Notes: Well, Tsuzuki and Hisoka actually MEET in this part, so at least we’re making progress. This is fully twice the size of its predecessor, but that at least makes up for the close to two months it took to write it. Why the boys feel the need to add on to every scene I write is beyond me. Every time I think I’m nearing the end, someone else has to get in on the act. Even Touda… Shadows of Ourselves A Yami no Matsuei Fanfiction By Amet Part 2: Keeper of the Flame “I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.” -Ray Bradbury Hisoka curled his toes against the familiar pliancy of the practice mats, fisting the paper in his hands in frustration. The quiet crackle echoed harshly in the sudden stillness, the pause in his routine banishing all but the hiss of air passing through his lungs and the soft whisper of paper as his partner continued his experiments on the sidelines. The dojo was striking, all oaken paneling and wine red matting, a cavernous space that remained bare but for the weapon racks set into the far wall and the occasional spectator’s chair set beside the mats. Light filtered in through massive skylights, highlighting even the dust motes floating in the air in brilliant, mid-afternoon sun. augmented the grandeur of JuOhCho in that tastefully overdone way that permeated the whole of Meifu’s architecture, taking the design of the living realm that one step further into the ostentatious that made Hisoka wonder if EnmaDaiOh was as obsessed with aesthetics as his surroundings suggested. He heaved a heavy sigh into the silence, turning to regard his partner where the man was sprawled on the hardwood ringing the mats, spread out beside the chair Hisoka had dragged in for him amidst a scattering of origami paper in various states of anthropomorphizing. It was jarring to stand in the midst of the solemn familiarity of a dojo only to have the effect ruined by paper animals, or the fact that he’d been dragged in to practice spell casting in jeans and a battered sweater. That he suspected was just his partner being contrary. Of course, the man was always contrary. “Is there a reason why you feel the need to make me do this?” he muttered, uncurling the battered fuda in his palm to let it flutter to the floor. “Konoe-Kacho told me I could up my spiritual energy or whatever practicing kyudo, and I can actually do that.” His partner’s head raised from where he was bent over a green, vaguely bird-shaped sheet, mouth twitching with repressed humor as Hisoka scowled, yanking another fuda from his back pocket with a token attempt at smoothing out its wrinkles. Violet eyes glittered beneath a heavy fringe of dusky brown, shining with both the ethereal light of the Shinigami and a fair amount of amusement. It was strange, Hisoka reflected, that of all the emotions those eyes were capable of projecting, the innumerable shades of joy and humor and pathetic pleading, that he would be introduced to them through the dull sheen of despair. He was haunted by that vision of what might be, trailing even into the waking world as he analyzed every encounter for some small clue to what could shatter the man’s supposedly indomitable spirit so thoroughly. He couldn’t let it go. Something about his partner, be it some remnant of the love he’d felt in the dream or simply an unwillingness to allow someone so selfless to fall apart while no one was watching drove him to seek out the ever-elusive foil to whatever unnamed peril he knew loomed just beyond his senses. ‘The sky is falling and no one knows.’ Because he cared. He didn’t want to, couldn’t fathom how it had happened when he had worked so hard to distance, and it hurt to realize that his best chance at saving the man was pushing him away when each new crisis made the impulse to seek out his embrace more pervasive. It was all complicated by the man himself, the way he peppered his speech with innuendo and knew just when Hisoka would allow him to touch, when he needed to be touched, all communicating in none too subtle wordlessness that were Hisoka to allow himself that embrace would be welcomed. “Because I can’t be with you 24/7 and I don’t want Muraki cornering you again,” his partner answered, “I kind of like having you in one piece.” Hisoka sighed. “I wasn’t aware you were having me at all.” The man grinned, rising slowly, a sudden waterfall of paper concoctions spilling from his lap as gangly legs stretched, hands sliding over calves, then thighs and hips as they followed the movement, not suggestively but obvious enough to draw the eyes to the body beneath. He wasn’t even trying, but there was nothing his partner did that completely avoided the sexual, that heedless pull that defined him even as it condemned him to ill-treatment at the hands of his admirers. That too worried Hisoka, knowing full well that he was not the only one who needed protection from the perverts his partner had spoken of, fearing that he would misread the signs, that he would join their ranks without ever realizing. “C’mon, Hisoka, don’t be like that. Fuda are your friend.” “I thought pie was my friend.” His partner ambled over, yanking the paper from his fingers with deft movements, eyebrows lost beneath heavy bangs as he smiled in calm admonishment. “No, Hisoka,” he explained, bending close and wagging a finger as though he were talking to an errant child. “Pie wanted to be your friend, but you wouldn’t let it, so now it’s feeling neglected. Accept the fuda, or you’ll end up old and alone.” He was close enough to blur Hisoka’s vision, indistinct shades of lavender and umber suddenly made far too intimate as a warmth of breath intermingled with Hisoka’s own. “You’re ridiculous,” Hisoka huffed, attempting to back away before the inevitable rush of heat, the coloring of too pale cheeks and other less welcome reactions to his partner’s proximity. Hands, large and far stronger than they looked, fastened to his shoulders before he’d begun to back away, freezing him in place as his partner’s head dipped ever so slightly, face bare centimeters from his own. Emotions washed over him in a flurry of jumbled impressions, a wave of joy-tinged ardor swallowing his awareness, leaving him near-limp in his partner’s arms as he struggled to find some handhold within this new inundation. “This is not about power, Hisoka,” the man whispered, fingers tracing the shell of his ear with just the right amount of pressure. Hisoka felt his eyes slide shut with a will of their own, too enthralled to feel the mortification his actions should have caused as he leaned into the man’s caress. “After all, you certainly have enough of that.” The hands continued, one arm slipping around his waist to support him as the other trailed cool fingers, then the back of a hand over his neck, caressing tendon and bone as his head fell back to allow the man his leisure. He swallowed convulsively as his partner dipped his own head to nuzzle into the newly exposed hollow, his name a broken whisper against heated skin before a palm moved to cup his jaw, thumb moving over the bones and hollows of his cheek with a sluggishness that would have been infuriating if it hadn’t been so arousing. He was forced to consciously prevent himself from taking it in as it traced his lips, staring into calculating amethyst eyes that told him more than speech or empathy that his partner knew of his struggle. “This is about control.” With that the hands left him, stepping back to leave him shaking in the aftershocks of that intensity, hard pressed to keep from simply falling to his knees. He tried to glare, licking his lips nervously as his chest heaved, panting great expansions of air. The air around him seemed colder somehow, more sterile after the abrupt severance from his partner’s emotions, a painful stillness after the warmth of churning affection. It was galling, that need, admitting even to himself that whatever control he had was shattered beneath his partner’s influence, lost beneath the slightest touch. “Haven’t we talked about the touching?” he demanded, straightening his sweater as equilibrium returned, annoyance rising as his own self-consciousness reasserted itself. “You told me not to touch you in anger,” came the droll reply, “and I’m not angry. You need physical contact, and whether you admit it or not, you want it.” “Funny,” he muttered, “I thought I was the empath here.” “So /grumpy/, Soka,” his partner admonished, smirking faintly as his attention turned to the paper still clutched in his hand. He held it up, highlighted in the harsh light filtering from above as he examined the spells sketched across its surface, clucking in reproach. “This is your problem, you know,” he said, fingers tracing the characters, “Your calligraphy sucks.” The fuda was thrust at Hisoka, who took it without thought as the other dug through the pockets of an inky black trench coat pooling into a rather undignified heap beside the neglected chair. “You cannot ask the aid of the gods with chicken scratch. They’re picky like that.” “Maybe if you were helping me instead of folding origami--” “They’re not origami, they’re messenger spells,” the man corrected, absently picking one up and pinching it just /so/ to finish it, letting it fly towards Hisoka. “They need to be faster.” Hisoka caught the messenger, now an appropriately delicate dove-like creature with ridiculously long tail feathers, cupping it in his hands as it bobbed its head and cooed once before shifting back into its original form. He had no doubt they were all cast for him, Gushoshin had told him about the spell that instigated a mad dash across Nagasaki in more detail than he could possibly have hoped for as Watari examined him for permanent damage after his partner had carried him back to EnmaCho. The man was livid, out for Muraki’s blood without any hope of finding the doctor, and those idle hours between Hisoka’s abduction and Muraki’s call saw that anger aimed inward. Self-recrimination at some imagined carelessness took hold--that he had turned his head at the most inopportune moment, that he had allowed his worry to transmute into absentmindedness enough to forget the messengers until Muraki had already made his demand. “Gods, your writing…” He’d descended into muttering now, pulling a pen from somewhere in the depths of his coat and swiping the fuda away, shaggy head shaking in annoyance as he sprawled out on the matting to work on another. The messenger was sacrificed to the cause, wings carefully creased and torn into perfectly shaped, yet strangely colorful fuda. Apparently the gods didn’t take issue with neon. “/My/ writing is fine,” Hisoka insisted, head jerking in the direction of what was now a pathetically rumpled fuda. “That’s one of the fuda Konoe-Kacho wrote out for me to practice with.” His partner snorted, sketching out symbols on several strips with surprising efficiency. “Then the old geezer’s finally getting senile.” Hisoka’s brow furrowed watching his partner smile to himself as he worked, confused by his companion’s sudden amusement. Their superiors were forever berating him for his carelessness, his ineptitude, his childishness, all knowing full well that most of their complaints had little real weight given the man’s service record. He’d been at EnmaCho far longer than any of the others save the chief himself, and yet received nothing but criticism for his efforts. He fought back some, finding some perverse amusement in informing Tatsumi-san of his stiffness, or Konoe-Kacho of his age, but he’d always acted as though the abuse they pressed upon each other was some private joke, some odd sign of affection. To Hisoka it was just painful to watch with intimate knowledge he’d unwillingly gleaned from the minds of each of his coworkers at the forefront of his mind, knowing that all the while they railed and cursed each other, they cared far more than their behavior would suggest. “Why do you say things like that? I know you care about him, and he cares about you, but you’re always yelling at each other. And Tatsumi and Watari… how can you call them your friends?” The scribbling ceased as his partner looked up in surprise. “They don’t mean anything by it, Hisoka, it’s just their way. They do it to each other, too.” “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” “They’re not singling me out here,” the man said, pen waving in emphasis. “We may act like schmucks, but we’re equal opportunity schmucks.” He stood up, dusting imaginary dirt off his trousers before handing Hisoka one of the new fuda. “Here, this should come off better. Now say the spell and pretend like you care if it works.” The kanji for the spell were neatly drawn, aesthetically perfect, and Hisoka wondered what kind of practice it must have taken to be able to do that with a ballpoint pen. His partner was looking at him expectantly, scrutiny that gave rise to another bout of blushing, a reflex he hadn’t realized he even possessed until the man had wandered into his life. “If this were a real battle I’d be dead three times over by now,” he snapped, turning away as his companion sighed, heading back towards his place by the matting. “And that would be such a waste,” the man muttered, shuffling messengers under the seat. “You’re too pretty to die.” Innocent words, the product of exasperated affection and perhaps a little irony but reminiscent of another moment, another statement far less kind in its intention. Hisoka froze, despite his best efforts, panic flaring at the accidental parallel even as he tamped it down behind a veil of habitual indifference. They were not the same. He knew his partner would never hurt him willingly, the dreams had given him that certainty, at least. He watched as his partner turned, moved by some uncanny perceptiveness to meet his gaze, visibly crumpling as realization dawned. “I… I didn’t mean that,” the man stuttered, taking a shaky step forward. “Yes, you did,” he corrected, fingering the edges of the fuda in his hands. ‘Just not the way it sounded.’ “I’m sorry… I…” A tentative hand reached out to sooth him, shaking as it stroked over his hair, pulling him closer. “I know.” “You know I would never… touch you if you didn’t…” the hand jerked away suddenly, snatched back and clutched to the man’s chest as though it had been burned. “I haven’t been hurting you have I? I just thought--” “It’s alright,” he soothed, prying at the man’s hands to draw one closer, pulling it palm up against his cheek. “I know what you thought. I know what you meant.” Panic filtered in with the contact, and Hisoka struggled to retain some small measure of control over his emotions, carefully separating his partner’s fear from his own. His eyes slipped closed, consciousness flaring as he struggled to push some sense of understanding at his companion, breath catching at the choked whimper signaling his success. They opened again in time to see his partner close the distance between them, latching onto him so suddenly the impact sent them both tumbling to the floor and Hisoka was grateful for the matting at his feet as he fell to his knees. His partner was sprawled half in his lap, lanky frame wrapped around him at impossible angles, arms latched securely around his neck. A moment’s hesitation and his own arms came up, reluctant as they closed over his partner’s broad shoulders, hands fisting in his dress shirt. He buried his face against the curve of the man’s neck, reveling in the feel of it--the warmth, the solidness of the arms around him, the now subtle slide of emotions against his shields. He could allow himself this moment, to build a tangible memory of the one thing he wanted above all else, what he could not allow himself to have lest he destroy them both. He sat breathing in the musky scent of his partner’s skin, arms tightening around his companion as his hearing trained on the steady whisper of the man’s breath. The silence was comforting within those arms, a shroud of stillness that blanketed the dojo, isolating its occupants from the world and the terrible finality of its machinations. And then there was a sound. It was a small thing, a rasping shuffle along the hardwood behind them, moving closer with an inexorable slowness that spoke of inevitability, fate made tangible come to tear him from his partner’s arms. He held tighter, whimpering faintly as a shadow fell across them, feeling the arms around him begin to slip away as his companion moved to regard whomever stood before them. His head lifted of its own accord, eyes sliding open to regard first his partner’s worried features, then the careful scrutiny of the man who stood before them. He was tall, thinner than most but muscular in an understated way, hovering over them in a stance that was not quite threatening, yet aloof enough to make the hairs on the back of Hisoka’s neck stand on end. His eyes were a barely visible blur beneath the tint of an outlandish visor, a thick band of glinting metal wrapped securely around his head, wires and tubes running from the back of it to disappear somewhere beneath dark clothing. Jet black hair tumbled over his features, jagged edges ending just above his chin framing the strange contrast of translucent-pale skin and gleaming metal, features completely obscured beyond the lines of a pointed jaw and a thin-lipped mouth. The rest of his body was shrouded in leather--a long, dark coat over a skintight outfit with more straps and buckles than were strictly necessary, covering his entire body from the thick collar cinched at his neck to the gloves at his fingers and the heavy boots on his feet. There was something intrinsically angry about him, an impatience etched into the preternatural stillness that followed and Hisoka was hard pressed to look him in the eye, glancing at his partner before managing a hoarse, “Who are you?” Shadowed eyes bored into his, searching, calculating. The man raised a hand, palm hovering a few feet above the floor, gaze flickering to the man in Hisoka’s embrace momentarily before a leather covered wrist flicked almost negligently in response. Flame rose from the matting, small at first, then growing steadily larger as it gained momentum, hue shifting from dark indigo to violet-black as the heat intensified. It moved outward like a living thing, engulfing the matting in precise edges, consuming the entire perimeter before pushing inward en masse. And through it all the man retained the same placid air, gaze trained on Hisoka as he clutched harder at the man in his arms, ducking his head against a wave of increasingly intense heat. His eyes watered, nearly sightless as smoke choked out the last source of light from above, burying his face in the fabric covering his partner’s shoulder. “Hisoka,” his partner whispered, rasping in the too-dry air, “Hisoka… I’m sorry.” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was nothing dramatic about waking, no harsh breathing or overdone wailing and Hisoka did not throw himself upright in a moment of remembered fear. He simply rolled over, stared at the flashing display on his alarm clock and groaned in dismay as it confirmed that he had hours to go before he was required to be in the office. He glared, squinting in the darkness, restlessness gnawing at him even as he buried himself beneath the bedclothes and attempted to regain something resembling lassitude. The dreams had shifted into something entirely different, a snapshot series of the man with amethyst eyes, a kaleidoscope of wavering emotions danced before him for reasons he could hardly fathom. They were memories perhaps, things to come dredged from some burgeoning part of his mind shoved into the light of consciousness without the context necessary to decode them. It seemed that the dream had not yet had its say, and the shadowed eyes of its newest protagonist followed him into the waking world--accusing, unyielding in their intensity. Hisoka turned, burying his face into his pillow, lungs burning as seconds ticked by and the need for oxygen increased. He had no idea what the dreams were trying to tell him and that more than anything fanned his frustration, pushing against his consciousness with an unnamed worry, reason hanging just beyond his reach. It made him more irritable than he felt he had a right to be after finding himself in Meifu, under Watari’s endlessly patient tutelage and more importantly, feeling as though his body was once again under his control. The lack of pain had been unsettling at first, and as his discontent at his beleaguered progress increased he found a strange comfort in inducing it, the smallest sensation of discomfort a twisted balm to overtaxed nerves. It was familiar at least, something controllable against the tide of foreign sensation and perverse as he knew it was, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Abruptly, he flung himself back, covers half-sliding to the floor as he reared. He sat for a moment, blinking at the pattern scrawled across the headboard in the darkness as he ran a shaking hand through his hair. It was ridiculous, the skittishness that took hold of him with every new nightmare, driving him to pace around his living room at all hours of the night, working and reworking what he remembered of them from every angle until his head ached with the weight of it. A simple exercise in futility, given that he remembered precious little of the dreams themselves beyond a painful cacophony of emotion and his partner’s eyes. His partner. That was new. He’d always been ‘the man’, the one whose eyes were an impossible color, whose tears shimmered in the light of a hellish fire. The man who invoked such strong emotion in a boy so dead inside Hisoka half-expected it to shatter him in its intensity. Never a name, never much in his countenance beyond a veiled certainty that the man was as beautiful as Hisoka’s empathy suggested and that in itself was a new frustration. It was a face he had not yet seen in Meifu, though how he was so sure that he would know it was beyond him, but the phosphorescence of the eyes that haunted him made him certain that if the man existed he had to be there somewhere and he clung to that, some measure of hope within the darkness. He moved then, feet sliding soundlessly along the carpet as he reached for his sandals, throwing on little more than a light robe before shuffling himself out the door, down the stairs and onto the deserted streets of Meifu. Whether it was the dream that moved him still or some strange need for further discomfort he couldn’t have said, wrapping the flimsy cloth tighter around his shoulders at the first bite of December air, cold even in the realm of the dead. The moon was waning, a silver sliver half-hidden beneath graying billows of cloud, shifting like a living thing as it fell in and out of shadow. He was thankful for that, at least. Watching the moon at its apex disturbed him, haunting him with half-formed memories and ghostly fears that he was hard pressed to define beyond a vague, nearly crippling sense of foreboding whenever he looked upon it. The sakura swayed in the night winds, thousands upon thousands of limbs dancing in the darkness, petals blanketing the ground with pastel snowfall, stained a dim ivory in the darkness. Hisoka shivered, caught in the wake of some half-remembered fear as he watched the trees, as the discomfort they had elicited from the start grew to something more urgent, more pressing. The clouds shifted again, the crescent moon laid bare and shimmering within the darkness, driving him onward through the grove at an even faster pace, into the shadow of the redbrick looming at its edge. He found the Diet building strangely comforting. Its imposing stature and ostentatious adornment projected a measure of stability, of the regularity that had been his only comfort in his living years. It looked to stand against the darkness, untouched by the ravages of time and circumstance that plagued its mortal counterpart, from the redbrick at its outward facade to the marble halls that marked the way to the division. The front hall was a cavern, a sea of marble gleaming coldly in the dim light of tasteful sconces, empty but for the great staircase leading to the upper divisions of JuOhCho. The Shokan Division was at the end of the main hall, a winding path past a fork that led into the Castle of Candles by some impossible feat of space-time distortion Watari had rambled on about as he had led Hisoka past it for the first time. He wasn’t surprised to find lights beyond the glass, slipping in quietly in case Watari had dozed off at his desk again, past the copy machine and the crowded desks, wandering towards the inner hallway leading to the break room and the labs. It surprised him how rundown the division looked. From the tightly packed desks to the wobbly tables in the break room, the entire office looked as though someone had gone to great pains to make it look like an under-funded detective unit from the living realm. Even the coffee and day-old donuts provided each morning seemed an effort at authenticity, and Hisoka was at a loss to figure out why anyone would bother to expend that much energy to make a place seem so mundane. It didn’t bear much analyzing against everything else however, and he wandered on, touching briefly at the scattering of folders across one desk and the tacky bobble decorating another, images of their occupants flitting across his mind doing little to dispel the compulsion of the dream. He was moving towards… something, though he’d no idea what, except perhaps the welcome of a parallelogram of sickly light spilling from the open door of Watari’s lab and the sounds emanating from within. Voices intertwined in his hearing before he came close enough to understand the discussion, a manic rush of syllables in perfect counterpoint to a second soft spoken cadence. Hisoka had barely an instant to wonder if he was intruding before his feet had carried him to the door and well within hearing range. It was Watari, as he’d expected, hunched half over his desk as 003 clutched to his shoulder, rocking with laughter as he jabbed a finger at his companion. What he hadn’t expected was the food spread out over the surface between them in lieu of the layer of paperwork Hisoka had grown so accustomed to seeing in the lab, and the man sitting with Watari, smiling softly at the engineer’s antics. “Now, Hisaki, there was a screw up. Used to catch him writing fuda on the backs of grocery receipts! And I’m standing there like ‘Hello, other writing negates the spell, dumbass.’ How do you not /know/ that?” His companion laughed, shifting his glasses onto the bridge of his nose. “Willful ignorance, perhaps,” he answered, “I can’t see anything else in that case, with Konoe-Kacho’s usual insistence at the sanctity of the sacred spells.” “Does he still give that speech?” “Oh yes.” There was a pause as the man took a sip of his drink. “It’s even longer now, which probably has something to do with your Hisaki.” Tatsumi-san was something of an enigma to Hisoka, and not just because the man was an empathic black hole. He was the consummate penny-pinching middle management type, forever on the verge of cutting his subordinates’ business expenses entirely if they didn’t conform to his vision of an efficient work ethic. Hisoka had been entirely in awe of him when they’d first met, and perhaps a little wary as the secretary handed him a plethora of forms, prattling on about payroll and expense reports, but he was far less certain of the man’s personality than he had been during that first encounter for one simple reason. He changed around Watari. Grew softer somehow, allowed himself to smile a little more--at least when he thought no one was looking. The more time he spent with the two of them, the more Hisoka became convinced that Tatsumi-san was actually amused by Watari’s antics, no matter how long or involved the reprimand that followed. And despite his obvious ineptitude in socializing, he’d made an effort to check in on Hisoka from time to time, stiff inquiries about his adjustment to life in the division or his training with Watari. Hisoka could at least empathize with that, as his end of the conversation was usually limited to monosyllabic affirmations in an effort to stagnate the conversation before they could descend into platitudes. He was convinced that people like Watari existed to generate conversation for people like them. “/My/ Hisaki,” the scientist was saying, “Like I choose to be saddled with every new recruit that wanders through here?” He threw a piece of lettuce at his companion, playfully undershooting Tatsumi-san’s meal by a good six inches. Watari was easy company, exuding a soothing, steady warmth that Hisoka relished, a balm to his empathic sense when the overflow of emotion took its toll. He’d spent most of his time at EnmaCho ensconced in whatever corner of the lab was available, carefully tracking the constant movement of the scientist’s assortment of birds and animate machinery in his peripheral vision as he studied whatever new manual Tatsumi-san had managed to dredge up from his seemingly inexhaustible collection. It felt odd to find himself so complaisant in a situation he was sure was strange enough to throw a normal person into fits, odder still to find himself actually desiring the other man’s company. Trust was a pipe dream. He’d known better than that at seven, and wasn’t it just ironic that Watari himself would remind him. He must have made some small noise as he shifted in the doorway, fingers clenching around the metal frame as he found the secretary’s attention suddenly shifted to his position. There was something startling in the electric blue of Tatsumi-san’s eyes, completely unreadable without the aid of his empathy and he didn’t like that vulnerability, shrinking instinctively against the doorframe under the man’s stare. “Kurosaki-kun?” Tatsumi-san began, negligently reaching out to immobilize a hand creeping towards his plate. “Are you alright? Tatsumi-san’s voice was soothing, possessed of a calm, lilting quality that made it hard to remain agitated, even with the staring.(1) Watari had stiffened, tugging half-heartedly at his captive wrist as he turned towards Hisoka, a sickly smile working across his face. “Kiddo? What are you doing up?” Watari’s gaze flickered over his form, eyes widening. “And wandering around without the benefit of actual clothing?” Hisoka looked down, fingering the tie to his robe. The fabric was diaphanous at best, concealing little, reminiscent of the robe his mother had allowed him at his parents’ house, a familiarity from a life that seemed an eternity ago. It was impractical, affording little in the way of insulation and not entirely appropriate for social contact, now that he actually thought about it, but finding himself with sudden resources he had little will to use left him to take what comfort he could from this strange new world and familiarity was comforting. “I’m not much for sleeping lately,” he murmured, avoiding Watari’s gaze. He saw Tatsumi-san soften slightly in response, and Watari managed to extricate himself from his companion’s grasp with a final heave. “You heard what I said about recruits, didn’t you?” the scientist asked, nodding to himself before either of his companions could answer. A hand reached up to scratch 003 in the vicinity of what Hisoka assumed were her ears. “I should just not speak. It never fails to get me into trouble.” He shot Tatsumi-san a glance before looking to Hisoka. “I told you when we met--open mouth, insert foot.” Tatsumi-san shifted in his seat, carefully selecting a piece of chicken from his meal and popping it into his mouth. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Watari-san.” He earned a glare for that, and Hisoka said nothing, seconds passing in silence as Watari began to fidget. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I know you totally took that the wrong way--and really, why shouldn’t you? You’ve been screwed over by everyone you’ve ever met, so why should I--” He paused, glancing at Tatsumi-san. “We be an exception?” The words carried an unusual asperity, a hint of simmering anger as the scientist picked apart a piece of lettuce. Hisoka sensed a sorrow beneath it all, a strange sense of regret and mounting determination as Watari reached some new resolve, an infinitesimal shift in mood that sent him into a flurry of movement, dancing over half-finished paperwork and deformed machinery to dump a pile of books from a stool in the corner, plopping it down beside his desk and moving to usher Hisoka towards it. He was careful not to touch, hands hovering uncertainly over Hisoka’s shoulders as he was maneuvered forward, flooding his senses with an odd intermingling of affection and exasperation. It was wreaking havoc on his defenses, and that made him nervous. “It’s okay,” he murmured, sitting stiffly beside Tatsumi-san as Watari thudded into his seat. “No,” Watari replied, crossing his arms over his chest. “No, it’s really not.” He leaned forward, amber eyes made more iridescent in their intensity, frowning at something in Hisoka’s expression. “Look, Bon, in all honesty most of the time I can’t stand training recruits. I’ve got no patience for ineptitude and half the time I’ve got no freaking idea how to explain my reasoning. But more often than not it falls to me because I’ve got a pretty easy district and this one--” he tossed his head in Tatsumi-san’s direction, “seems to feel the distraction will keep me from imploding the lab for a while. But I need you to understand something--You’re not most recruits. You don’t ask stupid questions, you read half the damn manuals on your own time and you’ve made more progress in two weeks than most make in a month. Half the time I wonder why you need my input at all, and after twenty years of this crap that’s saying a lot.” He shifted, angling his head over the desk until Hisoka had no choice but to look at him. “I like having you around, okay? You are one of the chosen few with the power to put up with my babbling, and you know when to be unobtrusive. Hell, 003 is happy to see you when you wander in here.” He waggled a finger at Hisoka. “And don’t think I don’t know you’ve been slipping her bits of your lunch, little man.” Hisoka looked away, hyperaware of the heat rising in his cheeks and cursing his forebears for damning him with pale skin. That only served to land his gaze on Tatsumi-san, finding the man engrossed in staring at his food, a pensive smile on his face. The warmth was back, the overwhelming sense of fondness and amusement that Hisoka had come to associate with Watari, and he was mortified to find most of it aimed directly at him. He’d never received a compliment that sincere, or that long in the entirety of his existence. And Watari meant it, with a conviction so strong that it almost hurt to feel it. “I said we were keeping you, and I meant it.” His fingers tightened on the edge of the desk, white knuckled in his peripheral vision as he was swept with the desire to give something back. “I haven’t slept more than three hours straight since I got sick,” he said, words a nearly inaudible monotone that sounded strained even to his own ears. “It’s just… weird. To not… hurt anymore.” He wrapped his arms around himself, pulling the flimsy fabric of his robe tighter as he fought the urge to hunch inward, nails digging into the skin of his upper arms as leverage against the shiver of vague fear that moved through him at the memory. “Aw, man,” he looked up to find Watari’s features scrunched together as though he were in pain. “Man!” he repeated, fidgeting in his chair. “Why is there no hugging? I freaking hate that there’s no hugging!” Hisoka swallowed, holding his breath against the sudden constriction in his throat. The simplest thing, the simplest words and he was hurt, and hoping, and needing--hating himself for impulses he knew would only lead him to trouble. “Tatsumi, you’re void boy! Hug him already!” Hisoka couldn’t help but laugh as the secretary blanched, closing an awkward hand on his shoulder and patting it lightly in something that might have aspired to be comfort. He looked pained, and with Watari leaning forward anxiously Hisoka felt as though he’d taken a wrong turn into another dimension. For one insane moment, ensconced in the protective cocoon of Watari’s emotions and Tatsumi-san’s attention, Hisoka considered telling them about the dreams, about the man with the amethyst eyes and the insistent one who followed them. But something stopped him, warned of altering things too much, of the privacy of those revelations and the trust it required that would shatter him so easily if he allowed it. When he spoke, it was to voice something quite different than he had intended. “Void boy?” Tatsumi-san sighed. “Don’t try to follow his logic, Kurosaki-kun, you’ll only injure yourself.” “You’re just pissed cause this confirms you’re emotionally stunted,” the scientist grumbled. Watari knew all about Tatsumi-san’s strange status as an empathic dead zone and hadn’t been surprised by it. When Hisoka had mentioned it as they puttered about the lab one afternoon, Watari had simply nodded, prattling on about something called reikan and the powers of a Kagetsukai--sans any real explanation, of course. Tatsumi-san’s hand fell away as he turned to raise a brow at the scientist. “We’ve already had this discussion once today, Watari-san. We’re not having it again.” Watari stuck out his tongue. Tatsumi-san calmly moved to push his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “A witty retort if ever I’ve seen one,” he murmured. Hisoka snickered and Watari shifted, crossing his arms and sitting back in his chair. “I’m ever so glad you two are bonding,” he grumbled. “Over tormenting me, no less.” He threw up his hands in a grandiose gesture of despair, whimpering pathetically. “No one loves me!” “Oh stop that,” Tatsumi-san replied, glancing at Hisoka. “You’re overdoing it for his benefit and we all know it.” “Well somebody should,” the scientist retorted. “And maybe I’m just overcompensating for your lackluster social graces, eh, Boss Man?” “I’m sure.” Hisoka chewed his lip, biting back a smile in the most literal sense. He glanced at his companions, Watari struggling to suppress his own laughter and Tatsumi-san clenching his jaw in aggravation. There was an odd sense of rightness to it, the scene unfolding before him, a tinge of the familiar to their movements and Hisoka wondered if he would feel this safe around them if the dreams hadn’t intervened, hadn’t pushed him forward until he reached this place this night and spoke to them. They were all being manipulated, pushed together and moved along the course and it had the feel of a stage setting, all glitz and diversion with details so fine you could almost fool yourself into thinking it was real. But it wasn’t real, and he was the only one who knew it, who saw the sky tumbling down upon them and recognized it for the disaster that it was. “Feeling better?” Watari was grinning at him again, and Hisoka shook his head. “Sure.” “Perhaps you should try to get some rest,” Tatsumi-san added, “There are beds in the infirmary, if you’d rather not go home.” Hisoka considered it, but a distorted image of the shadowed eyes came to mind and he decided it was better not to risk it. “I don’t think I could fall asleep again, honestly.” Watari threw him a crooked little smile. “In that case, are you hungry? Thirsty? In need of some illicit drugs--I can cook up just about anything here.” Hisoka smiled, ignoring the disapproving look Tatsumi-san was giving Watari. “Is there anything to read?” Watari’s face fell, slightly. “I’ve got tech manuals and back paperwork, that’s about it.” He paused, kicking something at his foot. “And a half-eaten translation of some of Freud’s classic theories, but I’m thinking that’s not what you’re looking for.” “No,” he affirmed, “Really not.” His eyes fell to the desk in front of him, tracing the patterns of a drawing half-hidden behind a paper bag. He squinted at it, giving in to the sudden urge to examine it closer and pulled it free, attempting to smooth its wrinkled surface on the edge of the desk. Holding it up to the light, he took in the details of the figure’s body, red-tinged feathers over darkened skin, massive wings outstretched in a gesture of strength that touched that part of him that hid the memories of things to come, the parts of the dream that he could never recall when he woke. The phoenix was stylized, morphed into something frightening and disfigured as it danced within its own fire, and he wondered how long he had before he too would burn. He had to do something. He looked away to find Watari and Tatsumi-san regarding him with some measure of concern. “Actually,” he added, forcing a smile, “I was wondering if there was someplace I could find some information.” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The library was a tomb, a great gray-green dome of frosted, gold-veined marble, barely illuminated by pallid moonlight filtering in through filigreed skylights set into the ornamentation above. Hisoka’s sandals clicked across the floor, a hollow sound reverberating far too loudly within the barren chamber, a coldness seeping in, in tandem with the broken stillness. His lungs burned, the effort of breathing suddenly an aching chore as he moved forward, a surrealistic twinge following each step. He felt as though he were wading through some viscous, hazy fluid, his consciousness buried beneath an unwavering compulsion towards… something, and that unknown bothered him more than he would ever have admitted aloud, pushing at the edges of his awareness with the horrible urgency of the dreams. They moved him now, jerking him along their chosen path like a macabre marionette, a wraith in human guise forever removed from the truly living. It was ironic, this fear, this inescapable horror at the prospect of oblivion. After so much time wasted on the ward musing on the comfort of the void of sleep, now that he was actually being handed the chance at nothingness it sent him into a blind panic, the very thought of his own demise—or more importantly, his partner’s demise—more horrifying than the unnamed fear that followed him through the sakura. And that fear itself terrified him, closing his throat and weakening his limbs, throwing him forward in a pained frenzy to find something, anything that might shed some light on that inevitability. That he might beat it back in time to save a man he had never met. That was the true insanity of the situation. The dreams had become so vivid, so compelling in their emotionality that they were more real to Hisoka than the reality into which he had been thrust, his amethyst-eyed tormentor more authentic in shadow images than Watari and Tatsumi-san in all their tangible ministrations. The love unbidden in those nightly reveries was so enthralling in its simplistic pleasure that he had little patience for the waking world except to while away his time there with whatever distraction his fellow Shinigami provided, half-watching their ranks for some sign of the man from his dreams. He feared the dreams, yes, feared the inevitable visions of black fire and shadowed eyes, but the preceding gentleness was a lull he could scarcely deny. Wasn’t that the point to life, anyway? To take what ephemeral pleasure one could gather before that final inevitability? Hisoka wasn’t certain that he understood it all, whether his reasoning was sound or mere justification, his mind reduced to a jumble of half-formed ideas and broken memories. It was at times like these he seemed to move without will, body memory taking hold, guiding him through familiar movements he had never made, on paths he had walked a thousand times in dreams that he could never remember upon waking. He allowed himself to be led, lost to the meaning of it all and desperate for an answer of some kind to the mystery unraveling before him. In his more lucid moments he wondered if he really wanted to find the man at all, half-hoping that the dreams were just that, malleable reveries that could one day be molded into something more permanently pleasant to carry with him into his new existence, a small comfort within this new eternity laid before a painfully apathetic mind. He had no great hope of that, however. No great hope of anything, save a small respite from the burning, the nightly ritual of comfort and torment that battered his conscious mind with amorphous images and lingering emotions to carry with him into the waking world. Beyond the first antechamber Hisoka came to a door, small and plain enough to be anticlimactic within the grandeur of the rotunda preceding and, in fact, JuOhCho entirely. It was a polished mahogany, shining red-black in the ghostly light, a reflective enough surface that Hisoka glimpsed the faintest outline of powder pale skin and iridescent emerald staring back at him. It swung open with an appropriately rattling creak, a haunting reflection of its sepulchral surroundings. Flickering light spilled from the opening, a dancing parallelogram of warm, golden hues shifting within the darkness and Hisoka blinked as his eyes adjusted, drinking in the warmth of the sudden change with the patience of one used to far less subtle shifts in mood, grateful for this small respite even as he wondered at the difference. This was the library proper, a disheveled, cavernous room lit with thousands upon thousands of candles, set into yellowed stone walls at regular intervals far above the dusty floor and its ancient shelving. It seemed an unnecessary risk, if not for the fire so near such obviously ancient tomes, but for the wax inevitably dripping from those hollows, trickling down the walls in visible rivulets formed into haphazard sculpture as wax built upon its predecessors. The shelves glowed, despite their ancient and unfinished wood, spreading out into infinity in every direction, meandering and winding back upon themselves until navigation seemed impossible. They were bending beneath the weight of their contents—tomes, scrolls and tablets crammed into every available crevice, two or three rows to each shelf. Accounts, he supposed, volumes and volumes of the lives of mortal men committed to paper by those Shinigami who had come before him, meticulous records for an equally meticulous god. And in the center of this winding labyrinth of shelves, books, and various niches sunken into the walls to lead to other areas, was a simple reception area—an innocuously outmoded computer, a stack of filing slips, and a great mahogany cubicle behind which sat the strangest creature Hisoka had ever seen. It was small, three feet tall at most and plump looking, resembling a child’s toy more than anything else, and hopelessly androgynous. It was dressed in ridiculously large yellow and white ribbons over a sea green garment that straddled the line between robe and gown, an equally ridiculous, overly enlarged blue beret sitting snugly atop its feathered head. Enormous, iris-less eyes blinked out from over an oddly expressive beak, white feathers covering every visible inch of its body. Hisoka froze, fascinated by the movement of its oddly clawed hands, busily clicking at the mouse attached to the computer at its station. It looked up as the door slipped from Hisoka’s nerveless fingers, eyes squinting beneath feathered brows as it searched his face, an odd beaked moue settling over its features. It leaned forward, fingers sliding from the computer to tap claws against the counter as its head turned this way and that as it evaluated him. Finally, it floated from its seat, eyes impossibly wide as it came within a foot of him, bobbing in the air with little visible effort before suddenly questioning, “Kurosaki-san, I presume?” in a cultured little squeak. “Hisoka,” he automatically corrected, nervously moving to clutch his robe tighter around himself and fighting the urge to nod along as the creature bobbed in front of him. “Hisoka-san, then,” said the creature, sticking out its little clawed hand. “I am Gushoshin.” He stared at the offered appendage in confused fascination, too unaware to realize how utterly rude he was being as the most inane thing came to mind. “You’re a chicken.” Gushoshin reared slightly, eyes widening impossibly further as it stared at him, beak hanging open in shock, then dawning comprehension, and finally a wave of ruckus laughter as it rolled back and forth in the air. “Chicken!” It squealed, flipping backwards. “Chicken! Ha!” It would have been rolling on the floor if it hadn’t been floating, bobbing uncontrollably as it giggled to itself, clutching at its little stomach. Hisoka stood frozen, dumbfounded at its amusement. And then it stopped, freezing in place as quickly as it had begun, regarding him with wide avian eyes as it floated ever-so-slowly towards him. “Chicken,” it murmured. “Do chickens fly, Hisoka-san?” A vague memory came to mind unbidden, chasing chickens with the stable master’s son when they’d escaped their confines on a hot summer day. That was before the powers, before the cell, when he’d been free to wander his parents’ estate in sunlight. It seemed a lifetime ago. “No,” he answered, “They don’t.” “No-oh.” The moue was back, exaggerated as Gushoshin leaned closer. “Then I am not a chicken, am I?” He wanted to laugh, or perhaps point out that Gushoshin was floating, not flying and that rendered his point moot. But the words wouldn’t come, replaced by a noncommittal nod as the creature smiled in approval. “Now,” said Gushoshin, floating back towards his cubicle. “What brings you here so late, Hisoka-san?” He followed, stepping up to the counter to splay his fingers across its cool surface, glancing briefly at the stacks of case files and the glowing ID photo on the monitor of the computer. “I need to find some information.” Gushoshin looked up, gaze traveling over the stacks of shelving in several directions. “You’re in the right place, Hisoka-san, but you’re going to have to elaborate a little if you want me to help you find what you’re looking for.” He thought of the creature, the great bird-snake that coiled along the rafters as they fell, a terrible silence among the roar of approaching flames and the groaning torment of beleaguered supports as they gave way beneath the battering of heat and the pressure of the creature’s body. He had the feeling that calling it a demon would find him pointed in the direction of half the tomes in the library, and a great snake… well, he’d already read through three separate cases involving giant reptiles in the two weeks since his arrival in Meifu. “Have you ever heard of fire burning black?” Gushoshin hummed low in its throat, a clawed forefinger tapping against its beak. “I think...” it murmured, turning to type furiously at the computer for a moment before sitting back with an excited little squeak, eyes once again widened beyond reason as it beamed. “I knew it was in here somewhere!” it said, “Black fire…a documented phenomenon. Very rare. In fact, it only happens under very specific circumstances.” “What circumstances?” “I’ll show you,” Gushoshin replied, flitting away from his chair to lead the way into the labyrinth of bookshelves. The shadows were deeper here, faint reflections in the marble floor where candlelight danced, barely enough to see by. The skylights extended into this room as well, but the meager illumination of moonlight was scarcely enough to see by. Gushoshin plucked a candle from its crevice, holding it out in front of them like a beacon as he scanned the shelves. It lent an eerie feel to the excursion, the darkness closing in again almost as quickly as it was dispelled by their passing, pressing down upon them and Hisoka glanced around himself for some diversion from the disquiet settling over him at its insistence. The waving of ribbon from the Gushoshin’s outfit was somewhat comforting, a faint rustle as it bobbed and swayed in front of him, sometimes shooting up to scan the higher shelves, leaving him in near darkness where the white hanging from its beret was the only visible distraction from those momentary isolations. They passed into another section, a winding path of foot wide books Hisoka was sure he would have trouble lifting if he were to pull one off the shelf, strange languages with indecipherable characters sketched across their spines. Gushoshin shot up into the rafters again, this time far enough to eliminate all trace of light but the far off flickers from the niches set into now distant walls and the pale illumination of moonlight. They were in one of the deepest parts of the library, he thought, mind retracing the winding paths they’d walked in search of some sense of direction and finding none. And then there was a crash. It shattered the stillness, impact sending him reeling painfully backward, bracing himself on his hands to avoid cracking something important. Gushoshin was suddenly flitting around him, screeching his name in frantic concern and apologizing profusely for some unidentified wrong as he shook his stinging hands out as he raised himself on his knees. His assailant was a book, laying not three feet in front of him, not close enough to have actually hit him but enough to scare him into falling on his ass. It wasn’t as large as the others, bound in worn burgundy leather that was cracking in several places, bare but for a single oversized word scrawled neatly across his cover. Shikigami. “I’m sorry, Hisoka-san! Please forgive me, it jumped from my hands!” He waved the frantic creature away absently, crawling forward on some invisible impetus to pick up the tome from the floor. It all seemed terribly important, though he had no idea where the belief had come from, and he smoothed his fingers over the calligraphy on its cover with an unexplainable reverence. Here was the first hope of answers to questions that had plagued him even in the last of his living years, and he savored it, knowing how little that hope was worth. “Gushoshin,” he murmured, “What is this?” There self-recriminations cut off as suddenly as they had begun and Gushoshin floated closer, carefully maneuvering the candle over the book’s cover to avoid splotching it with wax. Its eyes widened, peering closer as it moved close enough to touch. A clawed hand pointed accusingly, flapping wildly in its excitement. “O-ho! That’s what I was looking for!” It paused, head turning to Hisoka with an odd little flourish. “How fortuitous!” “Um… yeah.” Hisoka ran a shaking hand through his hair, sitting back on his haunches. “Can I take this with me?” “Oh!” The little demigod nodded. “Yes.” He could not have explained it, but he was overwhelmed with the sudden urge to be back in the lab, curled among the plethora of computer printouts and mechanical parts strewn haphazardly about Watari’s workspace. It was his comfort among alien sensations, the familiarity of that veritable disaster area and the honey-thick contentment leeched from Watari whenever the scientist was near. But more than that, he wanted to share this, for someone to bear witness to his discovery, if only in part. He had no intention of telling either of them about the dreams, but the sudden certainty that in his hand he held the answers--even if they were not /all/ the answers or anything more than a confirmation of the terrible fate that awaited him--made it all the more tangible, less the phantom haunting his subconscious and he wanted something to anchor him in the waking world when he dragged it into the light. And so he found himself in front of the lab for the second time that night, the heavy book tucked under one arm as his hand hovered just over the door handle, shaking in the muted light spilling from beyond the glass. He lingered for one last, long moment, allowing the last vestiges of the fearful child he had been in life one final moment to cling to its illusion, that holding him here, freezing this moment in place would somehow cement some manufactured safety in place of what new horrors the book might bring forth. A deep sigh and he was moving forward, ignoring the almost tangible presence of shadowed eyes at his back. He was surprised to feel nothing upon entering. By all outward appearances the lab remained unchanged, but the usual aura of frenetic mania had been drained off. Tatsumi-san was busily clearing wrappers and disposable containers away from Watari’s desk, calmly maneuvering around 003 as she hopped around the containers in an exaggerated attempt to get attention. Watari was nowhere in sight, which explained the sudden sterility on the empathic front, but even knowing that Hisoka had to struggle not to fidget when the secretary finally took notice of him. “Kurosaki-kun,” came the soft voice, “Did you find what you were looking for?” “Um… kinda,” he stammered, wincing at the subtle quaver in his voice. It wasn’t as though he’d never been alone with Tatsumi-san before, but somehow the thought of asking him for a favor without Watari hovering reassuringly in the background made him nervous. Tatsumi-san raised an eyebrow, turning to throw the last of the refuse into the trash bin. “And the Gushoshin?” Hisoka couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “You know, you could have mentioned the chicken thing.” Tatsumi-san seemed amused. “Chicken? I always thought they were more goose-like.” “Whatever.” Hisoka shook his head, quashing the impulse to ask what he meant by ‘they’. “It knew where to find it.” “’He’,” Tatsumi-san corrected, crossing his arms as he leaned his hip against the desk. “But that doesn’t explain the confusion.” “Well, actually, I was kind of hoping you could explain some stuff,” said Hisoka, hefting the book and holding it out to the secretary. Tatsumi-san took the book, a faint sense of bemusement filtering through his normally cool demeanor. “Shikigami,” he murmured, “Hardly what I’d call light reading for three in the morning.” Hisoka shrugged. “It’ll keep me awake.” “Or put you to sleep,” the secretary added, folding himself into Watari’s chair. “What exactly possessed you to drag out this particular volume?” “Intuition.” He shrugged again, perching on the stool he had occupied earlier, moving to pet 003 as she hopped into his lap. Tatsumi-san placed the book on the desk, flipping through its pages absently before turning to regard Hisoka. “Well, I can give you the basics, but if you really want to know all that much about Shikigami you’ll have to wait for Tsuzuki-san to get back.” “Who?” Hisoka asked. He’d thought he’d met everyone in the office, but if he’d managed to miss one… Tatsumi-san waved a hand dismissively, perusing pages far more slowly now. “Another of our agents, if you will. He’s been on assignment since you’ve been here.” He flipped back to a page near the beginning, pushing the book flat with a satisfied murmur and motioning for Hisoka to move closer. On the page was a compass, elaborately drawn with stylized kanji scrawled across it, notes in antiquated script on every facet of the drawing’s protagonists, great beasts drawn in vibrant hues at each of the four corners. To the north there stood a tortoise, a dull, verdant beast made imposing only by virtue of the serpent coiling above its back in place of a tail.(2) To the east was a far more impressive creature, a dragon curling in upon itself, painted in soothing blues and silver. To the south was a phoenix, half-obscured by the rise of its own flames and reminiscent of the drawing he’d fixated on earlier, while to the west, a great white tiger, jaws stretched wide revealing wicked fangs to rival the curled claws that were its feet. The eyes on that one were a startling red, clearly visible even among the larger detailing on the creature’s coat. “What are they?” “Gods,” Tatsumi-san replied, “Elementals, to be exact.” He peered closer, adjusting his glasses, and pointed to the north. “That is Genbu, god of Earth, hence his manifestation as a more lethargic animal. To the south is Suzaku, goddess of fire. I don’t think I need to tell you why she appears as a phoenix. The dragon is the water god Seiryu (3), and the tiger, Byakko, the wind god. It was said that together they granted life to the Earth, a perfect harmony of personalities, from Byakko’s fickle ministrations to Genbu’s steady presence that established and maintained the natural order of things.” “Did they?” “If you had asked me that in life, I would have called you an imbecile, but now… let’s just say that experience has taught me that anything’s possible. The elementals aren’t worshipped overtly anymore, at least not by the dedicated cults who followed them in the past, but I don’t doubt their existence.” He paused, fingering the page’s gilded edge. “Of course, I’ve seen most of them myself, so that makes it a little harder to rationalize away.” “You’ve actually seen them?” Hisoka asked, voice half-cracking in agitation. “How?” “There is a reason that the elementals are referred to as Shikigami,” Tatsumi-san said. “You see, the gods inhabit another plane of reality, a place which is to us what Meifu is to the mortal realm. They can’t enter this realm or that of the living until they’re called, and since their followings have dwindled since the enlightenment of the Meiji era they developed a rather clever way of insuring their continued presence among the living. If one can prove himself worthy of a particular god, he is allowed to command them, served with all their power at the behest of his better judgment. It isn’t easy to secure the services of a god, but most of the older deities in this book have current masters.” “What could you possibly need a god for? Somehow I can’t see Suzaku out running errands for some guy in Kyoto.” Tatsumi-san laughed. “No, that would be rather pointless, wouldn’t it? I don’t think there’s a standard procedure, but Tsuzuki-san uses them in casework. They allow him to rule them because he would use their power to protect innocent lives.” “How altruistic,” Hisoka muttered, flipping further through the book. Not that this wasn’t a happy bedtime story, but he was failing to see what it had to do with the creature in his dreams. Each page detailed a new creature, each sketch more elaborate than the last, most covered almost entirely by notes scrawled haphazardly across the pages. He couldn’t understand why Gushoshin had seen fit to give it to him, and there was nothing to explain how finding it had placated the man with the shadowed eyes so completely. He sighed, raking a hand through his hair, disturbing 003 from where she had curled in his lap. “How many does he have, anyway?” “All four elementals and another eight he picked up along the way, some of whom are rather strange, I must say.” Hisoka blanched, turning to find Tatsumi-san smiling faintly at his reaction. “Twelve?” he squeaked, blushing faintly as his voice cracked. “Is that even possible?” “Apparently,” Tatsumi-san answered. “It’s enough to rank him among the most powerful members of the division, though I doubt he realizes.” The next question died in Hisoka’s throat as he jerked the book away from 003’s curious poking, dislodging another page stuffed into the binding. A gray-scaled beast twisted and turned in upon itself, snake-like body warped to impossible angles, red-tipped fins protruding from its body near the head. Its head resembled a bird more than anything else, its features obscured by a matting of unruly reddish hair, braided in some parts and flying free in others. Its eyes were yellow, pupiless slits resting at the edge of a grayed, tapered snout. It writhed its way through a bed of black fire. Hisoka reached out with shaking fingers, tracing the winding curves of the creatures body, the kanji carefully scrawled across the page. “Touda.” “Yes,” came the murmured reply, as the book was plucked from nerveless fingers, the page pulled free and laid flat against the desk. “There’s an interesting story about that one, actually. While sources are somewhat vague, apparently sometime in prehistory there was some sort of civil war in the land of the gods. Touda here happened to be a driving force for the losing side, and when things finally settled down he was interred, his name stricken from all records to ensure that he spend the rest of eternity in darkness. That is, until Tsuzuki-san stumbled onto him and somehow managed to engineer his release.” “My hero,” Hisoka muttered. Tatsumi-san was getting even gooier than he was around Watari at the mention of this guy. “So this Touda does have a master, then?” “Yes,” said Tatsumi-san. “Tsuzuki-san.” The feeling returned, the burning at the back of his neck that signaled the ever-watchful presence of shadowed eyes, anticipation a crackling, viscous presence in the air. “He called it,” he breathed, stunned. “Why would he do that?” Hisoka fought the urge to bang his head against the table. Whoever this guy was, Hisoka had the sinking feeling that this Tsuzuki-san factored into the fate of his mystery man, if only by virtue of the creatures he commanded. And if that were true, that meant that the absentee agent was either the man he’d been searching for, or something far more sinister. “Kurosaki-kun? Are you alright?” He turned to find Tatsumi-san regarding him with some concern. “No worse off than I was five minutes ago.” And it was true, for the most part. He wasn’t particularly well off when he’d walked into the lab, and now he was more confused than ever. “Tatsumi-san?” he asked, eyes following his fingers along the worn leather stretched over the book’s spine. “Why don’t I have a partner?” Tatsumi-san didn’t look entirely comfortable with the sudden shift in conversation, but he squared his shoulders and shook his head. “Why do you ask?” “Everyone else has one except for you and Watari-san, but you’re office people. I’m thinking I wasn’t drafted to pull files, so shouldn’t I be introduced to my partner? So we can get to know each other or something?” Tatsumi-san had just enough time to look even more uncomfortable before a blonde head poked its way into the door. “What was that, oh Junior Detective-san?” Hisoka rolled his eyes. “I said that you and Tatsumi-san don’t have partners. Because you’re office people.” “Yes, well…” The scientist grinned, plopping himself into the discarded chair. “Tatsumi-san is. I merely aspire to be office people, crappy district and all.” “I thought you were born in Kyoto,” Tatsumi-san countered, visibly relieved by the banter. “Last week you were all but singing your pride in your heritage.” “Yeah, well last week my heritage wasn’t threatening time sensitive experiments,” Watari muttered, eyeing a tray of Petri dishes stacked inside a small incubator on a far counter. “Are you going to answer my question?” Watari sat back putting his feet up and, scratching 003 behind the ears as she waddled into his lap. “What was the question again?” Tatsumi-san was visibly fidgeting, an unnerving reaction from the normally unflappable secretary. “Kurosaki-kun was curious about his partner.” Watari leaned forward slightly, cocking his head to throw Tatsumi-san an unreadable look, something indefinable passing between them. Even empathically, the only real change in Watari’s emotions was a faint sense of unease, as though he was waiting for permission to do something and uncertain of its coming. “Um, you see, Hisoka,” he began, gingerly scratching the back of his head. “It’s like this…” “You’ve met nearly the entire department,” said Tatsumi-san, cutting him off. “And I’m sure you’re aware that those you’ve been introduced to are neither partnerless nor nearing retirement.” Hisoka nodded. “The reason you’ve not yet met your partner is that we wanted to give you a chance to acclimate yourself to the daily routines of the division before we exposed you to his rather… questionable influence. Not to say that he’s a horrible role model, he is after all one of the oldest and wisest of us all.” Tatsumi-san paused, wincing slightly. “Sadly.” He shook his head. “He’s just always been a little… strange.” “Strange?” asked Hisoka, incredulity working its way into his voice. “In this place? You have chickens running your library. What could be stranger than that?” Tatsumi-san sighed, absently readjusting his glasses. “He anthropomorphizes baked goods.” “Excuse me?” “He talks to them like they’re people,” Watari chirped, with far too much amusement. “O-Kay?” Hisoka murmured, unsure. “So this guy is--” “Tsuzuki Asato.” Hisoka could barely nod numbly, thumping the book closed with a terrible finality. He’d expected that, at least. So that was it then, the dreams were leaking into reality that much more quickly, and there was nothing he could do about it. Whoever this guy was, and there was still a small part of him who hoped he turned out to be a balding, overweight forty-something year old, if the dreams held any truth to them at all he was an integral part of the final act. The realization left Hisoka suddenly very, very tired. “I think maybe I’ll take a nap after all,” he said, eyes glued to the table to avoid the worried expression he sensed in Watari’s emotions. The scientist said nothing for a moment, worry transmuting into determination and then an eerie calm before Hisoka looked up to find him smiling crookedly, wryly. “Nothing like a late night visit with the chickens for sweet dreaming.” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This had to be the stupidest vampire in existence. Hisoka dodged and weaved his way through the crowd, for once grateful for his smaller frame as the crush of human bodies pushed along, a cacophony of mental cries rising to an aching din that reverberated inside his skull. It made him irritable. He’d never been among so many people in his life, natural or otherwise, and the uplifting sense of freedom he’d carried on his arrival in the living realm had faded against the backdrop of sheer human tediousness. He’d come to the realization soon after his arrival that human beings were really just sheep with opposable thumbs, plodding along their chosen course--chosen by circumstance, obligation, anything but their own will--without thought to the consequence of their actions or the brevity of their time here and the sheer idiocy of their thoughts was enough to drive him mad, if he wasn’t already. The shadowed eyes were quiet for once, a mere spark of anticipation humming in the back of his head, easily ignored among the garish press of mindless thoughts. He winced as yet another passerby mentally expounded upon what they wanted to do to him if they could only get him alone, throwing a faint humorless smile at the wide-eyed man as he shoved past. Lest he doubt he was still attractive. Hisoka was painfully aware that he only wanted one person to think of him that way, a man who seemed forever beyond his reach no matter how many answers he unearthed. Since the other night’s revelations he had only the promise of meeting his partner, the ever elusive Tsuzuki Asato, to give him hope. Whether he expected the man to dispel the horrible predictions of the dreams or to validate the images of happier times that preceded, it was the last place he could think to check. Not that Tsuzuki-san was being terribly cooperative; he hadn’t even met his partner. Konoe-Kacho had simply issued him a firearm in lieu of more omijitsu training, asked him a few questions, and sent him packing. He remembered the meeting, Kacho sitting stock still behind his desk, hands folded atop the case file spread over its massive surface. Tatsumi-san and Watari flanked him on either side, the secretary standing ramrod straight and looking impeccable as always even without his suit jacket and his hands stuffed into his pockets, the scientist slouched against the side of the desk, poking at crime scene photos as 003 chewed on his hair. “Your partner hasn’t been told about this yet,” Kacho began, “I wanted to talk to you before I sent you out. This is kind of nasty for a first case.” “Define nasty.” “Six victims, all exsanguinated.” He moved to place a series of photographs in front of Hisoka, bodies twisted into impossible positions, skin nearly translucent in the glare of camera lights. A wide, weather-beaten finger poked at the third photograph, a close up of the second victim’s throat. “Puncture wounds on the neck.” (4) Hisoka cocked his head. “So what, you wanted to make sure I’ve got enough pointy sticks to go slaying?” Watari grinned. “I always wondered if that rumor was true." A glare from Tatsumi-san silenced him, and he the three settled into gravity once more, Konoe-Kacho glaring at the photographs in front of him as though trying to intimidate them into providing answers. “The Gushoshin are calling this the vampire case,” he said, scowling at a close up of a second bite mark on the fifth victim’s calf. “But all I really want to hear from you is that you’re ready to handle it if things go to hell on this one. Cases in Nagasaki have a way of getting out of hand.” Hisoka shrugged. “Vampires are nothing more than over-sexualized fairy tales. While I’m at it I might as well go find some maiden to save from her evil stepmother.” Kacho’s brows raised, deepening the furrows in his forehead. “In this line of work, I wouldn’t be surprised.” It all somehow translated to his current sojourn to the living realm, shifting his way through herds of people wandering about in the cooling autumn air, oblivious to the keening wail that had been the final cry of a dying man not ten minutes before. The sun shone down upon the church square, highlighting the wares of street merchants and the riotous colors of the changing leaves and Hisoka had a half-delirious moment to wonder how the vampire managed to shake tradition to hunt in direct sunlight. He’d arrived on the scene just as the victim had fallen, watching a man half-shrouded by a billowing trench coat bend over to press his hand against the fallen man’s throat. He seemed to panic then, whipping around to look this way and that before dashing off, beating around a corner so quickly Hisoka had nearly lost him until he caught the man’s emergence from inside the sanctuary itself. From afar, there was little Hisoka could make of his features beyond the billowing trench coat, a faint spot of red shining conspicuously on his collar, and the leonine determination with which he stalked away, searching the crowded market with a predatory air. The idiot. It was one thing to kill in the open, quite another to remain in the area for this long afterwards with evidence of the kill stamped readily onto his clothing for anyone to see. Then to slink around a crowded market in a heavy trench coat when it was barely cold enough for the light jean jacket Hisoka himself had thrown on for appearances sake, heavy black material serving to make him as conspicuous as possible as he peered just a little too closely at passersby--he might have just as efficiently painted a sign on his back. At the very least, he looked like a yakuza. At most, the vampire he was, and for a preternatural being, it was disappointingly easy to sneak up behind him. With any luck he’d have this case wrapped up before his partner was even involved. He gave the vampire one last chance to notice his presence, for the sake of sporting or some other archaic notion his father had attempted to instill in him before his powers had surfaced, rolling his eyes as the creature continued to scan the crowd, completely unaware of Hisoka’s presence at his back. Finally, he cocked the revolver, pressing it quite suddenly, and quite roughly between the creature’s shoulder blades. “Don’t move,” he murmured, calm despite the visible bunching of the creature’s muscles. Its head cocked ever so slightly in his direction, umber hair fluttering in a passing breeze, reflecting shades of auburn and gold in the sunlight. “I think you’ve got the wrong person.” Hisoka froze at the familiar cadence, absently murmuring something about turning around and half-convinced he had lost his mind as the man turned towards him, iridescent eyes narrowed in concentration. Hands held high, he was glancing around at the crowd surrounding them, gauging something, perhaps readying to bolt. His features were narrower than Hisoka had expected, all round, soft edges to sharper points. Hair falling into his eyes just so, fluttering artfully in the breeze, shadowing the glitter of hardened amethyst eyes. Hisoka wanted to laugh, taking in the familiarity of the trench coat fluttering about his legs, hit with the sudden memory of it pooled beside the matting in his dream. The way his partner’s tie was never straight, never tied tight enough to really restrict his movements, falling with the same lazy charm as the man himself. His throat burned with the need to cry out, arms aching as he fought against the instinct to throw himself into the man’s arms, legs threatening to buckle as his empathy reeled from the first tangible taste of that beloved mind. Tsuzuki Asato. Oh. Shit. -End- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnote-y Goodness: (1) Okay, before anybody gets on my case about the description, let me just say that when I first started watching Yami it was on a happy little fansub which gave me absolutely no sense of what the characters would sound like in English. Therefore, I made ‘em up, which is why Watari is such a slang junkie and Tatsumi says ‘quite’ and ‘rather’ far more than his dubbed voice could ever get away with without sounding ridiculous. Somehow having the Buffy musical on loop the week I started writing had him sounding like Anthony Stewart Head (Giles), and nothing seems to dispel that. Watari is based on an odd cross between Michael Shanks (Daniel Jackson – damn Scifi for those SG1 reruns!) and Garrett Maggart (Blair Sandburg – anybody else remember the campy goodness that was The Sentinel?). They both had that rambly, stumbling cadence that makes me think of him. (And has anybody noticed how damn SIMILAR they sound? Creepy, I say! Creepy!) Yeah, I’m shutting up now. (2) I stumbled upon a drawing of Genbu in a wayward FY manga that had his tail replaced with a serpent that kind of stretches over his back until it’s almost level with his head, kind of like that ancient chimera painting that pops up in most mythology books. I think they were trying to make the turtle a wee bit more imposing. (3) I know, I know, but I got used to the FY spellings and pronunciations, so learn to deal. (4) For some reason, every dictionary I’ve looked in insists that exsanguinated is not a word, which is insane because it’s been in every vampire book or movie I’ve ever seen, and I think I heard it in a Discovery Channel special on shark attacks. Since I can’t find it, I’m going to assume some of you might not either, and I feel that any honest-to-god twenty-five cent word (five cents per syllable… why do I know this?) should come with a definition. Basically exsanguinated is a more pretentious way of saying someone’s been drained of blood. return to splash page