As you can see, I'm in a rush. I'll be going to matrics college this Sunday. God knows when I'll be able to update. Please, do check my Livejournal (link in my profile) because any updates or news regarding me and my fics are posted there. Thank you!

And to reviewers, thank you very much for your reviews. I'm so terribly sorry that I couldn't personally reply to them like I always did.

WARNING! – Mention of rape and non-graphic violence.

The death of a butterfly and the birth of its substitute in
TRACK 13: BROKEN WINGS
- Part 1 -

For some reasons, the journey back to the old and hidden Sakuma Mansion seemed to take too long for Shuichi. His legs were beginning to feel sore, what with his heart thumping madly. At the entrance of the forest, two police officers lied on the ground agape – dead, in pools of their own blood. Shuichi dropped Kumagorou as his whole body started to shake. Both of the dead officers had taken two bullets to their heads and one to their heart. They didn't even had the time to fight back. Just like that, their lives were taken away. It was amazing how something as big as life ended with something so small, like the bullet. 'This is my fault! My fault!' Shuichi summoned all of his courage and ran through the forest, determined to reach his house. In the distance, he could hear piercing shrieks and painful screams. As he ran, memories of the days he spent with Aoshi tormented him.

"Aoshi-sensei thinks my song is beautiful, na no ka? Yay! Shuichi is so happy!"

"I don't mind Ryuichi-oniichan and Tohma-oniichan not spending time with me anymore. I have you, Aoshi-sensei!"

Shuichi wiped his tears angrily. He would not cry over Aoshi! The man had betrayed his trust. When the young boy reached the main gate, he froze in shock for a moment. Dead bodies were everywhere…. The caretaker of thirty years of the Shindou family lied just beside the door to the mansion. The old man's head was shot and a dagger was sticking out of his chest. The other dead bodies were also lying in pools of their own blood with shocked, tortured expressions. The housekeepers, the bodyguards… They were all dead. Shuichi was shaking all over as he stepped into the mansion.

Kami-sama!

The colour red was everywhere. On the floor… On the wall… Dead bodies of the maids painted the floor with glaring red. Everything was messy in there. Shuichi could hear screams coming from the second floor. The intensity of the screams faded away as seconds ticked by. "Okaa-san! Otou-san! Where are you?" Shuichi screamed. As if on cue, a piercing shriek sounded from the upstairs. Shuichi tried his best to ignore the dead bodies on the floor as he ran past them to find the source of the shriek, muttering apologies in his head. He resisted the urge to kick the dead bodies of some attackers the bodyguards were able to shoot before dying themselves. Shuichi was dead sure he heard his mother scream in anguish.

"OKAA-SAN!"

A pained yell countered Shuichi's. "Noo! Don't come in here! Run!"

It was coming from the master bedroom! Shuichi did not care. He burst into the room… just to be rendered speechless for a moment. Five men armed with guns and cylinder pipes were beating his father up. On the other side of the room, his half-naked mother was being restrained by two men… with one man on top of her. Sakuma Natsumi was being raped! Shuichi felt sick to his stomach. Tears stung his eyes, and his heart boiled with anger and intense hatred. "Bastard! What are you doing to my okaa-san!" He ran forward and tried to free the woman from the monsters' grasps. Two of the men that was torturing Sakuma Kenichi held Shuichi back. "Get away from her!" He screamed, struggling to get away. The other men laughed coldly at the young boy. The two men restraining him started to drag him out of the room to the next room. "You shouldn't have come back at all, kid," one man said, grinning evilly. Shuichi was roughly slammed into the wall. He groaned in pain at the impact.

The next thing Shuichi knew, they were tying him up. The men started unbuckling their belts with animalistic glints in their eyes. Shuichi shivered, not knowing what to do. His mother was screaming and crying in the other room. He had never felt so helpless before! "Poor kid. This is what happens when you piss Shouko Jun off. Blame your father, why don't you?" The bigger of the two men spat, undoing his pant and swinging his belt around. The next few moments were hell for Shuichi. The poor little boy was being violated in the most disgusting way possible. No matter how loud he screamed or how loud he pleaded, the men continued to sexually assault him.

When they were finished with him, Shuichi was thrown against the wall where he slid down into a boneless heap on the once unblemished, carpeted floor. As the strangers adjusted their clothes, a surge of energy seeped through the boy's veins. Shuichi leaped unexpectedly and snatched on of the men's gun. He didn't think twice. He shot the men point blank, straight to the head. They say when you're desperate, you could do things you have never done unknowingly. The saying applied to Shuichi, it seemed. The boy didn't need to learn how to use guns to know how to operate them.

Putting his torn shirt and pants back on, Shuichi ran to the next room where his father and mother were being 'killed'. The men stopped what they were doing when Shuichi appeared in the doorway holding a gun. "Ah," one of them started. "What can a little baby do with a gun, hmm?" The men laughed eerily. Shuichi quickly closed his eyes and fired the gun twice.

The laughter only grew after the gunshots. Little Shuichi opened his eyes just in time to see his parents fell to a heap of their own blood on the stained floor.

No…

The men had used Kenichi and Natsumi as shields. Shuichi… had shot them both. Struck with horror and the realisation of what he'd done, Shuichi's whole body trembled violently. The laughter of men was like evil music to his ears. Visions of the time when they were happy together flashed like a slideshow in his mind. Something in his mind snapped. Shuichi's hand tightened around the gun and screamed. He fired randomly, hearing the men gasped in shock and pain. When the gun ran out of bullets, he wasted no time getting another gun and shot the men to death.

He dropped to his knees before his lifeless parents. The gun fell from his grip as Shuichi took hold of Natsumi and Kenichi's heads. "Okaa-san… Otou-san…" Tears were freely coursing down his bruised cheeks. Kenichi didn't move. Shuichi knew his father, his beloved father, was gone. Natsumi was still breathing shallowly. "Shu… i… chi. My Shuichi…"

"Okaa-san! I… I…"

"Shuichi…" Natsumi reached out to Shuichi's cheek with her trembling hand. She was smiling through her pain. Summoning every bit of energy she had left, she wiped the tears of her youngest son's cheek. A hoarse whisper escaped her lips, "Live." Her hand fell to the bloodied floor. Shuichi's eyes widened.

"Okaa-san?"

Silence…

"Okaa-san? OKAA-SAN! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Never in their life had Tohma and Ryuichi ran this fast. When the taxi that picked them up from the airport was stuck in traffic jam, they had no choice but to rely on how fast their feet could go. The mansion was becoming closer, and the hearts were beating like crazy. Ryuichi prayed that his family was okay, that the sounds they heard from the phone earlier were a joke. Tohma prayed for their safety, for the Sakumas were his family since his parents passed away. The sight of the dead officers at the entrance to the forest that led to their mansion was enough to render them speechless for a moment. "Oh my God…" Tohma gasped audibly. Ryuichi's eyes caught something pink lying on the ground. "Shu-chan's Kumagorou!" He exclaimed, reaching for the pink bunny. He looked at Tohma with dread obvious in his eyes. His best friend's eyes mirrored the look. Dropping the bunny back to where the owner previously dropped it, Tohma and Ryuichi made a mad dash into the forest to Sakuma Mansion.

"Hurry up, Tohma!" Ryuichi urged, not bothering to look where Tohma was. The blond ran closely behind him. They were both out of breath. The journey to the mansion seemed to take longer than ever before. They knew that the police would be there shortly but they had to know what happened first. They had to get to the scene first.

'Chibi-chan, minna-san, please be okay!'

For the second time that few minutes that seemed to be so long, Tohma and Ryuichi stood frozen at the gate. They looked around at the dead bodies thrown carelessly on the ground. The dead bodies of the unrecognisable strangers were proofs that the people of the mansion had fought for their life until the end. Blood was everywhere, and the pungent and metallic scent of it danced in the eerie atmosphere. They had never seen something as repulsive as this! It felt like watching a horror movie. It was not supposed to be this way! "Kami-sama… This can't be real! This… Kami-sama…" They were both shaking as they made their way through the mass of dead bodies into the mansion, just to be greeted with very much the same scene.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGGHHH!"

Tohma and Ryuichi stopped dead in their track. The piercing shriek was so anguish that it hurt just to hear it. Another shriek was heard, and the two famous celebrities shook even more. "To… Tohma… That voice…"

"Shu-chan… Upstairs..."

Ignoring the broken glasses, destroyed furniture and the endless pools of blood, they ran upstairs, where another howl was heard.

"SHUICHI!"

Their eyes widened upon entering the master bedroom. "Masaka…" Ryuichi fell to his knees, shaking his head; he tried to deny what his eyes were seeing. 12-year-old Shuichi was cradling a middle-aged man and woman in his arms. His body shook as tears journeyed continuously down his bruised cheeks. His clothes were ragged, torn and bloody – as if someone had tried to rip them off his little body. Four used guns sat silently next to Shuichi. Tohma reached out to the sobbing teen with tears falling freely down his face as he observed the scene. The man and woman cradled close to Shuichi's chest were obviously dead. "Obasan… Ojisan..."

"Shuichi… "Tohma choked out.

"DOUSHITE!!" Shuichi howled brokenly. "DOUSHITE, KAMI-SAMA, DOUSHITE!!!!"

The howl shook Ryuichi out of his stupor. The vocalist reached for his beloved baby brother and hugged the boy as Tohma did. "Shuichi, Shuichi, calm down." They knew it was no use. No one could be calm in this situation. No one, and nothing could make things right again. As Shuichi howled in agony, Tohma and Ryuichi wept. They heard footsteps and voices coming from downstairs. They ignored the commotion. Tohma and Ryuichi did not see Koori and Akai fell to their knees upon reaching the room. The noises died at once, as they police officers took the whole scenes in. No one dared to make a sound as the young inspectors hugged the sobbing trio. They had never seen Akai and Koori like this. They were clearly in shock. Just when one of the officers was about to call the ambulance, an explosion from the basement shook the whole mansion. "Sir, we have to get out of here! They've planted explosives all over the mansion!"

Another explosion shook them. In no time, the left wing of the mansion was on fire. Shuichi refused to let go of his parents when Akai and Koori tried to pry him away. "No! No! You can't just leave them here! NO!"

"Shu-chan, this house is going down soon. We have to get out now!" Akai reasoned firmly, although there were tears running down his face. Ryuichi couldn't find the right words. He too didn't want to leave his parents there. Koori left Ryuichi and Tohma no room for hesitation as he dragged the two of them out. When another explosion broke out, Akai had no choice but to hoist Shuichi onto his shoulder and ran out of there. Shuichi struggled all the way, hands reaching out to nothing at all. "No! No! Don't take me away! Don't leave them! No, no, no! Okaa-san! Otou-san!"

BOOM!

The old yet elegant mansion exploded just as they reached the police cars. Half of the forest was consumed by angry flames. The sounds of approaching fire engines, ambulance and press helicopters were lost to Shuichi, who continued to wail and scream for his parents. Ryuichi held Kumagorou and the struggling Shuichi close to his chest. His bright violet eyes were dulled by pain and sorrow. Tohma hugged them and wept silently. Akai slumped against the driver's seat while Koori sat silently next to him. No one said anything. After a few minutes, Shuichi collapsed from exhaustion and blood loss. He was taken to the hospital by the ambulance. Tohma and Ryuichi went with him on the ambulance and Akai and Koori followed.

"This is… like a horror movie or something," Koori whispered sadly, wiping tears off his face to no avail. They just kept coming. "It seems so… surreal. I wish this were just a dream. I wish I'd wake up and see them smiling at us… Why, Akai? Why this?"

"I don't know. I honestly don't know."

- To be Continued in Broken Wings Part 2 -