), a shoe, a broken mirror, a pencil that was obviously the newest thing there, and a pile of mangled wire. It was odd really, all the things that were hidden up among the dust.

Needless to say, Dark raided the chest, took the necklace and edged away slowly from the long-johns. His behavior was so predictable some times…

How was it always so easy for Dark to get him doing what ever he wished? If only…

Dark was so most definitely getting the Couch of DOOM, when they got home, for putting him through this! Why couldn't he have stayed beyond the door?

Krad moved a bit faster to catch up with Dark who was getting even further ahead of him and absent mindedly listened to the Demons' argument about Satoshi's loyalty below. The argument seemed strictly two sided with half the creatures siding with 'Satoshi-sama' and the other half firmly against the 'traitor'. It was relieving that the large group below them was so enamored in arguing that they weren't paying any consideration to anything else. Looking down critically he had to admit that they probably wouldn't even notice if Daisuke came in wearing pink, with his wings out, singing "I'm Too Sexy" as loud as it was possible.

They really were that inattentive.

Only a few more feet to go…

Ahh, relief beyond all, Krad clutched at the stonework of the wall and dusted his black near skin tight clothes off, it was way too dusty. Why couldn't they hire a maid?

"You okay, Krad?" Dark questioned quietly, pushing his bangs out of the way to look levelly at his love. He knew full well that Krad had always been more accustomed to turning thefts into loud violent battle scenes rather than playing nice, quiet, and 'Mousy' thief.

Using Krad's regular approach would be a bit too dangerous for them at this current moment in time.

Krad replied to Dark's inquiry with a barely stifled sneeze and a question of his own, "How do we get down?" He gazed down the sixty foot drop unperturbed; heights would never scare him; that he was sure of. Though… the expression that was spreading on Dark's face was something to be afraid of.

Two hundred against one wasn't really the best of odds, no matter who you were. He hoped he didn't find himself wishing to deal with that instead.

He watched with nervous eyes as Dark leaned out away from the support beams with all of the air of a spider who was completely at home.

Did this mean it was distraction time?

Satoshi sighed restlessly, his warm breath rustling the hair that hung in his face. Running his hands through his hair like a comb Satoshi kicked the wall, stomped on the floor tile, and hit the wall on his right. To anyone watching it might have seemed like he was throwing a childish tantrum.

Well, not 'childish' per-say, though a near stoic expression masked his face, excluding, of course, the scowl twisting his expression.

There was a gravelly grinding noise as the seemingly dead end was 'un' ended by the movement of one hidden doorway. It was rather like the hidden doorways in some of the really old cartoons, that he had run across in his free time, when he thought about it.

His eyes were taking a vacation it seemed. He was entirely unable to perceive anything beyond the door way, it was as it there were a blanket of darkness hovering in the room or hallway beyond.

This did not bode well.

Switch One had been on the tenth brick, second row up on the wall. The Second Switch he had already found on the floor, and the Third Switch had been about eye level for him, on the thirteenth brick from the hidden door-wall. Thankfully they had been close together. They had been hell to find.

Satoshi brushed invisible dust off his shoulder and stepped through and into the blackness. A slight stench made his nose wrinkle in distaste.

He was, unsurprisingly enough, startled to find a growling creature on the other side.

Who, in their right minds, would expect a growling, sharp toothed, toad-snake-komodo dragon tri-bred, to be on the other side? Satoshi could only stare in fascinated silence, though his hand did creep for his hilt. Sometimes he could have sworn that his hand had a mind of his own.

He was starting to feel like pursuing an animalistic urge to bare his teeth.

It advanced, slithering and crawling at the same time. The hair on Satoshi's body couldn't help but raise with a certain sense of foreboding, chills skating across his skin in waves.

"Who… are you… to… trespass here?" A static-like feeling rippled through the air, making Satoshi feel like he should have been bristling up like a cat. The Vampire couldn't help it when he started to back away slowly; voice of the creature before him held an intimidating and commanding tone that fully demanded respect, though there was something off, like it was that of a fallen King.

What King would camp out in an old worn and dusty throne chamber? Satoshi noted what type of room he was in with a quick glance around. It looked like no one had come to clean it in several centuries, if that.

"Who… Are… You?" it demanded once again, creeping forward on its belly, the sound of scales scraping in the still air. Its form started to ripple and moments later a man was pushing himself up and off the ground, a highly irritated expression on his face.

Satoshi froze, had his heart still beat it would have been racing terribly.

Glowing blood red eyes locked on Satoshi's, framed by liquid mercury hair, though it was at odds with his weary and worn appearance.

There was a long stretching moment of silence where neither moved. Had there been any crickets around they surely would have been chirping, loudly, with maybe a frog or two and a large gust of wind accompanied by a tumble weed.

"Aiko-sama?" Satoshi asked while the 'Aiko-sama' in question opened his mouth again to demand his answer.

Brows furrowing 'Aiko-sama' walked forward, leather soled shoes tapping lightly on the stonework. "Who are you?" A ratty black cloak that would have been considered gaudy, had they been in any other setting, swished around his heels, "I haven't seen one loyal to me in a long time…" A hand reached forward and caught Satoshi's chin and smoldering blood red eyes stared deep into Satoshi's.

Satoshi was hushed, as if at a loss for words.

"Well?" The clawed hand jerked at Satoshi's chin.

"Satoshi Hikari," Satoshi fought to maintain eye contact with Akio, he doubted that Akio would fair well to hearing his surname. Was it Satoshi's fault that Demons, due to the teamwork of the Hikari line, had over thrown the King standing before him long before his time?

"Hikari!" Akio spat in distaste, "What is a Hikari doing here?" Akio made a threatening gesture, as if to put both hands around Satoshi's neck, which ended with him making a strangled noise and clawing at a black collar at his throat that Satoshi had not noticed before.

The static-like wave washed over Satoshi again and he glanced down to where his pendant was shorting out with bright and irregular flashes. It was eye catching to most but mainly boring to him, though… The flashes had seemed to be growing gradually faster as he progressed to this point.

When Aiko calmed, if you called pacing like a caged lion 'calmed', Satoshi used Aiko's own question against the person in question, "Who are you to trespass here?"

Oh, I pose a question, is it okay that I add Aiko in here? He has to do with the closing of the gates, if you dislike his presence I could probably change it to them gathering manuscripts or something. I don't think Aiko will be in here for long though.

And here I pose one more question, would you like me to try to work in a/some chapter(s) to explain some of how the twins became Demons? And/or how/why Daisuke came down from the other side of the Gates?

Your input would be very well liked.

Jade: I have a perfectly legitimate excuse. It's NOT my fault that you all depressed me enough to only want to start working on this a month and a half ago. (You still would have gotten it on time on only that point) The rest of the fault goes to all of my word processors and a nasty case of writers block. How could it possibly be my fault that the d- word processors (I have three) froze when ever I'd tell them to save?

I LOVE all of you that reviewed! Hugs all sixteen of you made me a very happy girl!

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